I’m honestly exhausted by seeing all the takes on what Pornhub did from people who know literally nothing about the porn world or the sex industry. This story is incredibly complicated and it keeps getting flattened to support unrelated points. https://twitter.com/caseynewton/status/1338519875010973700

Pornhub removing all unverified content is something that should have happened over a decade ago. That outcome is not bad. What’s bad is that that end wasn’t achieved by people whose content was being stolen and livelihoods destroyed advocating for it. It was triggered by Visa.

I’m irritated by the Section 230 analogy because pornographers are major defenders of Section 230 because *it protects pornographers*. But so does Pornhub purging unverified content — even if that decision was triggered by anti-porn forces.

And given that the videos weren’t purged because they were objectionable content but because there was no way to prove that the person uploading it had a right to upload it — which is, really, the crux of something like revenge porn — this is more like YouTube’s purge a while ago

My typical refrain when I see shit like this is “why didn’t these pubs hire me to write this” but right now I’m way too overscheduled with work to actually take on other shit, and so it just... I mean it should be me alone* making these points!

* And it isn’t, to be clear

I’m frustrated that after so many years of me banging the drum about how the porn industry and its specific, complicated history and slate of legal regulations matter people at mainstream outlets still don’t think they need to understand any of it to write about porn or sex toys.

But you do! And you do even when it’s just a quick news hit! Because otherwise you fuck up the story and get so much stuff wrong.

Also Pornhub removing millions of videos instantly *is* a story about Visa’s power, but it’s also a story about how deeply reliant Pornhub has been on theft from its own community — even up to today.

I feel like *someone* has to have had that take, but I haven’t seen it! But like, those millions of videos that disappeared? I guarantee you most weren’t child abuse content or revenge porn. They were pirated clips uploaded without the consent of their creators or stars.

Also, like, I dunno, the headline here, from a user perspective is, “More porn than you could ever watch in your lifetime disappeared from a site that still hosts more porn than you could ever watch in your lifetime”

You may not be able to watch every porn clip you could possibly want to watch for free anymore: some stuff you might have found hot is gone forever, and some of it you have to pay for, but like... in the realm of tiny violin tragedies, this one requires an electron microscope.