Pornhub just dumped all unverified content from its platform

Pornhub, the adult website owned by MindGeek, on Monday announced that it has dumped all unverified content from its platform. This means that a large number of videos will now disappear from its platform.

“As part of our policy to ban unverified uploaders, we have now also suspended all previously uploaded content that was not created by content partners or members of the Model Program. This means every piece of Pornhub content is from verified uploaders, a requirement that platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter have yet to institute,” Pornhub wrote in an announcement.

The announcement comes shortly after the company announced sweeping reforms on its platform last week.

To give you a quick brief, The New York Times published an opinion piece last week wherein the publication followed the lives of child sex abuse victims whose videos were uploaded on the platform. Shortly after that, MasterCard and Visa announced that they were investigating their business relationships with the company. Soon after, the adult website announced major reforms on its platform, which included allowing only verified sources to upload content on its platform.

“Going forward, we will only allow properly identified users to upload content. We have banned downloads. We have made some key expansions to our moderation process, and we recently launched a Trusted Flagger Program with dozens of non-profit organizations,” the company said last week.

Notably, apart from announcing the major move, Pornhub also pointed out that it was being targeted specifically because it was an adult platform. The company said that Facebook self-reported 84 million instances of child sexual abuse material. During the same time, an independent third-party Internet Watch Foundation reported 118 incidents on Pornhub. “It is clear that Pornhub is being targeted not because of our policies and how we compare to our peers, but because we are an adult content platform,” the company said.