The Pornhub scandal has shaken the foundation of the internet, exposing the dark underbelly of one of the world’s largest and most popular adult websites.
At its peak, Pornhub attracted over 130 million visits per day, boasting more traffic than platforms like Amazon and Netflix. However, behind this staggering success lay a disturbing reality—Pornhub had become a global hub for child exploitation, rape, and sex trafficking.
Investigations revealed that millions of videos on the site were uploaded without proper verification, allowing illegal content, including child abuse footage, to thrive unchecked.
In 2020, the #Traffickinghub movement spearheaded by Laila Mickelwait forced Pornhub to delete 80% of its content—10.6 million unverified videos—bringing attention to the atrocities that had long been hidden in plain sight.
Background
In the murky realms of the internet, few corners are as controversial and scrutinized as the adult industry. Pornhub, a website that once touted itself as the largest and most popular adult content platform in the world, found itself at the heart of a public outcry.
For years, Pornhub had marketed itself as the “YouTube” of pornography, a platform for user-generated adult content where anyone could upload videos, with visitors consuming this material on a massive scale.
What seemed like an innocuous marketplace for consenting adults, however, concealed an insidious undercurrent: allegations of child abuse, sexual exploitation, rape, and trafficking.
The fight to hold Pornhub accountable is the subject of Laila Mickelwait’s Takedown: Inside the Fight to Shut Down Pornhub for Child Abuse, Rape, and Sex Trafficking.
At its core, the book reveals a digital battlefield where profits and ethics collide. Mickelwait, who spearheaded the “Traffickinghub” movement, provides both a personal and investigative lens into the horrors perpetrated under Pornhub’s watch. It is a chilling reminder of how technology, when unchecked, can be manipulated to perpetuate heinous crimes.
The Personal Discovery
What initially started as Mickelwait’s growing awareness of human trafficking gradually morphed into a focused crusade against one of the internet’s largest adult websites.
Pornhub’s facade as a leading, professional adult platform began to crack when it became apparent that it was not only hosting content involving minors and trafficked individuals, but actively profiting from it.
The scale of these activities was staggering. At the height of its popularity, Pornhub amassed 130 million visits per day, and with over 169 years’ worth of videos uploaded annually, the task of moderating this vast quantity of content seemed insurmountable.
Pornhub, Mickelwait writes, was more than just an industry leader in adult entertainment; it had become a cultural icon, with billboard placements in Times Square and media endorsements from major outlets.
However, it was also a “crime scene,” a platform openly distributing criminal sexual abuse footage of real victims, including children. In 2020, as revelations about the site’s complicity in sex trafficking and child abuse came to light, Mickelwait launched the Traffickinghub movement—a grassroots effort aimed at shutting down Pornhub and holding its executives accountable for their role in distributing and monetizing sexual crimes.
Key Takeaways from Takedown
The narrative outlined in Takedown speaks to a broader ethical issue regarding accountability in the digital age.
Websites like Pornhub benefit from massive user bases, extensive advertising, and free access models that monetize clicks, views, and interactions. These features incentivize the upload of more content while loosening moderation standards, often at the expense of vulnerable individuals.
1. Complicity and Profit
Perhaps the most disturbing revelation in Takedown is the fact that Pornhub knowingly profited from sexual crimes.
Users could upload videos anonymously, including footage of minors and victims of trafficking. Mickelwait highlights multiple instances where Pornhub failed to remove illegal videos, despite repeated takedown requests from law enforcement and non-governmental organizations.
The platform’s inaction led to the continued suffering of countless victims, who were not only subjected to abuse but also re-victimized as their trauma was distributed globally, downloaded, and viewed millions of times.
2. Moderation Failures
One of the core issues was Pornhub’s lax verification processes. Individuals could upload videos without providing proof of age, identity, or consent from those depicted. This allowed pedophiles and traffickers to thrive on the platform.
In an attempt to maintain its profits, Pornhub adopted minimal moderation policies that did little to prevent illegal content from being uploaded.
3. Grassroots Mobilization
The grassroots movement initiated by Mickelwait serves as a testament to the power of collective action.
The Traffickinghub petition, which attracted millions of signatures, grew into a worldwide phenomenon. It was a unifying cause across political and ideological divides, with conservatives, liberals, anti-porn activists, and even members of the adult entertainment industry coming together in their outrage over Pornhub’s unethical practices.
4. Corporate Accountability
Financial and corporate entities, such as credit card companies and payment processors, also played a critical role in addressing these issues.
In response to the movement’s pressure, major players like Visa, Mastercard, and Discover suspended business with Pornhub, cutting off its access to traditional revenue streams.
This resulted in what Mickelwait describes as the “biggest takedown of content in internet history”—Pornhub deleted 80% of its website’s videos, including 10.6 million unverified videos and over 30 million images.
5. Systemic Change and Legal Battles
Despite these victories, Pornhub remains operational, its executives free, and the legal framework insufficient to prevent similar platforms from emerging.
Mickelwait urges continued efforts toward systemic change. Lawsuits against the platform have mounted, including class-action suits representing hundreds of victims, with potential damages totaling in the billions. Yet, the fight is far from over.
Philosophical Reflections
Reading Mickelwait’s account of the Takedown movement, one cannot help but reflect on the deeper philosophical implications.
At its core, the fight against Pornhub is a battle between technological advancement and human dignity. How do we, as a society, reconcile the benefits of digital platforms with the harm they can enable?
Pornhub represents the darker side of what happens when technological neutrality is invoked as a shield to avoid accountability. The idea that a platform can host millions of illegal videos, profiting from heinous crimes, raises questions about the very nature of moral responsibility in the digital age.
Furthermore, the commodification of human bodies—of minors and trafficked individuals—on such a large scale forces us to question the ethical boundaries of capitalism. When profit becomes the primary motive, at what point does human life become dispensable? Pornhub’s success was built on this exploitation, and its downfall (though partial) came only after financial institutions deemed it a liability.
For Mickelwait and her allies, justice is about more than just shutting down one website; it is about changing the structures that allow platforms like Pornhub to operate with impunity. Justice, in this case, also requires the voices of victims to be heard, recognized, and honored, even as they continue to seek healing from their profound trauma.
A Call to Action
As readers, we must ask ourselves: what role do we play in this fight? The Takedown movement exemplifies the power of collective action, of ordinary individuals uniting against a goliath like Pornhub.
The ongoing battle against the exploitation of vulnerable individuals should not be confined to online petitions or lawsuits. It demands a broader cultural shift that questions how we, as a society, consume and condone content online.
Mickelwait’s Takedown is not just a recounting of a movement—it is a moral call for all of us to engage with the world in a more ethical and conscious way. As Mickelwait concludes, “The fight against this abuse continues and is more important than ever before”. If we are to take anything away from her work, it is that silence and complicity are no longer options.
The question remains: are we willing to continue this fight?
The Battle for Transparency
Pornhub’s defense throughout the unfolding controversy hinged on a claim of transparency, which proved largely performative. While the platform employed a public relations strategy, positioning itself as a mainstream company dedicated to ethical practices, the reality revealed a darker side. Their PR campaigns promoted philanthropic efforts, supporting environmental causes and breast cancer research, even branding themselves as cultural icons.
It was, in many ways, a façade intended to mask the exploitation happening behind the scenes.
As Mickelwait documents, this illusion of transparency crumbled when the Traffickinghub movement began to gain momentum. Pornhub could no longer hide behind slick marketing campaigns and philanthropic gestures, as the world’s gaze shifted towards the criminal content they were hosting. The cultural cachet they had amassed was slowly being eroded by growing evidence of their complicity in sexual crimes.
What was once a “mainstream” platform began to be recognized as the global distribution hub for human exploitation.
This turning point reflects a broader issue with online platforms. In the digital age, transparency is often relegated to optics rather than genuine accountability.
Companies like Pornhub tout transparency in their corporate communications while engaging in practices that reveal anything but. It is a dangerous precedent when corporations are allowed to shape their own narratives with little external oversight. As a society, we must ask: What constitutes real transparency, and how do we enforce it in a world where companies can shape public perception through sheer force of advertising dollars?
Mickelwait’s fight was not just about exposing Pornhub’s malpractices but also about holding them accountable for their lack of transparency.
When we allow corporations to control the narrative, we enable them to operate without consequence. True transparency must come with teeth—there must be real consequences for deceit, especially when it comes at the cost of human lives.
The Role of Corporate Enablers
One of the most crucial components of Mickelwait’s campaign was the spotlight it placed on Pornhub’s corporate enablers.
Without the complicity of major financial institutions, advertising partners, and other corporate stakeholders, Pornhub could not have reached the level of dominance it enjoyed. This includes companies like Visa, Mastercard, and Discover, whose financial services allowed Pornhub to monetize its content, including illegal videos.
In this context, the fight to bring Pornhub down was as much about targeting these enablers as it was about the platform itself. It is not enough to punish the website; the infrastructure that allows such exploitation to persist must also be dismantled.
The financial partners, advertisers, and corporations that turned a blind eye to Pornhub’s malfeasance were just as guilty as the website itself. Mickelwait and her allies understood this deeply, which is why part of the Traffickinghub movement’s strategy focused on getting these companies to sever ties with Pornhub.
In the end, this tactic was successful. The withdrawal of financial services from Pornhub was a devastating blow, forcing them to rely solely on cryptocurrency and bank transfers—methods far less accessible to mainstream users.
However, this victory did not come easily. It required sustained pressure from activists, media attention, and public outrage to push these corporations to take action.
The role of corporate enablers in the perpetuation of sexual exploitation is a critical point of reflection. In an era where large corporations wield tremendous power, we must question how far their accountability extends.
Is it enough for these companies to claim ignorance of illegal activities, or should they be held to a higher standard of responsibility? Mickelwait’s battle highlights the necessity of corporate responsibility in the digital age—when companies enable exploitation, they must be held accountable, just as the perpetrators are.
A Fight Against Moral Relativism
Beyond the legal battles, the Traffickinghub movement engages with a deeper philosophical issue—moral relativism in the digital age. The notion that pornography, as long as it is “consensual,” is beyond criticism, has long dominated conversations about adult entertainment.
However, Mickelwait’s work forces us to confront a troubling reality: What happens when the lines of consent blur, and when platforms profit from nonconsensual exploitation under the guise of entertainment?
Pornhub frequently defended itself by claiming that it was merely a platform for “various user fantasies” and that any illegal content was an unfortunate outlier. Yet this defense fails to acknowledge the systemic problems within the industry.
The widespread availability of videos featuring underage girls or victims of trafficking is not simply an oversight; it is a consequence of a system designed to prioritize profit over people.
As I reflect on Mickelwait’s work, I find myself grappling with the philosophical underpinnings of this battle. At its core, the fight against Pornhub is a fight against moral relativism—the idea that anything is permissible so long as it satisfies personal desire.
Pornography, when unregulated, can create a moral vacuum where exploitation is justified as entertainment. The lack of ethical oversight and the ease with which illegal content was uploaded to Pornhub speaks to a broader societal issue: When does our collective morality falter in the face of profit and consumption?
There is a fine line between personal freedom and societal harm. While consenting adults should have the freedom to engage in pornography if they choose, platforms like Pornhub show us that the boundaries of consent can be easily manipulated.
When exploitation is reduced to a commodity, moral relativism becomes dangerous. Mickelwait’s work challenges us to reconsider how we define freedom and consent in the digital age, and what responsibilities platforms have to safeguard these values.
A Personal Reflection on Injustice
As I read Takedown, I could not help but feel an overwhelming sense of anger and helplessness.
The stories of victims whose abuse was broadcast to millions of viewers are haunting. Mickelwait’s account of the 15-year-old girl from Florida, whose rape videos were uploaded under the username “Daddy’s_Slut,” is one such story that lingered with me long after I finished reading.
How can we, as a society, allow such violations of human dignity to persist under the veil of entertainment?
The fight against Pornhub was not just a battle for justice—it was a battle against the normalization of violence and abuse.
Every time we turn a blind eye to these injustices, we allow them to continue. Mickelwait’s work has opened my eyes to the insidious ways in which our consumption habits can perpetuate harm, and how corporations exploit this for profit.
The Traffickinghub movement has taught me that silence and complicity are unacceptable responses in the face of exploitation.
This personal reflection extends beyond the fight against Pornhub. It has made me reconsider how we, as a society, approach issues of justice. Do we prioritize profit over human dignity? How do we balance freedom of expression with the need for ethical boundaries? These are difficult questions, but ones that we must engage with if we are to create a more just and humane society.
The Road Ahead
Although the Traffickinghub movement has achieved significant victories, the battle is far from over. Pornhub continues to operate, albeit in a diminished capacity, and its executives have yet to face full legal accountability.
Moreover, the structures that enabled Pornhub to thrive—the corporate enablers, the lack of regulatory oversight, and the moral relativism surrounding pornography—remain largely intact.
Mickelwait’s Takedown serves as a reminder that the fight against sexual exploitation is ongoing. While the movement has succeeded in raising awareness and pushing for legal reforms, there is still much work to be done. Laws must be strengthened to prevent platforms like Pornhub from continuing to operate with impunity.
More importantly, we must continue to support the victims of exploitation, ensuring they receive the justice and healing they deserve.
As I finish reflecting on Mickelwait’s work, I am filled with both hope and determination. The fight against Pornhub is not just a legal battle—it is a moral imperative. It is a call to action for all of us to engage more deeply with the ethical implications of our digital world, and to ensure that platforms designed for entertainment do not become vehicles for exploitation.
The road ahead will not be easy, but Mickelwait’s story reminds us that change is possible when we refuse to look away. It is time for all of us to continue this fight, to demand accountability, and to stand with the victims whose lives have been irrevocably damaged.
Together, we can work toward a future where exploitation is no longer tolerated, and where human dignity is upheld above all else.
