Pornhub said Tuesday it was halting unverified users from uploading video material after a report alleged that the pornographic website was showing videos of rape and underage sex.
Visa and Mastercard said over the weekend that they are investigating their business relationship with Pornhub after Nicholas Kristof, opinion columnist at The New York Times, wrote that the site also carries revenge pornography and other explicit video taken without consent of the participants.
Pornhub said that it doesn’t knowingly allow images of sexual abuse of children. But, in a blog post on Tuesday, the company listed steps it was taking to further protect against images of abuse and nonconsensual activity on its site.
Pornhub said next year it will announce ways in which individuals can become verified users. It will still allow new material from partners it knows, like porn production companies. The website has a huge volume of material: 6.8 million new videos were uploaded last year. The company could not say Tuesday what percentage of that was from unverified users.
Pornhub said it has hired a law firm to conduct an independent review of its content, has moderators that examine each video that is posted to the site and works with 40 organizations with a focus on child safety to monitor what it posts.
With files from the Associated Press.
We invited New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof, but he was unavailable. PornHub did not return a request for comment.
Guest:
Ina Fried, chief technology correspondent at Axios who has been covering the story; she tweets