Pornhub owner facing proposed $600 million class-action lawsuit from Ontario woman

She was notified through a direct message on Twitter in 2019 of the existence of a video on Pornhub of herself being abused, but only saw it in 2020. She alleges that she notified the company of the video, requesting its removal, but only ever received an automated response.

The proposed class action is on behalf of people who had their intimate photos and videos shared on one of MindGeek’s platforms without their consent, including child sexual abuse content, since 2007.

The company didn’t immediately respond to the Star’s request for comment.

MindGeek is the Montreal-based parent company of Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube, as well as other similar websites. Pornhub attracts around 3.5 billion visits per month alone.

“MindGeek actively solicits, promotes and facilitates the payment for dissemination on its websites of explicit sexual images and videos, from which it generates significant profits,” the court filing states.

The class action is seeking $500 million in damages for members and a further $100 million in punitive damages for the company.

Under public pressure in December, after a New York Times columnist called out Pornhub for not doing enough to address child pornography on its website, the company removed millions of unverified videos and took away the ability for users to download videos from the platform.

Meanwhile, the federal government said that new regulations would be coming in early 2021 which would mean steep fines for companies like Pornhub that fail to be proactive about removing offending material on their websites.

The court filing includes several media reports about child pornography being found on Pornhub, including a BBC article from 2020 about a 14-year-old girl’s rape being filmed and put on the site.

The court filing goes on to criticize MindGeek for not employing enough content moderators for its websites or doing enough to keep offending material off its platforms.

It alleges MindGeek failed to verify consent for people who had their videos and images shared on its platforms, didn’t stop unverified content from being uploaded prior to last month, and didn’t have a robust video removal system in place.

It also accuses the company of failing to stop the spread of offending material more broadly through websites it owns.

On December 15, a separate lawsuit was filed in California alleging that MindGeek was aware, or should have been, that one of its partners, GirlsDoPorn, coerced women into appearing in their videos.

“GirlsDoPorn sex-trafficked hundreds of high school and college-aged women using fraud, coercion and intimidation to get the young women to film pornographic videos under the false pretense that the videos would remain private, off the internet, and never to be seen in North America,” the Montreal-court submission states.

“When in reality, GirlsDoPorn intended to publish the videos online, including on MindGeek sites.”

Throughout December, Pornhub denied that it allowed child sexual abuse content on its platform, saying that any assertion it did was “irresponsible and flagrantly untrue.”

Pornhub has said it would introduce a robust verification system and boost its moderation efforts since the public backlash it experienced in December.