Popular social media platform Instagram recently suspended the account of Pornhub, an online pornography website, on its site. The suspended account had more than 13 million followers and 6,000 posts. Meta, Instagram’s parent company, is yet to comment on the matter.
This is the second time since August that Pornhub’s owners have been dealt a similar shock after Visa and Mastercard disabled their payment gateway for TrafficJunky, MindGeek‘s advertising company. MindGeek is also currently being sued for allegedly showing pornographic videos that are non-consensual in nature and involve children.
Also Read: Top execs resign as Pornhub accused of hosting children’s explicit videos
The suspended account of Pornhub had shared pornographic photos and videos on Instagram and according to a National Center on Sexual Exploitation spokesperson, they also promoted pornographic content ‘directly’ and encouraged users to become performers in the industry through videos named “Next Career Goal”. The NCOSE is among several parties which voiced their opinion to remove Pornhub’s account from Instagram.
“Instagram is courageously choosing to stop partnering with Pornhub, and it is time for all corporate entities to follow its example,” NCOSE CEO Dawn Hawkins told Variety.
What is Instagram’s policy on pornographic content?
“We don’t allow nudity on Instagram. This includes photos, videos and some digitally-created content that show sexual intercourse, genitals and close-ups of fully-nude buttocks,” Instagram’s community guidelines read.
“It also includes some photos of female nipples, but photos in the context of breastfeeding, birth giving and after-birth moments, health-related situations (for example, post-mastectomy, breast cancer awareness or gender confirmation surgery) or an act of protest are allowed. Nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is OK too,” it says.
Also Read: In latest accusation, Pornhub sued for hosting non-consensual videos
While if these guidelines are enforced or not is a different discussion, Pornhub’s account allegedly violated these terms laid out by Instagram to use its services.
However, other accounts of Pornhub on different social media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube are active, where it has been sharing “safe-for-work” video content.
MindGeek was sued by more than 20 plaintiffs in 2021 for allegedly exploiting and monetizing pornographic content involving children, sexual offence videos, trafficking and stolen videos.