Pornhub
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About
Pornhub is a pornographic video hosting website owned by the global IT company MindGeek and is part of a large network of adult entertainment websites, including YouPorn, Redtube and XTube.
History
Pornhub was launched by online developer Matt Keezer on May 24th, 2007. In 2010, the company MindGeek (formerly known as Manwin) purchased Pornhub for an undisclosed amount.[1][2] On September 4th, 2014, Pornhub announced it would be joining the online Internet Slowdown Day protests in support of net neutrality. As of March 2015, the site maintains offices and servers in San Francisco, Houston, New Orleans and London.
Ad Contest
In May 2014, Pornhub launched a contest for participants to submit non-pornographic ads for the site. In October that year, the winning ad was announced and placed up on a large billboard in Times Square, New York City, featuring two hands forming a heart around a Pornhub logo and the caption "All you need is a hand" (shown below).[4][5] On October 8th, Pornhub announce that the billboard had been taken down.
Pornhub Space Program – Sexploration
On June 10th, 2015 Pornhub announced a crowdfunding campaign via Indiegogo that would seek to launch two porn stars, Eva Lovia and Johnny Sins, into space to create the first pornographic film in space. The site asked its users and other interested parties to help it raise $3.4 million dollars, most of which would be used for space flight, training and equipment for their stars.[15]
The day after its release, the funding campaign video had over 424,000 views and 512 people had donated more than $9,000 towards its goal. The type of crowdfunding used indicated that if the goal was not met, the mission would not be completed. About its lofty mission, Pornhub explained:
…Pornhub is teaming up with top ranking adult studio Digital Playground in joining the ranks of Armstrong and Gagarin by pioneering a one of a kind mission to defy gravity, make history, and push the boundaries of intergalactic "Sexploration" by filming the first ever sextape in space. In doing so, we will not only be changing the face of the adult industry, we will also be chronicling how a core component of human life operates while in orbit.
Social Media Presence
Pornhub is known for having a significant online presence in social media,[6] with accounts for the site maintained by community coordinator Katie Kenzi on Reddit,[7] Instagram,[8] Twitter[9] and Tumblr.[10] On September 13th, 2011, a former lead developer for Pornhub participated in an "ask me anything" (AMA) thread on the /r/IAmA[11] subreddit. On January 7th, 2014, the Pornhub team launched another AMA on /r/IAmA,[3] gaining over 3,500 votes (94% upvoted) and 15,400 comments prior to being archived.
Features
Pornhub allows users to view and rate pornographic videos in a variety of categories, share videos on social media sites and post comments on media uploaded to the site. In October 2013, Pornhub launched the "Pornhub Select" service allowing users to view high-definition videos with reduced advertisements.
Highlights
Give Her the Dick
"Give Her The Dick" is an expression used on imageboards and discussion forums in reference to an infamous comment left on Pornhub by user ross53545 in 2009, which is often associated with the user's avatar featuring a portrait of the French philosopher René Descartes.
Pornhub Comments on Stock Photos
PornHub Comments On Stock Photos is a single topic blog featuring stock photographs of people posing in front of notebook computers and captioned with lewd Pornhub comments.
Joke Video Uploads
Many users have uploaded clean videos to the site for pranking purposes. On July 8th, 2014, the @Pornhub Twitter feed asked users to stop uploading game highlights from Germany's victory over Brazil during the 2014 FIFA World Cup (shown below). Within eight months, the tweets gained over 42,000 retweets and 22,000 favorites. The following month, a montage parody video titled "Meme Orgy Gets Nasty" was submitted to the site,[14] which garnered more than 30,000 views and 250 upvotes in nine months.
Mia Khalifa
On December 28th, 2014, Pornhub announced that actress Mia Khalifa had become the most popular adult film star on the website (shown below).
Pornhub Grease Poles Tweet
Following the victory of the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL playoffs in January 2018, earning them a position in Super Bowl LII, on January 21st, the official Philadelphia Police tweeted[16] a picture of a container Crisco vegetable shortening, implying that they would be greasing poles to keep celebrating fans from climbing street lights. They wrote, "Now comes the time in the night where we must warn everyone about the dangers of Saturated Fats. Cheers for #Foles! Jeers for #Poles! It's a long way down, baby. Celebrate responsibly!" The post (shown below) received more than 6,100 retweets and 11,000 likes in one week.
About one week later, on January 31st, the official Pornhub Twitter[17] account posted a picture of "Pornrub" water-based lubricant. They captioned the post ".@PhillyPolice heard that you may be looking for an alternative to @Crisco for greasing up the poles this weekend – can we interest you in a few barrels of Pornhub lube?" The post (shown below) received more than 320 retweets and 670 likes in 24 hours.
Valentine's Day
On February 14, 2013, Pornhub began offering "Pornhub Premium" for free on Valentine's Day. In 2018, Pornhub released insights into the Valentine's Day traffic for 2017. There was a 308% increase in traffic on one day (February 14th) compared to the monthly average (shown below).[18]
In 2017, visitors from Chile, Mexico, Peru and Columbia had the greatest increase in new visitors to Pornhub Premium (shown below, left). Searches for “valentine,” “cupid” and “love” were up (shown below, right).
On February 9th, 2019, @Pornhub[17] tweeted a reminder: "FREE PORNHUB PREMIUM ON VALENTINES DAY" (shown below). The tweet gained 952 retweets and 3,208 likes in two days.
Many Twitter users responded to the tweet with GIFs and reaction images (shown below).
Pornhub LifePlan
On November 21st, 2019, Pornhub announced a premium lifetime membership for their service. The subscription is a one-time fee of $299, giving buyers unlimited access to Pornhub Premium for life. The price will be part of a Pornhub black Friday promotion.
That day, the company published an advertisement for LifePlan on YouTube. The post received more than 50,000 views in less than 24 hours (shown below).
Pornhub Purge
Dec. 8th, 2020, Pornhub announced on their blogpost[19] an update to the Trust and Safety guidelines for their HelpCenter[23] to further their stance on nonconsensual activity and abuse. Dec. 10th, a blogpost[20] alerting partners in their model program that transactions on the site are temporarily disabled, revising the verification process, and banning all user that are not in the model program from uploading content. Dec.13, another blogpost[21] continuing with their commitment to trust and safety, stating the banning of uploads/downloads, partnerships with nonprofit organizations, major policy changes, suspended all content not under the model program, and a statement on reasons for and why the changes are happening. This announcement was then pinned on their Twitter[22] account a day later.
The latest on our commitment to trust and safety.https://t.co/9Rf7I33wbC pic.twitter.com/xsmPg23zOq
— Pornhub ARIA (@Pornhub) December 14, 2020
Trust and Safety
![Pornhub Help Center O English (US) ♥ Submit a request Sign in Pornhub Our Commitment to Trust and Safety Our Commitment to Trust and Safety The Pornhub Community > Policies and Related Guidelines > At Pornhub, nothing is more important than the safety of our community. Our core values such as inclusivity, freedom of Reporting Abuse And Violations > expression and privacy are only possible when our platform is trusted by our users. This is why we have always been committed to eliminating illegal content, including non-consensual material and child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Every online platform Sexual Wellness & Mental Health > has the moral responsibility to join this fight, and it requires collective action and constant vigilance. Support RTA [Restricted to Adults] Over the years, we have put in place robust measures to protect our platform from non-consensual content. We are constantly > Compliance improving our trust and safety policy to better flag, remove, review and report illegal material. While leading non-profit and advocacy groups recognize that our efforts have been effective, we know there is more to do. Requesting Personal Information > In April 2020, we retained outside experts to independently review our compliance program and make recommendations that focus on eliminating all illegal content and achieving a "best-in-class" program that sets the standard for the technology industry. Today, we are taking major steps to further protect our community. Going forward, we will only allow properly identified users to upload content. We have banned downloads. We have made some key expansions to our moderation process, and we recently launched a Trusted Flagger Program with dozens of non-profit organizations. Earlier this year, we also partnered with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and next year we will issue our first transparency report. Full details on our expanded policies can be found below. If you wish to report any content that violates our terms of service, including CSAM or other illegal content, please click this link. 1. Verified Uploaders Only Effective immediately, only content partners and people within the Model Program will be able to upload content to Pornhub. In the new year, we will implement a verification process so that any user can upload content upon successful completion of identification protocol. 2. Banning Downloads Effective immediately, we have removed the ability for users to download content from Pornhub, with the exception of paid downloads within the verified Model Program. In tandem with our fingerprinting technology, this will mitigate the ability for content already removed from the platform to be able to return. 3. Expanded Moderation We have worked to create comprehensive measures that help protect our community from illegal content. In recent months we deployed an additional layer of moderation. The newly established "Red Team" will be dedicated solely to self- auditing the platform for potentially illegal material. The Red Team provides an extra layer of protection on top of the existing protocol, proactively sweeping content already uploaded for potential violations and identifying any breakdowns in the moderation process that could allow a piece of content that violates the Terms of Service. Additionally, while the list of banned keywords on Pornhub is already extensive, we will continue to identify additional keywords for removal on an ongoing basis. VWe will also regularly monitor search terms within the platform for increases in phrasings that attempt to bypass the safeguards in place. Pornhub's current content moderation includes an extensive team of human moderators dedicated to manually reviewing every single upload, a thorough system for flagging, reviewing and removing illegal material, robust parental controls, and utilization of a variety of automated detection technologies. These technologies include: • CSAI Match, YouTube's proprietary technology for combating Child Sexual Abuse Imagery online • Content Safety API, Google's artificial intelligence tool that helps detect illegal imagery • PhotoDNA, Microsoft's technology that aids in finding and removing known images of child exploitation • Vobile, a fingerprinting software that scans any new uploads for potential matches to unauthorized materials to protect against banned videos being re-uploaded to the platform. If a user encounters a piece of content they think may violate the Terms of Service, we encourage them to immediately flag the video or fill out the Content Removal Request Form, which is linked on every page. Our policy is to immediately disable any content reported in the Content Removal Request Form for review. 4. Trusted Flagger Program We recently launched a Trusted Flagger Program, a new initiative empowering non-profit partners to alert us of content they think may violate our Terms of Service. The Trusted Flagger Program consists of more than 40 leading non-profit organizations in the space of internet and child safety. Our partners have a direct line of access our moderation team, and any content identified by a Trusted Flagger is immediately disabled. Partners include: Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (United States of America), National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (United States of America), Internet Watch Foundation (United Kingdom), Stopline (Austria), Child Focus (Belgium), Safenet (Bulgaria), Te Protejo Hotline - I Protect You Hotline (Colombia), CZ.NIC - Stop Online (Czech Republic ), Point de Contact (France), Eco-Association of the Internet Industry (Germany), Safeline (Greece), Save the Children (lceland), Latvian Internet Association (Latvia), Meldpunt Kinderporno - Child P---------- Reporting Point (Netherlands), Centre for Safer Internet Slovenia (Slovenia), FPB Hotline - Film and Publication Board (South Africa), ECPAT (Sweden), ECPAT (Taiwan). 5. NCMEC Partnership Last year, we voluntarily partnered with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in order to transparently report and limit incidents of CSAM on our platform. In early 2021, NCMEC will release our total number of reported CSAM incidents alongside numbers from other major social and content platforms. We will also continue to work with law enforcement globally to report and curb any issues of illegal content. 6. Transparency Report In 2021, we will release a Transparency Report detailing our content moderation results from 2020. This will identify not just the full number of reports filed with NCMEC, but also other key details related to the trust and safety of our platform. Much like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other tech platforms, Pornhub seeks to be fully transparent about the content that should and should not appear on the platform. This will make us the only adult content platform to release such a report. 7. Independent Review As part of our commitment, in April 2020 we hired the law firm of Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP to conduct an independent review of our content compliance function, with a focus on meeting legal standards and eliminating all non-consensual content, CSAM and any other content uploaded without the meaningful consent of all parties. We requested that the goal of the independent review be to identify the requisite steps to achieve a "best-in-class" content compliance program that sets the standard for the technology industry. Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP is continuing its review, but has already identified and categorized a comprehensive inventory of remedial recommendations, supported by dozens of additional sub- recommendations, in addition to the steps identified above, based on an evaluation and assessment of our current policies and practices. Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP is soliciting information to assist with its review and in developing recommendations regarding our compliance policies and procedures. If you would like to provide compliance suggestions, you can do so here. PH The Pornhub Community Policies and Related Guidelines Reporting Abuse And Violations • About The Community • About our Policies and Related • Pornhub Trusted Flagger Guidelines Program • Core Values • Non-Consensual Content Policy • Reporting Abuse and Violations • Accessibility • Child Sexual Abuse Material • Report Harmful Content Policy • Content Removal Request Form • Violent Content Policy • Copyright Removal Requests • Copyright • Feedback, General Inquiries, and Technical Support Sexual Wellness & Mental Health RTA [Restricted to Adults] Compliance Requesting Personal Information Support • Parental Controls • Notice To Our Users • Sexual Wellness Center • Notice To Law Enforcement • Mental Health © Pornhub](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/965/015/20c.png "this is what clicking on nearly any video on pornhub gets you now.")
Traffic
On January 7th, 2015, Pornhub[13] released an annual traffic report, revealing that a total of 78.9 billion videos were viewed on the site over the course of 2014. As of March 2015, Pornhub.com holds a global rank of 75 and a United States rank of 73 on the traffic analytics site Alexa.[12]
Search Interest
External References
[1] New York Magazine – The Geek Kings of Smut
[2] Spiegel – Fabian Thylmann and his Revolutionary Porn Business Model
[3] Reddit – We are the Pornhub Team – AMA!
[4] Adweek – Here are the 15 finalists for Pornhub's search for a brilliant non pornographic ad
[5] Adweek – Pornhub Erects a Huge Billboard in Times Square after long search for a great non pornographic ad
[6] Pornhub – Get social with pornhub twitter
[7] Reddit – /u/Katie_Pornhub
[8] Instagram – Katie_Pornhub
[10] Tumblr (via Wayback Machine) – Pornhub
[11] Reddit – IAmA Former Lead Developer of Pornhub
[12] Alexa – pornhubcom
[13] Pornhub – 2014 Year in Review
[14] Pornhub – Meme Orgy Gets Nasty
[15] IndieGoGo – Pornhub Space Program – SEXPLORATION
[16] Twitter – @PhillyPolice's Tweet
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Top Comments
iotacom
Dec 16, 2020 at 09:15PM EST
Muffinlicious Moderator
Mar 17, 2015 at 08:55PM EDT