November 07, 2019 |
Condiment Companies in Hot Water Over Old Pornhub Ads |
The companies behind some of the worldâs biggest condiments are caught up in a messy situation. Both Kraft Heinz (makers of Americaâs most popular ketchup) and Unilever (the parent company behind Hellmanâs mayonnaise) made waves when they advertised on Pornhub earlier this year, marking a first for major mainstream brands. But though eyebrows were raised in January by Heinzâs #foodporn ad for their frozen food line Devour (which also ran during the Superbowl in January), and later by Unileverâs Dollar Shave Club ad on the streaming porn giant, the ad campaigns went without incident…until now. Englandâs Sunday Times recently searched Pornhub for illegal content and reported that it found dozens of examples of illegal material on the website âwithin minutes.â âPornhub is awash with secretly filmed âcreepshotsâ of schoolgirls and clips of men performing sex acts in front of teenagers on buses,â the Timesâs Shanti Das reported last weekend. âThe website says it bans content showing under-18s and removes it swiftly. But some of the videos identified by this newspaperâs investigation had 350,000 views and had been on the platform for more than three years. Three of the worst clips that were flagged to Pornhub still remained on the site 24 hours later.â Meanwhile, RT.com reported, âTthe Internet Watch Foundation said it has identified dozens of examples of child sexual abuse on the website. In 2017 there were 29 cases, in 2018 there were 42 and there have been 47 instances so far this year.â The idea that the folks behind Jell-O and Fudgsicle might do business with Pornhub has, now that these revelations have come to light, upset the British people. âLabour party politician Yvette Cooper, chair of the home affairs committee, called the Timesâs findings âhorrendous.â The Times quoted her as saying, âThis material is illegal and dangerous. There is no excuse for complacency or claiming ignorance when children are being put at risk by the proliferation of this poison.â Cooper is calling for a police investigation. Yikes. Look, I find it a bit odd that, so many months after these mega corporations advertised on a site thatâs notorious for allowing its users to break numerous lawsâparticularly copyright lawsâpeople are suddenly upset. And at condiment companies, no less. Pornhub has been a literal hub of illegal activity for twelve years, but it took ketchup- and soap-making conglomeratesâ dealings with the company for anyone to take notice? Bizarre All that being said, the real issue here is that Pornhub absolutely must do better at policing the content on its site. The thing that makes Pornhub so dangerous in the first place is its come-one-come-all-just-come attitude about user-uploaded content. Whether that content is merely consensually, legally made porn thatâs uploaded without the creatorsâ knowledge (and is thus illegal), or portraying truly despicable acts involving minors (and is thus horrendously illegal), it shouldnât be allowed on the site. Period. CNBC reported, âA spokesperson for Pornhub said the site has a team of reviewers who monitor videos and report illegal content to the authorities,â but that team is clearly not doing its job. If it takes Mayochup and Q-tips to bring that reality to light, then so be it. Then again, thereâs also a matter of consumer education about pornographic content. The Pornhub spokesperson mentioned in the statement that âvideos described as âhidden camera footageâ are often legal, consensual and professionally produced to cater to particular tastes.â âConsumers of these porn websites should know that there is often no way to tell whether they are consuming images of children, and that every time they visit sites like Pornhub they are contributing to the problem,â Kate Isaacs, a spokesperson for #NotYourPorn, was quoted as saying by RT.com. I find myself wondering if the Sunday Times and the Internet Watch Foundation are really qualified to know the difference between staged content and truly illegal material. Whatever the case, however, Pornhub clearly needs to do better. As a company that regularly panders to public opinion by creating environmental clean-up campaigns, funding art gallery shows, and giving out PR-friendly awards to celebrities, it’s on the streaming giant to make their site as mainstream as they want it to be. Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels |