The internet is a wonderful and terrifying place where so much of it is unregulated and even the things that you think should be regulated aren’t as heavily as you’d expect. So when it comes to the adult entertainment industry there are so many thin lines that can easily be crossed by people who simply use it for their own gain and ruin it for everyone else.

Pornhub was a website where verified and unverified people could upload videos of themselves and others doing basically anything sexual. Since this whole lawsuit it seems they’ve changed it so that only verified people can upload, which I think is a good stepping stone, but it’s shocking that anyone could upload anything for so many years.

A lot of people use the site to grow their brand as a performer and make money through it, of course there are other sites now that can also be used but this being the biggest is often the best way to gain notoriety quickly. However a few years ago it came to light that there was indecent images and videos of children on the website and the victims in these videos were not being listened to as they should have been by the company. And despite the videos being taking down they were simply re-uploaded by someone else, because once something is on the internet it is never truly gone.

Based on some people’s opinions, a lot of the people that were calling for tighter control on this issue and the disgusting matter that it was even allowed to happen in the first place called for a shutdown of the site, and a lot of these people were right wing conservative often religious types. And that’s fair, if people don’t want this sort of industry in their lives it doesn’t have to be, but the fact that so many people use it to make an income means that this issue didn’t just affect the victims but also the livelihoods of hundreds of others too.

The people that profit from uploading their own content are not the problem here, it’s the people at the top, but it seems that the people at the top were not being attacked and instead it was the performers because they were seen as people that were profiting off this disgusting content being shared, when actually they were probably just as in the dark is everyone else.

There needs to be a lot more regulation online to stop this sort of stuff happening, any adult can share photos of themselves, any adult can record themselves doing whatever but it’s when it is put up online without consent that is the problem. I do believe the only way that we can get around these issues and make sure that these people can’t take advantage of others is by making them verified and providing ID for anything they do online, whether it’s social media, uploading content, whatever. Only then will we be able to get justice for the victims by finding the person that did it in the first place, especially in this day and age with VPN there’s no easy way to track an IP, and it does seem the only way to find them is through identification.

I don’t believe adult websites are the problem here, I believe people taking advantage of those websites and their lack of security is the problem and if websites tightened up and put other people’s safety over greed for once then we could see an end to this problem.

I went into this documentary blind and didn’t watch the trailer or anything so I thought it would be a fun, silly documentary about the adult entertainment industry, so to suddenly be faced with all these allegations and darkness it was quite hard to watch. If you’re expecting something light and airy this is definitely not that, however I would like to see that side of the adult entertainment industry too because I think it would be quite fun.

What do you think of the Pornhub scandal?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding