Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., promised Friday to present a bill that would provide a federal right for sex trafficking victims to sue sites like Pornhub when their rights are violated.
The lawmaker’s announcement follows an ongoing controversy surrounding Pornhub’s verification measures and the appearance of many people who have been victimized by online pornography platforms.
Mr. Hawley was actually addressing a New York Times post that accused the site of being “infested with rape videos.” Columnist Nicholas Kristof reported an alleged trafficking victim who claimed that footage of her abuse appeared on the Pornhub site.
Tremendous reporting by @NickKristof on the exploitation that occurs on sites like Pornhub. It’s time for it to end. I will introduce legislation to create a federal right to sue for every person coerced or trafficked or exploited by sites like Pornhub https://t.co/tOynnIILOx
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) December 4, 2020
However, Pornhub has debunked the allegation that its platform is infested with child sexual abuse material (CSAM), “Any assertion that we allow CSAM is irresponsible and flagrantly untrue,” the company said in a statement.
“We have zero tolerance for CSAM. Pornhub is unequivocally committed to combating CSAM, and has instituted an industry-leading trust and safety policy to identify and eradicate illegal material from our community”.
But anti-trafficking activist Laila Mickelwait is projecting that the platform doesn’t do enough to protect its content. So far, the Laila Mickelwait Change.org petition which calls for Pornhub to be shuttered has seen more than $1.2 million signatures.
Pornhub reported that it scooped 42 billion visits or an average of 115 million visits per day in 2019 while a record 6.83 million videos were actually uploaded to the adult website site last year.
