The Pornhub account, in particular, is accused of violating the external linking policy (YouTube users cannot link to prohibited content on the platform, such as pornography).
“After review, we have discontinued the Pornhub Official channel due to multiple violations of our Community Guidelines. We enforce our policies the same way for everyone, and channels that repeatedly violate our policies or feature infringing content are terminated,” YouTube spokesman Jack Melon told The Verge.
The Pornhub account, which had nearly 900,000 subscribers before it was liquidated, posted work-safe content on the channel, promoting the site and its artists. The company has also applied an 18+ age limit to videos posted on YouTube and “strongly denies” claims that they contain adult content.
“Pornhub upholds the rules of trust and safety on the internet and takes steps to not violate YouTube’s community policies. Unfortunately, this is just the latest example of discrimination against members of the adult industry. This is already a trend that is being seen across social media and other areas of life, especially when groups confuse adult content with consensual content for exploitation,” said a Pornhub spokesperson.
In September, Meta permanently banned Pornhub’s Instagram account with the same rhetoric as YouTube: The company claims the site has repeatedly violated Instagram’s terms of use over the past decade regarding nudity, adult content and sexual harassment. According to the New York Post, the account prompted users through the social network to go to a porn site.
In response, Pornhub posted an open letter on Twitter calling the decision unfair and asking Meta to clearly explain why his account and the accounts of other adult content creators are being permanently deleted. The appeal was signed by 63 organizations, activists, models and porn actors, including the Coalition for Free Speech, Riley Reid and King Noire.
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Meta permanently banned Pornhub’s Instagram account
The pressure on Pornhub and its Luxembourg-based parent company MindGeek continues to mount. Some accuse the site of not moderating the content and allowing the posting of videos containing child abuse material and videos of people who did not grant permission.
These concerns led to the resignations of Pornhub CEO Feras Antun and COO David Tasillo, and affected Pornhub’s relationships with other companies. In 2020, Visa and Mastercard stopped transactions on Pornhub due to the site’s “illegal content,” although both companies are still dealing with a lawsuit accusing them of intent to “help MindGeek monetize child porn.”
Given the allegations of illegal activity, Visa is suspending Pornhub’s acceptance privileges pending the completion of our ongoing investigation. We are instructing the financial institutions who serve MindGeek to suspend processing of payments through the Visa network.
— VisaNews (@VisaNews) December 10, 2020
