She took on world's largest porn site for profiting off child abuse. She's winning.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2024/07/28/pornhub-videos-sex-trafficking-laila-mickelwait/74532636007/Open linkView original on lemmy.world101
Comments25
Never, ever, EVER trust ANYONE who says they're doing something "for the safety of children". The war against porn and sex work has been co-opted by christian fascists.
Make no mistake, there is a hysteria around "child trafficking" nowadays, and that hysteria is being harnessed to pass laws that suppress our freedoms. SESTA/FOSTA has put the lives of countless sex workers at risk by forcing them back into the shady world of pimps and back alleys. The Texas ID law is pure government surveillance, and Project 2025 explicitly linked any trans people's mere existence as "pornographic" and thus subject to all anti-porn laws.
Human trafficking is real. Child abuse is real. And it needs to be fought against.
But never EVER trust anyone who goes to the media and starts shouting about "our children". It's a fucking scam, and it's usually making things worse for the people they claim to want to protect.
https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/world/an-activist-tried-to-take-down-trafficking-on-pornhub-did-she-do-more-harm-than-good/ar-BB1qM6Ue
Fuck this bitch. Did she help some children? Maybe. But that's not why she did it.
Wow, great article, but it has even more info pointing out that this is a far right attack on sexuality that is using "trafficking" as its trojan horse:
That's dark
It's kind of insane how this can just fly under the radar. I don't think I've ever seen any sus stuff on big tube sites. Was this before amateur purge?
I don't think it's that unbelievable. There used to be so many amateur videos with like 1-5 views.
In case readers wants a journalist’s take instead of the subject themselves, link below. I think anyone noticing the hyperbolic way she spoke in the interview would quickly be seeking out a non-first-person perspective. The interviewer didn’t even allude to the pre-existing controversy around this lady, what terrible journalism.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pornhub-traffickinghub-laila-mickelwait-book-b2585302.html
This anecdote from the article is technically hearsay, but I for sure buy that a person who uses language like she does is the same kind of person who’d write this:
Hell, depending on the size of the target, I can do that too
Yeah, if you make the target "Florida", I think I could just about manage it too.
I've been skeptical of her work. She makes a lot of valid points about PH's shortcomings and things they need to fix, but she was also a prominent voice in spreading misinformation about at least one actress that I'm aware of, going hard into very serious accusations all based on a single tweet from some random person, causing pretty significant damage to the actress's career as now many platforms are afraid to host her content. To the best of my knowledge, she's never recanted the claims, although just about every media outlet that reported on that story has deleted their articles on it.
She seems to put about as much work into fact-checking herself as PH puts into protecting their users. And when you're dealing with a subject as intense as producing CSAM, you really shouldn't be loosey-goosey with your vetting process. I feel like she's doing this more to get eyes on her book deal than to actually help people.
Which actress?
Ellesclub. Mickelwait had spread this claim across a few of her Twitter accounts that Ellesclub was a trafficking victim and was underage in the videos on PH at the time. Most of the proof she refers to doesn't actually exist, though.
The most concrete proof she's put out was Elles' stated age on her social/content profiles. Because apparently Mickelwait can't think of any reason why a pornstar's bio would say she's been 18 for ten years straight.
Probably trying to avoid alcohol and renting cars. Definitely nothing to do with anything that rhymes with Square Lee: Bee Pal
Totally thought you meant non porn when you said actress. I could definitely see how that would mess up someone's career when they are in porn.
The whole article reads like a pathetic plug for her new book.
When trying to click on the authors web page, Ingtid Jaqcues, the link is broken. To me, the whole article gives the gross vibe of being written as a favor.
Seems like pornhub really need to step up their game wtf
Pornhub is just one of maaaaaaaany websites. They're just the most famous.
Sure. It's applicable to all of them.
Cut one head, another takes its place.
PresumablyHopefully they have since they had the mass deletion of unverified content a few years ago.She probably hasn't visited Motherless.
If she thinks pornhub it's evil she is just a noob tbh..
Edit: BTW what happened to lolita airlines logs? Let me guess: nothing..
She wants to cancel pornhub voting for pedo politicians.. good joke.
Didnt pornhub block Texas because they wanted age verification? Like theyre very publically against it.
I think pornhub has some explainIng to do. A lot of explaining to do
That is a separate issue. The Age verification law is for viewers. PornHub doesn't want to store, or be responsible for, your Driver's License info.
I happen to side with PornHub on this one. It's a privacy issue, and the age verification is just an initial step in the direction of censorship.
Now verifying identity/ages of the performers, supporting the fight against sex trafficking and the predation of minors, that is worth putting restrictions on PornHub.
I think you're thinking of users' ages not posters' age. They don't verify the age of people watching videos and they are publicly against that. I don't know how they feel about validating the age of people in videos.
They realized it would get their asses handed to them a while back. They at least supposedly have some sort of verification system now and they've cut out a lot of videos because of their new verification requirements.