Yahoo News Pornhub parent company faces $80m lawsuit for hosting videos of ‘trafficked’ women
MindGeek, which owns adult streaming site Pornhub, is being sued for $80m by a group of 40 women that claim the company profited off of videos depicting them being trafficked by a company called "GirlsDoPorn."
The lawsuit alleges that MindGeek "knew it was partnering with and profiting from a sex trafficking venture for years."
In January, a judge ordered the operators of the GirlsDoPorn studio had to pay $12.7m for lying to women about how their videos would be used.
The latest lawsuit alleges that "MindGeek also knew of the significant harassment and trauma GirlsDoPorn's victims were enduring by its continued publication of the victims' videos" but that the company "simply did not care."
The complaint accuses MindGeek of continuing to do business with GirlsDoPorn until "it was no longer profitable."
In response to the lawsuit and reporting that was done on the subject, GirlsDoPorn's videos have been removed from many websites that host streaming adult videos.
More recent, Pornhub deleted all of the unverified videos on its site. The move came after a New York Times report revealed that the company had been - knowingly or not - profiting from videos that included child sexual exploitation, rape and revenge porn.
Until recently, anyone could upload videos to Pornhub, with the site becoming something of a haven for pirates movies and other non-pornographic content. In addition to welcoming piracy, the feature also allowed users to post videos without verifying that they had the consent of the people appearing in the video to do so.
Some people abused the feature to post revenge porn and stolen images and videos of people who did not intend for their images to be out in the public. Even if Pornhub responded to complaints and removed the videos, the way the site operated simply allowed the harassers to post the stolen images all over again.
The victims whose videos repeatedly were posted to the site said they have "suffered damages including but not limited to, sever emotional distress, significant trauma, attempted suicide, and social and familial ostracisation."
MindGeek has not issued a public statement regarding the women's claims.
As for GirlsDoPorn, the sites founder, Michael Pratt, went on the run and is still being sought by the FBI. He is featured on the agencies Most Wanted list.
The site's co-owner, Matthew Isaac Wolfe, is awaiting trial, and the actor who appeared in the videos, Ruben Andrew Garcia has pleaded guilty to sex trafficking and is set to be sentenced.
GirlsDoPorn argued that the women were over 18, knew what they were agreeing to, accepted payment for the videos and in some cases returned numerous times to make additional videos.
The women behind the lawsuit, however, claimed that while they did accept money for appearing in a porn film, they were led to believe their videos would not be made available on streaming services and marketed.
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