The massive pornography website Pornhub may soon face a Justice Department investigation.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) has called for an investigation following the discovery of videos on the site that depicted child pornography, as well as graphic scenes of sexual violence.
BREAKING: US Senator calls on the US Attorney General and Department of Justice to open an investigation into Pornhub/Mindgeek based on evidence they host, profit from and enable the sex trafficking and rape of women and minors. #Traffickinghub https://t.co/OmmkCRLGiW pic.twitter.com/gUTHEGl1wb
— Laila Mickelwait (@LailaMickelwait) March 10, 2020
Sasse told Faithwire in a statement, “This is pretty obvious. Any company that profits from rape, trafficking and exploitation must be held accountable. The reporting on Pornhub has been gut-wrenching. Pornhub and its parent company MindGeek must not escape scrutiny. The Department of Justice needs to take the first step of opening an investigation.”
The site has recently faced public outcry. The headquarters of Pornhub’s parent company MindGeek was home to protests over the week, and a petition to shut down the site has received more than 427,000 signatures. As the petition explains, Pornhub “has no system in place to verify reliably the age or consent of those featured in the pornographic content it hosts and profits from.”
“It is no surprise that Pornhub admitted to verifying the trafficked 15-year-old girl who was sexually abused in 58 videos on its site. The official Twitter account for Pornhub wrote in response to the breaking story that the 15-year-old girl had been a verified member. After quickly realizing it had just admitted to assisting in her being trafficked, the account deleted the tweets, but the evidence of the admission was cached and still exists.”
