Governments should stop cracking down on pornography sites and instead take pride in sexual expression and help normalize pornography, which will make it “boring”, Pornhub’s new owner, who faces a sea of legal problems.
The Canadian investment fund Ethical Capital Partners (ECP) bought MindGeek, the company behind Pornhub, three months ago, also controlling several other sites in the field, such as YouPorn.
In May, the company’s websites went offline in the state of Utah, in the United States, after being ordered to verify the age of users.
And in France, website owners and regulators have been in talks for months about how to enforce mandatory age verification, a 2020 law, in practice.
Two of MindGeek’s websites have not implemented any type of verification and may be banned in the European country. A court decision is expected on July 7.
“We don’t want any underage users on our websites,” said ECP founder Solomon Friedman in an interview with AFP.
But Friedman rejected the idea that the onus should lie with websites and urged operating systems to find a solution.
“We strongly support age verification solutions that accomplish two things: effectively protect children and not expose personal data,” he said.
“The only solution that achieves both of these goals is device-based or browser-based verification,” he said, adding that it would be a “very simple step for Google and Apple.”
Under pressure
MindGeek found itself in trouble in 2020 when The New York Times published allegations that its websites contained material depicting rape and sex with minors.
The report sparked strong pressure from regulators in several countries. And Visa and MasterCard have stopped processing payments on these sites.
The owners spent two years trying to sell the company, which is mainly based in Canada but has a complex corporate structure present in several tax havens around the world.
Now, the new owners – including two lawyers, a former police officer and an Italian investor who made his fortune from the legal sale of cannabis – seek to keep the company away from the allegations.
Friedman said that MindGeek has completely changed in recent years. He said that they managed to eliminate eight million videos in 2021, something that the AFP was unable to verify.
“A content removal request automatically causes that content to be removed,” he said. “We review after it is removed.”
In addition, users who upload to the platform must identify themselves. Everything is scanned by algorithms to filter out copyrighted material and then viewed by employees before it becomes available online.
sexual expression
According to Solomon, his company was initially hired just to check that MindGeek was working within the law.
“And what we found was that not only did it comply with the law, but it was an extraordinary investment opportunity, but an opportunity that requires specialized skills,” he explained.
ECP decided it had those skills and made the acquisition, although it hasn’t been an easy road since.
In the United States, in addition to Utah, it also faced legal problems in Louisiana. While in France, Solomon does not rule out the possibility that his websites will have to be taken down.
The issue has been high on the political agenda since President Emmanuel Macron, in his re-election campaign last year, pledged to prioritize protecting children from pornography.
The French Minister of Digital Transition, Jean-Noel Barrot, challenged ECP to explain how it will act to stay within the law.
Solomon said he contacted Barrot’s office and promised to produce a report soon, insisting his company was committed to “speaking openly and proudly about the porn industry.”
“I think society has moved in a direction where we pride ourselves on sexual expression,” he declared. “Because it’s for adults, it’s going to be boring, just like (legalized) cannabis in Canada has become boring.”
