By Gemma Kelly, Head of Policy and Public Affairs
I wish my job didn’t exist. I wish there was no need for CEASE and other organisations like us campaigning to end sexual exploitation.
But we are still needed and my job, sadly, is still required. And although I get a huge amount of inspiration and fulfilment from my job, there are some days when I have to do things that I don’t love.
In Nick Kristof‘s latest article on Pornhub, he exposes how discovery documents in one of the many lawsuits filed against Pornhub, shows that they optimised search engine results so that when anyone searched for “stop, it hurts porn video”, “gorgeous teen strips naked”, “first anal crying”, “abused by daddy” and “young girl”, Pornhub was the first search result.
Pornhub say that this was before, this was during the time that MindGeek was in charge and not Ethical Capital Partners.*
So I checked.
I typed the first three terms into Google and every single one went to Pornhub. Two straight to Pornhub, and for one Pornhub was the second suggestion. (Google also has much to answer for).
When I searched “young girl”, mercifully on this occasion Google reminded me this was child sexual abuse material and therefore illegal. Though that is easily bypassed.
When I searched “young girl” on Pornhub itself, I received a similar message, so I just inverted the words in the search so it was “girl young” and was presented with pages and pages of very young-looking teenagers.
So I put “teen” into the search bar on Pornhub. The first video was of a very young-looking teenage girl surrounded by at least six men in their 60s. I wanted to see how many pages of content I was offered for this search; the answer was 100.
100 pages of results, each containing multiple video links, when I typed “teen” into Pornhub. My main takeaway from the videos? The girls are young, and the videos are violent.
My other main takeaway is that changing the name of the owners of pornography sites does not change the content. Telling victims, legislators, regulators, civil society, and journalists that new ownership means new rules and better protections, does not change the content.
Pornography sites want to make money. They will do whatever it takes to make money. The pornography industry does not care who it hurts. No amount of false promises and PR spin will change that.
*As per their website: “Ethical Capital Partners is a private equity firm seeking out opportunities in industries that require principled ethical leadership.” [Request from CEASE to Ethical Capital Partners: When you find that principled ethical leadership, could you let us know? We won’t hold our breath.]
You can read more about the harms of pornography at https://cease.org.uk/facts/pornography/