Newly released undercover footage reveals a senior executive of an adult website admitting that rapists and human traffickers use a loophole in order to make money from illegal content.
Mike Farley, a technical product manager at MindGeek (the company that owns Pornhub), told a Sound Investigations journalist recording him undercover that senior management is aware of a loophole in the Pornhub age and consent verification process, where the company does not verify the identities of people in user-uploaded videos that don’t show faces.
Various news reports and lawsuits have alleged that Pornhub is complicit in the publication of illegal videos, though the company has said it made changes after a detailed exposé revealed that child rapes, revenge pornography, spy camera videos of women showering and other illegal content is uploaded to the platform.
Sound Investigations says that the site still allows anyone to upload videos as long as the person uploading shows an ID such as a driver’s license. However, the company does not verify the ages of people in uploaded content where a face is not visible, nor does it confirm that the content is consensual.
When asked if human traffickers exploit this loophole, Farley said, “To make money? Of course.”
Farley said his boss Ramsey Belmaaza has raised the issue with officers at the company who turned a blind eye to the problem, telling him to “shut up.” Farley also said that he and Belmaaza recorded the conversation to have evidence they warned the company about the problem.
“We’ve brought it up to the CPO [chief product officer]. We’ve brought it up to the CLO [chief legal officer], and they’re both telling us it’s all good. And the CPO is especially telling us like, ‘F— off. It’s all good. Stop. Like, shut up,’” Farley said, before adding that the company’s actions would be indefensible in court.
He further claimed the company’s executives are refusing to take action because they don’t want their profits to take a hit and believe they will not get caught.
