Girlsh porn, a partner company of Pornhub, was accused by 22 women of abuse. Its owners were finally arrested, 4 months after the filing of a first complaint.

Twenty-two had filed complaints last June, but they are said to be more than 100 victims, Vice reported. Women have sued a company called Girls do porn. She was accused of having broadcast pornographic videos on the site of her partner Pornhub, without the consent of the women who appeared there.

Its leaders were eventually arrested and prosecuted for sex trafficking in a second judicial investigation. This pushed Pornhub to break the contract between them, tells The Verge this October 14. Until now, the site had left online the videos in question in the first complaint: it considered to be only a simple host of contents. He had even sometimes promoted it.

FALSE PROMISES MADE TO VICTIMS

A copy of the first complaint is available online. It was a collective action that brought together 22 victims. It was aimed at Girls do porn, a partner of Pornhub who published his videos on the giant’s website.

Girls do porn was prosecuted for fraud and emotional abuse: the 22 complainants claim that they did not agree to the pornographic videos in which they appear on Pornhub. Dozens of other women, although they did not join the lawsuit, testified to similar facts.

They all tell the same story. Girls do porn approached them between 2009 and 2018 to create content. They accepted, but only on the reassuring conditions that had been promised to them. The company had explained to them that there would never be any question of distributing them on a large scale. The images – where you can see their faces, but never that of their male partners – were only to be sold on DVD, to Australian and New Zealand “private collectors.”

One of the amateur actresses said that the company had offered to pay him a bribe to say good things about her to other women. They wanted her to say “there would be no consequence”. It was before she understood that they would broadcast everything on Girls do porn, then on Pornhub.

Victims said the contracts were signed while under the influence of alcohol and therefore were unable to make an informed decision or understand everything that was written. Others were manipulated and pressurized until they signed. No copy of the contract was given to them.

The women involved were particularly young. One of them filmed her scene on the day of her majority. In a video, Girls do porn is seen bringing her a birthday cake for the occasion.

DEPRESSION AND HARASSMENT

Girls do porn was one of the most popular sections of Pornhub. The site also regularly promoted them to encourage Internet users to take paid subscriptions. Only in this way could they access the full Girls do porn videos. The videos had been viewed hundreds of millions of times in total and 11 were still online on Pornhub at the time of the complaint, lawyer O’Brien reported. However, the conditions of use of the site stipulate that Pornhub has the right to remove problematic videos from Girls do porn. When questioned by Motherboard, the vice president of the company had only explained that Internet users could report the content concerned so that it could be deleted. The platform also cleared everything published by other companies on its site, believing that it is only an ordinary host.

THE PLATFORM DECLARES EVERYTHING FROM OTHER COMPANIES ON ITS SITE

The victims said their lives had been ruined. Some fell into depression, others suffered mockery, online harassment or rejection from their families who wanted “nothing more to do with them”. As Vice noted, many of them have deleted all traces of them on social media and the web for fear of being found. Internet users have indeed seen fit to reveal their identity, even when it was not indicated in the video.

This story raised the question of control over the videos posted on PornHub. Katelyn Bowden, the founder and CEO of a porn revenge group, told Vice that it is extremely common to see content like this on Pornhub. It is very simple to publish videos there and the platform does not visibly even verify the consent of its partners that it highlights.

The owners of Girls do porn were eventually arrested. They are now being prosecuted for sex trafficking. This is not directly related to the 22 women’s complaint, Vice said. These would be two separate legal actions. They face life in prison and a fine of up to $ 250,000. One of them could not be found and is now considered a fugitive by the American courts.