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TikTok Becomes Latest Company To Ban Pornhub

Photo by Kon Karampelas on Unsplash

TikTok Becomes Latest Company To Ban Pornhub

By Movieguide® Contributor

 The National Center on Sexual Exploitation has just announced that TikTok is the latest social company to end their relationship with Pornhub.

#traffickinghub founder Laila Mickelwait saw a tweet from Pornhub announcing that they were now on TikTok. She posted a screenshot of the tweet, and NCOSE immediately contacted the video sharing app. Pornhub’s account was quickly taken down. 

“TikTok joins several mainstream companies that have made the principled decision to deny Pornhub another avenue from which to profit off exploitation,” said Dawn Hawkins, CEO of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.

She continued, “Pornhub, the purveyor of child sexual abuse material, rape, sex trafficking, sexual violence, and extreme racism has no place on a social media platform like TikTok that is extremely popular with children.”

“Pornhub’s very existence on TikTok normalizes a predatory business built on exploitation and abuse and served as implicit advertising for Pornhub’s website which has been proven to feature videos of children being sexually abused, women who have been raped, and other sexual abuse material that was not shared with consent,” Hawkins’ statement continued. 

She concluded, “Pornhub presented the façade of being a wholesome Hallmark-like channel but it is anything but. Its presence on TikTok brought in more customers to buy images of rape, sex trafficking, child sexual abuse, and extreme violence. TikTok made the right move to eliminate Pornhub’s account as soon as it was notified it was there and joins other mainstream companies that refuse to do business with this known exploiter.”

TikTok is one of many recent corporations to cut ties with the pornography site. Visa, Mastercard, Roku, Comcast, Unilever, Kraft-Heinz, PayPal, and Instagram have all ended their professional relationship with Pornhub. 

Movieguide® previously reported on Roku’s ban on Pornhub:

Roku announced a ban on all “non-certified” private channels, which includes Pornhub and other adult channels, by March 2022.

“At our annual developer conference in October, we announced new tools that align with industry standards and offer a more dynamic and flexible environment for developers to test their channels prior to launching in our public channel store. With the launch of these new tools, non-certified channels, which have previously been available to support development testing, are no longer necessary and will be removed by March of 2022,” the company told TheWrap.

Previously, Pornhub used the platform’s private channels system as a loophole to provide content that violated the company’s community guidelines.

Starting March 1, Roku will require private channels to undergo a “test” period with only 20 viewers before going live to the public.

The change comes in part due to added pressure from advocacy groups such as Exodus Cry.

“MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH! Remember when we called out Roku in March for hosting a private channel for Pornhub? The #1 TV streaming platform in the US is now banning Pornhub as of March 2022!” the anti-trafficking non-profit wrote in a Facebook post.

“This is a huge win for us, you, and everyone who joined this push, including our friends at National Center on Sexual Exploitation and other #Traffickinghub allies!” the post continued. “In one of our most commented-on posts ever, thousands of YOU tagged Roku and told them to take down the Pornhub channel—they listened.

“This is the power of raising our voices! Pornhub’s criminal, exploitative empire is continuing to crumble. Well done ROKU for choosing to side with justice.”

Other companies have come under fire for hosting explicit content that is easily accessible by minors.

Recently, the social media app OnlyFans backtracked after receiving backlash from sex workers after announcing a ban of “sexually explicit content” on their site.

“Recently, notorious porn site OnlyFans, which allows everyday people to sell pornographic content of themselves, surprised millions after announcing they were banning sexually explicit content. Many in the pro-porn community were outraged, particularly because the platform is perceived as being safe (much of that rage has been directed against Exodus Cy),” an Exodus Cry post read. “But OnlyFans shocked the world again when, days ago, they announced they were reversing their decision, stating they had “secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community.”