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Governments should stop cracking down on porn sites and instead honor sexual expression and help make porn normal and “boring”, Pornhub’s new boss told AFP.
Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners bought Pornhub’s parent company MindGeek three months ago, bringing a string of other sites, including YouPorn, under its control.
The acquisition also brought with it a host of legal headaches.
In May, the company’s website was taken down in the U.S. state of Utah after being asked to verify users’ ages.
In France, website owners and regulators have been negotiating for months on how to make the 2020 age-verification law work in practice.
Two of MindGeek’s sites have yet to implement any age verification and face a court ruling on July 7 that could ban them.
“We don’t want any underage users on our site,” ECP founder Solomon Friedman told AFP in an interview.
But he dismissed the idea that websites were to blame, instead calling on the operating system to find a solution.
“We strongly support an age verification solution that does two things: effectively protect children and not reveal personal data,” he said.
“The only solution to achieve both goals is device- or browser-based authentication,” he said, adding that it would be “a very easy step for Google and Apple.”
high pressure
MindGeek got into trouble in 2020 when The New York Times published allegations that material on its website depicting rape and sexual acts involving minors existed.
The article sparked intense pressure from regulators in several countries, with Visa and MasterCard halting payment processing.
The owners have spent two years trying to sell the company, which is primarily based in Canada but has a complex corporate structure that spans a number of tax havens around the world, with its official headquarters in Luxembourg.
The new owners, who include two lawyers, a former police officer and an Italian investor who made his fortune selling legal marijuana, are keen to distance themselves from the New York Times allegations.
Friedman said the company has changed radically over the past few years.
He boasted that 8 million pieces of content would be removed in 2021, a claim that AFP could not confirm.
“Content removal requests automatically result in content being removed,” he said.
“We will review it after removal.”
In addition, uploaders must provide identification, and all content is algorithmically scanned to filter out copyrighted material and then viewed by company employees before being posted online.
new marijuana
Solomon said his company started out as a check to see if MindGeek was operating legally.
“We found it to be not only legal, but an extraordinary investment opportunity, but one that required specialized skills,” he said.
ECP thought they had the skills and bought the company – although it has been a serious test since then.
Utah’s withdrawal follows an early battle in Louisiana, which has a similar age-verification law.
Solomon said their website is still online in Louisiana because the rules are slightly different — they are not required to collect personal information.
He said he did not want to prejudge any outcome in France, but could not rule out the possibility that his site would have to quit.
The issue has risen up the political agenda since President Emmanuel Macron pledged to make protecting children from pornography a priority during his re-election campaign last year.
Digital Minister Jean-Noel Barrot has called children’s access to pornography a “scandal” and has directly asked the ECP to explain how they will comply with the law.
Solomon said he had contacted Barrott’s office and promised to prepare a report soon, insisting his firm was committed to “speaking openly and proudly about the porn industry”.
“I think society has moved in a direction where we take pride in our sexual expression,” he said.
“The fact that it’s adult is going to be boring, just like the fact that (legalized) marijuana has become boring in Canada.”
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