Petition Against P**nhub Takes to the Streets with Multi-City Protest

I wrote this post for a different website, but the editors chose not to publish it. I think it’s important information. Because, whether you’re a fan or an opponent of P0rnhub, you should know about this petition and protest. Especially if you’re interested in the adult entertainment industry. So, I’m publishing the article here. Please forgive the creative use of zeros and asterisks—I’m trying to slip under the radar!

The Protest

An image from an earlier protest at Phub’s New York offices.

A petition to shut down P0rnhub has surpassed 2 million signatures amidst allegations of the site profiting on videos of human trafficking, child abuse, and more. Now, the people behind TraffickingHubPetition.com are taking to the streets.

“On October 2, International Day of Non-Violence, protestors will gather outside P**nhub/MindGeek offices in Los Angeles, Montreal, and London from 11am-2pm calling for the site to be shut down for allegedly enabling and profiting from the sex trafficking and rape of women and children, as evidenced by a growing number of public cases,” stated a September 30 press release.

The Petition

What started out as a Change.org petition back in March has gained so much traction that it’s migrated to its own website. There it has, to date, collected 2,123,332 more signatures—from people in 192 countries, according to the release.

“This global movement to hold P0rnhub accountable for complicity in mass child abuse and trafficking is for anyone and everyone who cares about the safety of children and the most vulnerable in our society,” said the campaign’s founder, Laila Mickelwait. “It is time to take a stand together, raise our collective voices, and shut it down.”

The P**n Stars

Interestingly, retired adult performer star Jenna Jameson has recently joined the movement, too. The protest’s press release quotes her as saying, “P0rnhub profits off of the rape and torture of women and children. Take a stand against these monsters at MindGeek…Shut it DOWN.”

Powerful words, but then, the release also calls her “The Queen of P0rn”—a title that may have ceased to be accurate a few decades ago. So make of that what you will.

The release also claims that “A significant number of adult industry performers have also signed the petition to shutter the site.” This may be true, as P**nhub hasn’t always been popular among adult entertainment professionals, after its negative impact on the industry in the late 2000s. But more recently, adult industry professionals have largely made peace with the popular site. These days, they’re using the platform to advertise their content and contracting with the company to release exclusive material through P**nhub Premium, paid model accounts, and more.

The Backstory

P0rnhub claims to have received 42 billion visits in 2019 alone. Those numbers make it one of the most-visited websites in the world. But TraffickingHub protestors claim that among its millions of user-generated videos lurk “numerous examples of real videos of child sexual abuse, adult trafficking, assault, and rape—all monetized on P**nhub.” 

Meanwhile, Girls Do P0rn’s ringleader, Michael Pratt is now on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Why? He coerced women and at least one underage girl to record explicit videos, promising only private collectors would see them. But then, he and his colleagues uploaded them to P**nhub, where they went viral. And a petition to have Mia Khalifa’s videos removed from P0rnhub continues to gain traction. In fact, it has almost as many signers as the TraffickingHub petition!

In other words, it’s not a great time to be P**nhub. And on Friday, it will be even worse as protestors gather outside its offices in three large cities. Now that a press release has been issued about these protests, it’s likely that they’ll be widely publicized.

Then again, COVID-19 cases are surging in the American midwest and Europe. And winter is bearing down on the northern hemisphere. In other words, a lot of people are going to be staying home in the next few months. And P0rnhub, whether it’s citizen of the year or not, is surely going to make a lot of money during that time—unless protestors get their way and shut the whole thing down.

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