In early 2020, Laila Mickelwait developed a mighty goal: prevent Pornhub, which was, at the time, the tenth-most-visited website in the world, from profiting off videos featuring rape, sexual assault and child abuse.
She spoke to a seemingly countless number of victims, many of whom were or had been underage, that were repeatedly raped on camera. The resulting videos would be uploaded and monetized by Pornhub, guaranteeing the downloadable recorded crimes would exist online forever. Moreover, Mickelwait learned, Visa, Mastercard, and Discover were also profiting from rape, sex trafficking, and child abuse by permitting their credit cards to be used for Pornhub ads, video sales, and premium memberships.
“Pornhub is not a porn site, it’s a crime scene,” Mickelwait writes in her new book, Takedown: Inside the Fight to Shut Down Pornhub for Child Abuse, Rape, and Sex Trafficking (Thesis, $30, 320 pgs., hardcover). TAKEDOWN reveals the never-before-told inside story of how P*rnhub was exposed for enabling and profiting from countless videos of child rape and trafficking. But the fight isn’t over yet! Victims deserve justice.
Watch & share this video, then learn more at the link below. pic.twitter.com/GwTAafsDcL
— Laila Mickelwait (@LailaMickelwait) July 9, 2024
Mickelwait has been studying and fighting against sex trafficking for 20 years. She is the co-founder and CEO of Justice Defense Fund, a nonprofit “dedicated to ending impunity for abusers and bringing justice to victims of online sexual crime,” according to its site. She is also the founder of Traffickinghub, a movement she established to shut down Pornhub. Mickelwait had previously served as the director of abolition for the anti-slavery, anti-trafficking organization Exodus Cry.
Takedown presents a chronological account of Mickelwait’s dogged efforts to hold the owners and operators of Pornhub accountable.
Though she encountered every conceivable kind of resistance along the way, within a year the effort she spearheaded was responsible for what the Financial Times referred to as “probably the biggest takedown of content in internet history.” The site removed 80 percent of its content by deleting over 10 million unverified videos and 30 million images.
“Over the next two years they were financially crippled because Visa, Mastercard, and Discover suspended all business with the site – leaving them with only cryptocurrency and bank wires as payment options,” Mickelwait writes. “Today, Pornhub is facing landmark and individual class-action lawsuits on behalf of hundreds of victims, totaling billions in potential damages.”
But as the book, which reads like a neo-noir page-turner, makes clear, the fight continues today.
“We need to see Pornhub delete the remaining unverified content from the site because, without that, the site will continue to be infested with illegal content—however, that won’t be enough,” Mickelwait told SCNR News. “We need Pornhub to be completely shut down, a proper criminal prosecution initiated against the company and its owners, and policies to be enacted that demand reliable, third-party, age, and consent verification for every individual in every video on every website that distributes user-generated porn to stop this abuse across the internet.”
“It is no exaggeration to say this is a life and death issue,” she continued. “For victims of online sexual crime, the trauma is so severe that it can be debilitating. Surveys have shown that nearly 50% of these victims have suicidal ideations due to having the worst moments of their lives immortalized online for profit and pleasure. Many of these victims are children and young teens, and we must urgently stop this kind of abuse from being monetized and distributed online.”
Though Takedown chronicles a period of time Mickelwait describes as “particularly intense,” she maintains a singular focus on shutting down Pornhub for its ongoing criminal activity.
“I am committed to not stopping until justice is fully served,” she said. “This is essential to bring justice, healing, and closure to victims and to be a deterrent to future abusers.”
“Once we accomplish the goals of the Traffickinghub movement to hold Pornhub fully accountable, I think it would be important to focus on any other websites that may engage in similar behavior,” she added. “At the end of the day, I want to see the Internet become a safer place for generations to come.”
