Can Pornhub Make a Difference?

Disclaimer: Fight the New Drug is a non-religious and non-legislative awareness and education organization. While the individual in this interview discusses legislatively-related issues, Fight the New Drug is non-legislative.

Trigger Warning: Graphic descriptions of sex trafficking, abuse, rape, child sexual abuse materials, drug use, and suicide ideation are discussed during this conversation. Listener discretion is advised.

Nicholas Kristof is an American journalist, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and columnist for the New York Times since 2001. His investigative opinion column published on December 4, 2020, titled, “The Children of Pornhub,” shocked and educated many people around the world because it gave visibility to the stories of victims of image-based sexual abuse and child sexual abuse material who have had their violation shared on porn sites and social media platforms. The outcry in response to the article resulted in porn giant Pornhub purging their platform of unverified videos, deleting over 10 million videos from the site—but the battle won't end there. Kristof’s coverage of these issues continues the work of many journalists, advocates, and survivors in uncovering the dark side of the internet that most people do not want to think about, and exposes the implications of directly and indirectly supporting porn sites with user-uploaded content.

Listen to podcast host Garrett Jonsson talk with Nicholas about the ugly side of the porn industry, what has happened since Nicholas Kristof’s bold opinion columns were published, and what he expects he’ll do to continue to uncover the world of sexual exploitation.

Note: We are grateful that Nicholas Kristof took time out of his busy schedule to speak with us and give our listeners more insight into this topic. In the limited amount of time we were able to meet, we did our best to get through as many questions as we could, discussing questions we knew our listeners would have.

You can find Nicholas’ initial article, “The Children of Pornhub,” here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html?searchResultPosition=3

His follow-up article published five days later titled, “An Uplifting Update, on the Terrible World of Pornhub,” can be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/opinion/pornhub-news-child-abuse.html

Photo and articles credit: The New York Times.

Click here to learn more about the guest, and access the resources discussed in this episode.

To learn more about the harms of pornography on consumers, relationships, and its larger societal impacts, visit FTND.org.

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As you go about your day we invite you to increase your self-awareness, look both ways, check your blindspots, and consider before consuming.

Fight the New Drug collaborates with a variety of qualified organizations and individuals with varying personal beliefs, affiliations, and political persuasions. As FTND is a non-religious and non-legislative organization, the personal beliefs, affiliations, and persuasions of any of our team members or of those we collaborate with do not reflect or impact the mission of Fight the New Drug.