All good stories have a hero and a villain. But in, Netflix’s new documentary about the rise of Pornhub and its troubling business practices, the lines between the two are blurred. On one side there’s the apparent good guys: lawyers and activists campaigning to shut down Pornhub, which they say is a hotbed of sex trafficking and child abuse.
As does Exodus Cry, a similarly outspoken organisation. Its website claims that pornography, prostitution and stripping all fit under the umbrella of sexual exploitation and details its plan to bring the entire sex industry down by shifting culture, changing laws and reaching out to sex workers, who, in their eyes, are all victims of exploitation.
Defending Mindgeek is a hard job, and one I’m not particularly interested in. Allegedly, the site – knowingly or unknowingly – hosted unverified rape videos and profited from the ads on the same page. It’s shocking and unforgivable that the 12th most-visited company in the world would have a moderating team of just 30 people, according to an anonymous whistleblower in the documentary.