Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Social Networks

Pornhub Just Purged All Unverified Content From the Platform (vice.com) 134

An anonymous reader writes: Pornhub is removing all videos on its site that weren't uploaded by official content partners or members of its model program, a fundamental shift in the way one of the largest porn sites in the world operates. This means a significant portion of its videos will disappear. On Sunday evening, before the content purge, Pornhub hosted around 13.5 million videos according to the number displayed on the site's search bar, a large number of them from unverified accounts. On Monday morning, that number was down to 3 million, meaning Pornhub removed most of the videos on its site. "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," according to Pornhub's announcement. "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 made the policy change last week to ban all unverified users from uploading or downloading content to the site, and said it would expand its moderation efforts. But by Thursday, Mastercard and Visa announced that they'd both stop processing payments with the site altogether. Visa's announcement specifically stated it would drop all of the Mindgeek network, which includes a number of adult sites, including Redtube, Youporn, XTube, and Brazzers.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Pornhub Just Purged All Unverified Content From the Platform

Comments Filter:
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14, 2020 @11:53AM (#60829616)
    I feel like a significant portion of my childhood has just been stolen from me.
  • So: (Score:4, Funny)

    by Marquis de Pattymelt ( 6800258 ) on Monday December 14, 2020 @11:53AM (#60829622)
    Looks like Pornhub is about to take a Tumblr.
    • Time to call 0118, 999, 881, 999, 119, 725....3
      Pornhub: Hello, I've had a bit of a tumblr...

    • No, not really. Yes, Tumblr has taken a . . . tumble (sorry), but all they did was hide their rape and kiddie porn behind an account. You can still find that stuff there.

      What Pornhub has done goes far beyond that. In short, if you don't prove who you are, you don't get posted.

  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Monday December 14, 2020 @11:54AM (#60829630)

    No doubt this is to try and get back Visa/Mastercard as payment services.

    However I think it's unlikely to work - placating the howling mob never seems to do any good. They may as well just kept doing what they were doing.

    Now they'll have no payment services, and no customers with the number of videos drastically reduced...

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Don't like it? Build your own payment processor :)

      -- AmiMojo, 2020

      • Don't like it? Build your own payment processor :)

        Someone already did, it is called Bitcoin...

        In theory I don't care as I've not ever sent PornHub money.

        But the reality is, all of us should care because it's PornHub today, and something else you actually use tomorrow that gets shut out of traditional payment systems...

        I wonder if it could be legally argued the shutdown of PornHub payment processing is illegal based on racial discrimination...

        • by Shaitan ( 22585 ) on Monday December 14, 2020 @12:40PM (#60829838)

          Just because you've never sent pornhub money doesn't mean you don't use pornhub or that pornhub not having money won't impact you.

          That said. It is time to start rebuilding the free internet. Yes, payment processors should be part of it but also supporting replacements for the major tech firms. Search, social media, hosting options, etc. It isn't that options don't exist so much as not enough people using them and maybe the pig needs more polish. It is time to start shifting real business and services to some of the better alternatives that still support freedom.

          • So... static IPs and no filtered ports all around then?

            I'm in. Would save me on my linode bill too, though I'd hate to leave them after being a customer for so long...

          • Just because you've never sent pornhub money doesn't mean you don't use pornhub or that pornhub not having money won't impact you.

            Unless you are employed by pornhub, or sell pornography and use pornhub to promote your services then no, them not having money will not impact you.

            For example, users of the site are not there because pornhub has unique content that they are only willing to consume there; instead, they're masturbating, and they're going to masturbate either way. And looking at free porn is so easy, they won't be stopped by the absence of pornhub. And when they're finished, they really won't care which site they had been l

            • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

              Pornhub is one of if not the single most popular site for a reason. mostly because it is the single most popular site and is loaded with user submitted content. having to hunt around definitely impacts you.

        • Don't like it? Build your own payment processor :)

          Someone already did, it is called Bitcoin...

          If you can't tell the difference between a specific currency and a payment processor, it is guaranteed that whatever noises you make were not insightful or informative.

          • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

            -1 redundant

            Bitcoin allows for digital payments without need of a payment processor or with a built in anonymous and decentralized set of processors.

            That said you are just running around mocking and attacking random people while contributing nothing of value.

          • If you can't tell the difference between a specific currency and a payment processor,

            Sounds like someone (i.e. you) doesn't understand how the Bitcoin blockchain works or even what it means that Bitoin is based on a blockchain!

            The fact that you seem to think of BitCoin as mere currency... well, literally breathtaking in the degree of ignorance.

            Pretty pathetic for a Slashdot user. Educate yoself noob.

        • But the reality is, all of us should care because it's PornHub today, and something else you actually use tomorrow that gets shut out of traditional payment systems...

          Why should Visa or Mastercard take the risk? Chargebacks are a huge hassle. Either it's the spouse who KNOWS their significant other didn't rack up those charges and dispute them. OR, the person themselves lying while calling in to dispute the charge in front of the other.

          • This doesn't appear to be a chargeback issue. OnlyFans still takes Visa/MasterCard although they also (scary) ask for a photo of your driver's license. The original reason stated for Visa/MC cutting off PornHub et al was that they were turning a blind eye to illegal content and Visa/MC doesn't want to process payments for that. If it was a chargeback issue as you describe, that would seem to apply to just about any adult business including dating sites. Is there any data that the chargeback rate is high
        • by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Monday December 14, 2020 @02:51PM (#60830324) Journal

          This idea of the big financials, interfering in commerce in this fashion started last summer with Citi Banking dictating to their clients who engage in retail operations what their firearms sales polices were going to be. It was good test case because half of the political animals would not dare be seen resisting a gun control effort of any sort no matter how misguided they know it is. So Citi could count on political deadlock keeping things from moving to quickly for them to adjust to while finding out what the reactions to them inserting themselves in this fashion more generally would be.

          They got no real push back. So just like the social media cabal, the financial cabal will now be declaring themselves master of the universe and imposing their will where they can. Why because their executive staff is a bunch of psychopaths who think they are smarter than everyone else (and they are mostly correct on the final point).

          Regardless of where you stand on Porn, Free Speech in Internet age, and any number of other polarizing issues, this isnt really a good thing. Our collective failure to address these issues in the political realm and push for real solutions/compromises/don't ask don't tell systems, etc means market is stepping in to address it. The market will address it too, but this time you don't get a vote, there will be no meaningful appeals and only a black hole info@$COMAPNY.COM to petition for redress.

          In short we'd better figure out how to deal with some of these deep political division in the political area even if that means something like breaking up the union because otherwise we are going to very quickly be flashing our passports everytime we want to cross into facbookistan from Eastern MasterCardville.

          • interfering in commerce in this fashion started last summer

            Oh LOL. No mate, not in the slightest. The finance industry pretending to be the moral police has a history that goes back well over a decade. Interesting mention of "political animals" in your post because that perfectly describes what happened to beastiality. The big news story of the start of this decade was that Pay Pal decided to ban payment processing of sites that share beastiality videos following similar bans from Visa and Mastercard over decade earlier, though I couldn't find the exact dates for t

            • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

              That is interesting. I still don't really think of Paypal as a financial but I probably should.

              I was not aware of the Visa and MA and had entered the porn arena before now. Clearly going after mindgeek and its properties is an escalation as its evidently stuff that a much larger portion of the public purchases.

              I still have little doubt that escalation comes in part based on the fact that Citi and others been able to interdict practices they don't like in more main stream markets 100% legal markets without m

              • Oh yeah possibly the escalation is due to that, just pointing out it's not out of line with the finance industry's history. :-)

                There's been a history outside of porn as well. E.g. Wikileaks. Visa suspended them in 2010 saying they were doing an internal investigation if Wikileaks was legal. Emphasis on internal investigation, nothing about Wikileaks had been determined to be illegal at that point. Apparently their "investigation" continued for several years. I just looked up Wikipedia to brush up on the dat

    • Exactly. All the mob learns from this, is that they can do that successfully. So guess what they'll do.

      It's how we got SJW.
      They always existed, even in the 80s.
      It's just that coprorations got so spineless, they listened to them because they thought it would give them the last .1% of the market to look like they aren't psychos when everyone else was. Race to the bottom and all.
      Well, turns out they are just regular bullies... upgraded. And now the fat's in the fire.

      • by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Monday December 14, 2020 @12:41PM (#60829848)
        No. The lesson to learn here is not about mob dynamics. It's about about a company wanting to be legit but simultaneously providing a platform for illegal underage and revenge videos. Blatantly illegal stuff. No, no, no. Will not fly. Not a legit business model. Will. Not. Pass. And No again.

        I'm all for extremely wide-ranging personal freedoms and have no problem at all with p--rn of virtually any sort, but THERE ARE LIMITS. Children cannot give consent and ex-GFs don't deserve that, no matter how bad the breakup was. The fact that it took a large newspaper expose and 2 credit card companies blacklisting them, tells me that they knew exactly what they were allowing, and they were doing it to drive views up. Sorry, absolutely no sympathy there. I hope the site goes under and gets replaced by another that commits to following the laws FROM THE START.
        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          in other words "think of the children". Strange that this "blatantly illegal" stuff wasn't uncovered by the police, but by some pervert at the NYT, and the resolution is not arrests but disappeared evidence.
          • Western society has a long, established history of this thing called "investigative journalism". You should look it up. Journalists have played a large role in uncovering things that the police simply weren't interested in, but should have been, in retrospect. Even in today's warped climate, journalists still have a role to play, and this feels like one of those times. If you don't like free-wheeling journalism, there are places that you might find to your liking. China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Several Afric
    • Now they'll have no payment services, and no customers with the number of videos drastically reduced.

      Right, because how could anyone possibly jerk it with only 3 million videos to watch???

    • These payment services are monopolies. We shouldn't let them pick their customers

    • However I think it's unlikely to work

      That's not "thinking," you merely derped while standing near the context.

      Unlike neckbeards, banks care about money. Only money. They're not triggered by SJWs. Money doesn't stink.

      You thought you though that bankers think money stinks, because your feefees were making noise. But that's not how thinking works. You're doing a different thing.

      • by Shaitan ( 22585 ) on Monday December 14, 2020 @01:45PM (#60830122)

        "Unlike neckbeards, banks care about money. Only money. They're not triggered by SJWs. Money doesn't stink."

        Tell it to all the major banks and payment processors who discriminate on the basis of SJW topics like adult content, guns, and white nationalism/racism.

        • by Anonymous Coward
          I think his point was that they do that specifically because they make more money by discriminating like that then they would if they were not doing it. Another thing they discriminate against is cannabis companies - because the banks don't want to risk Federal fines / sanctions. So they discriminate to prevent losing money.
          • Another thing they discriminate against is cannabis companies - because the banks don't want to risk Federal fines / sanctions. So they discriminate to prevent losing money.

            It is clear where the banks stand; every licensed marijuana dispensary in Oregon has an ATM inside so that they can provide some of the convenience of electronic banking.

    • whether it is 3 million or 300 million videos I doubt this will have ANY impact whatsoever on viewers (except those that were attracted to the dodgy content).
  • http://www.downloadhelper.net/... [downloadhelper.net]
    All downloadable.

    So, yeah, we're gonna survive.
    Who verifies himself on a porn site anyway?

    • Then this will not happen to you again.

      It's called DowloadHelper for a reason. :)

      • by paiute ( 550198 )
        Cousin Eddie: I don't know why they call this stuff download helper. It does just fine by itself, huh?
      • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

        Not very helpful, it just lists a bunch of sites. Now if it indexed them all into a mega search with nice filters so you don't have to vomit seeing cuck porn that would be helpful.

        • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

          Reposting due to troll
          Not very helpful, it just lists a bunch of sites. Now if it indexed them all into a mega search with nice filters so you don't have to vomit seeing cuck porn that would be helpful.

    • Who verifies himself on a porn site anyway?

      Well, the last adult site, ehm, a friend was member of, required a small credit card payment to verify age / identity. That's fine, especially if it's done by an age verification service that will not pass on personal details to the site, but only verify 18+ age. But Pornhub? Apparently they want you to upload a mugshot of yourself holding a handwritten sign with your Pornhub username, like the victim of some sad ransom. Yeah, totally going to do that...

    • by labnet ( 457441 )

      Why not identify yourself?
      If you feel shame for viewing stuff, then it just might be your conscience criticising you.

  • Now that PornHub is moving to only allow content from "verified partners" how will other platforms continue to pretend they are unable to prevent uploading copyrighted material?

  • Monetizing hate speech is a nuisance in terms of harm. Monetizing child rape, revenge porn, etc. is extremely serious. In the worst case of the former, most of what you get is more dumbasses outing themselves and paying for the privilege to do it. In the case of the latter, you get more raped kids and people getting their privacy violated.

    Allowing user-submitted porn to go up without verification is intrinsically flirting with facilitating sexual violence.

    • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

      "Allowing user-submitted porn to go up without verification is intrinsically flirting with facilitating sexual violence."

      That is a big like blaming the sewer for not checking what substances are contained in the waste water from people's home then holding them accountable for the things the drugs they might be flushing could indicate. Or the same for the garbage dump. Ridiculous.

      We have people who are responsible for tracking down and stopping those doing these things. They are police. It is one thing to kn

      • We have people who are responsible for tracking down and stopping those doing these things. They are police.

        I knew someone who was an old timer in a major law enforcement organization that could put thousands of men with badges and guns on such cases. He was close to retirement age and was senior enough to have his fingers on the pulse of their data trends.

        He said "Dude, if we put literally every last person in our workforce on these cases all year long we couldn't even investigate half of the actionable ca

        • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

          They never could investigate everything. Our society actually depends on this. There are places where it is illegal to have an ice cream cone in your pocket. Do you know why you won't go to jail for this ridiculous thing? Because they have to prioritize resources in enforcement. There is almost certainly SOMETHING you are doing that law enforcement could arrest and jail you for every moment of every day of your teenage and adult life.

          Since we are past the age where sex generally results in unwanted pregnanc

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday December 14, 2020 @12:04PM (#60829678)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re:Saudi Arabia (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday December 14, 2020 @01:41PM (#60830098) Homepage Journal

      Or maybe it's just that setting up a site where users can upload anything with no checks was always a terrible idea.

    • by gmack ( 197796 )

      Really? Nothing about this restricts your access to porn. It only ensures that the porn on Pornhub is from consenting adults and I'm really not understanding why people are so upset about that.

  • by nucrash ( 549705 ) on Monday December 14, 2020 @12:15PM (#60829734)

    Though I am thinking this will probably reduce access to PornHub's free content.

    Though this avenue will slowly be closed off, others will open. This is how things work. There are not real ways to stop these people from exploiting and trafficking children. Would be better of they used PornHub to track down some of these people rather than drag them in the public for a few changes that will likely not amount to much more than creating a bit of difficulty for some users.

  • by skovnymfe ( 1671822 ) on Monday December 14, 2020 @12:40PM (#60829840)
    As if millions of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
  • Youporn

    TheirOfficialPorn, now.

    Let freedom ring...

  • This is a huge win for "Big Porn" as they'll now face far less competition from legitimate amateurs and entrepreneurs. Human traffickers will move on to other platforms and the legitimate small players will be fenced off from the mainstream market.
    • "Big Porn" is PornHub. The same company owns the majority of the professional content production, YouPorn, PornHub, etc. This is just them not accepting free content as well. Ultimately, it never mattered to them - when you own the whole industry it doesn't matter if you get additional free content.

      Ironically, now there will be more competition, because some other site will try to become the host of amateur content.

      • By "Big Porn", I was referring to the major content creators. AFAIK, YouPorn, PornHub, etc. (with the exception of Brazzers) are all content distributors. At least that's what my friends have told me.
  • As if millions of voices cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

  • by PinkyGigglebrain ( 730753 ) on Monday December 14, 2020 @02:39PM (#60830284)

    Once upon a midnight dreary, While I websurfed, weak and weary,
    Over many a strange and spurious website of hot chicks galore,

    While I clicked my fav'rite bookmark, Suddenly there came a warning,
    And my heart was filled with mourning, Mourning for my dear amour.

    'Tis not possible!, I pleaded, But my browser, so conceited, Remained blank,
      I then repeated, Just a blank and nothing more.

    With a scream, I was defeated, For my cookies were deleted,
    So i begged, no longer seated, "Give me back my free hardcore!"

    Then, in answer to my query, Through the net I loved so dearly,
    Came its answer, dark and dreary:

    "Quoth the server, 404"

  • and you said nothing, so now you have no pr0n

  • There goes the neighborhood
  • Never thought I'd see so many people come to its defense. Purging unknown content providers is the only way to be sure.

  • If they have completely scrubbed those videos they removed. Because they look like a very large target for epic lawsuits, and probably quite rightly so.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • You have successfully ensured that future abuse videos will be posted on sites which do not have policies to remove material through a review or report system.

    Why is it that those who think of the children seem to be the worst offenders at screwing said children.

Avoid strange women and temporary variables.

Working...