Pornhub channel removed from YouTube: Parent company MindGeek denies policy violation

Video-streaming website YouTube has removed the channel of the pornography website Pornhub from its platform. This comes after Instagram removed the website’s account from their platform. Pornhub’s account on YouTube was created back in 2014.

The channel boasted of nearly 900,000 subscribers prior to its removal from the Alphabet-owned streaming platform.

A YouTube spokesperson has released a statement to Variety in this regard: “Upon review, we terminated the channel Pornhub Official following multiple violations of our Community Guidelines,” further adding, “We enforce our policies equally for everyone, and channels that repeatedly violate or are dedicated to violative content are terminated.”

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According to YouTube, any channel which provides links to external websites that host videos that are not allowed on YouTube itself, will be penalised.

However, the parent company of Pornhub, MindGeek, has denied that its YouTube channel has violated such policies. 

MindGeek said in a statement, “Pornhub maintains the absolute best trust and safety measures on the internet and takes special care to ensure it does not violate any of YouTube’s Community Guidelines”.

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The statement further added, “Unfortunately, this is just the latest example of discrimination against those in the adult industry, a trend seen across social media and all other facets of life, especially as groups disingenuously conflate consensual adult content with exploitation.”

National Center on Sexual Exploitation, an anti-porn organisation, had reported Pornhub’s YouTube channel on Friday. The body said after the ban, “Pornhub has lost yet another means to market and profit from exploitation, and we are grateful to YouTube for removing the account of this predatory enterprise”.

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Linda Nealon, one of the directors of the organisation, said in a statement, “Pornhub was driving people directly to their pornography site – a violation of YouTube’s policies — which mounting evidence shows is rife with child sexual abuse material, sex trafficking, rape, and image-based sexual abuse.”