Instagram,
the photo-sharing social media platform owned by Meta, has taken down the
second account of Pornhub, one of the world’s most popular adult-content
streaming websites. This comes after Instagram deleted Pornhub’s first account @pornhub
nearly two months ago. On October 18, Pornhub announced that it was back on
Instagram with a new official account – p.hub.forever with two heart symbols.
The account was removed from October 26.

While Meta
is yet to comment on the second removal, earlier, when Pornhub’s first Instagram
account was deleted, a Meta spokesperson had said that the website had
repeatedly violated the platform’s community guidelines, including a ban on
sexual solicitation, over the course of 10 years. The violations accumulated to
a permanent shut down of Pornhub’s Instagram account, Meta said.

At the
time, the Pornhub Instagram account had 13.1 million followers and over 6,200
posts.

Also Read | Elon Musk deletes post about watching porn amid Twitter backlash

In
September, Pornhub and others released an open letter accusing Instagram of
double standard over its community guidelines. “We demand an explanation and
guidance as to why content we spend money creating in order to engage our
audience is removed, even when we do not breach any of Instagram’s rules,” the
letter, addressed to senior Meta executives, stated.

Pornhub
also pointed out that while its account was suspended, Instagram did allow
celebrities such as Kim Kardashian to post nudity on the platform.

Earlier in
the year, Mastercard and Visa cut off payment privileges to TrafficJunky, the
advertisement arm of Pornhub’s parent company MindGeek. The removal was
triggered by a federal court’s rejection of Visa’s request to be removed from a
case in which MindGeek is being sued for allegedly distributing child
pornography, according to a VARIETY report. The suit alleges Visa knowingly
facilitated MindGeek’s ability to monetise illegal content.

At the
time, MindGeek said that it has “zero tolerance for the posting of illegal
content on its platforms, and has instituted the most comprehensive safeguards
in user-generated platform history…Any insinuation that MindGeek does not take
the elimination of illegal material seriously is categorically false.”