An online petition to the US Department of Justice says Pornhub, which is owned by Luxembourg City-based Mindgeek, profits from videos of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children, according to petitioner Laila Mickelwait of the Traffickinghub campaign.

Her allegations focus on a perceived lack of ability to reliably verify the age or consent of people featured in the content it hosts. As a result, she claims that the site hosts vast amounts of content containing videos of women and underage girls allegedly being raped and trafficked.

“In fact, all that is needed to upload pornography onto Pornhub is an email address. No government-issued ID is required, not even to become ‘verified’ with its trusty blue checkmark that makes everything seem A-OK,” Mickelwait alleged. She added that it took her 10 minutes to create an account and upload blank test content, which went live instantly. “I could have then gone on to become Pornhub-verified, and all I would need to do is send a photo of myself holding a paper with my username. That’s it,” she wrote.

According to Pornhub, in 2019 the site received over 42 billion visits and a record number of video uploads: over 6.83 million. Mickelwait says the term “teen” has been among the top 10 search terms for six years, a claim Pornhub confirms for 2019 in its annual insights.

Mindgeek is headquartered in boulevard Royal, in the capital, but has offices in London, Nicosia, Los Angeles and Montreal. To mark international women’s rights day, protestors demonstrated outside of Mindgeek’s Montreal offices over the allegations.  

Delano contacted Mindgeek for comment, but at the time of publishing they had not responded. However, The Guardian published the following statement from the firm:

“Pornhub has a steadfast commitment to eradicating and fighting non-consensual content and under-age material. Any suggestion otherwise is categorically and factually inaccurate.”