Pornhub Sued By 40 Women For Hosting Sex Trafficking Videos

Right after announcing that it had started removing millions of videos, Pornhub was hit with a lawsuit worth $40 million from 40 sex-trafficking victims.

These women were victims of “Girls Do Porn,” a sex-trafficking ring. In 2019, after a civil court ruled that the owners of Girls Do Porn were guilty, the FBI shut down the website.

On Tuesday, the lawsuit was filed against MindGeek, the parent company of Pornhub, stating that the site hosted videos from Girls Do Porn despite knowing the illegal practices of the company.

According to the lawsuit, in the porn industry, it was an open secret that as soon as Girls Do Porn started in 2009, it was scamming and forcing girls to have sex in its videos. The lawsuit also stated that in 2016, Pornhub was contacted by the victims to ask for their videos’ removal.

In one message sent to Pornhub, one plaintiff begged the video site to delete the video, saying she was scammed and was told that her video would only be on DVDs available in another country. The lawsuit added that the same victim said that she sent two more messages. Nevertheless, the video was still there.

Another plaintiff wrote to MindGeek in 2016, saying that she was lied to when being told that the video was for a private viewer but the video was all over the internet.

Even after the women came forward in 2019, the Girls Do Porn videos were on Pornhub. And as of December 12, 2020, the videos could still be found on the site.

As a result, the plaintiffs said they suffered from harassment and ostracizing. All had had suicidal thoughts. Each plaintiff wants at least $1 million in damages.

Girls Do Porn and Pornhub were partners, meaning they had a contractual agreement. According to Vice, in 2019, at one point, Girls Do Porn was described by Pornhub as “top shelf” content.

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