Pornhub has been suspended from Instagram, forcing fans of sexual imagery to stop lying to themselves and just go to the website.
As reported by Variety, Instagram took down Pornhub’s official account over the weekend, setting over 13 million thirsty followers adrift. It’s currently unclear whether this is a permanent suspension or only a temporary measure.
It’s also unclear exactly why the account was removed, with a screenshot shared by anti-Pornhub activist Laila Mickelwait only stating that it violated Instagram’s community guidelines. While the nature of its business makes it reasonable to assume Pornhub’s social media presence leaned toward the erotic, it reportedly didn’t post any explicit nudity or pornography that would violate parent company Meta’s nudity policy.
Mashable has contacted both Instagram and Pornhub for comment.
Some activists such as Mickelwait have already claimed Pornhub’s removal from Instagram as a victory. Mickelwait is the founder of Traffickinghub, a movement dedicated to shutting down Pornhub, and describes the porn website as “infamous for monetizing the sex trafficking and criminal sexual abuse of countless victims including children.”
However, Traffickinghub itself has also been subject to justified criticism from sex workers and industry observers, who claim its true aim is to destroy the porn industry. This is supported by the fact that Traffickinghub is backed by Exodus Cry, a Christian advocacy group for whom Mickelwait works as Director of Abolition, and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, formerly known as Morality in Media. Both of these organisations seek to abolish pornography and the sex industry altogether.
Nevertheless, sexual exploitation and trafficking is a serious concern for Pornhub and its parent company Mindgeek, which have come under scrutiny for allegedly profiting from such abuse. In 2020, a New York Times report found Pornhub hosted videos of children, prompting Mastercard and Visa to announce they would stop processing payments on the website. Mindgeek has also been the subject of several lawsuits alleging complicity in sexual exploitation.
In response, Pornhub made drastic changes to its platform. This included massively overhauling its account verification system as well as removing all videos uploaded by unverified accounts — amounting to over 10 million videos and almost 80 percent of its content.
“Over the last three years, Facebook self-reported 84 million instances of child sexual abuse material,” Pornhub wrote in a blog post at the time. “During that same period, the independent, third-party Internet Watch Foundation reported 118 incidents on Pornhub. That is still 118 too many, which is why we are committed to taking every necessary action.
“It is clear that Pornhub is being targeted not because of our policies and how we compare to our peers, but because we are an adult content platform.”
