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The 2018 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo

Source: Gabe Ginsberg / Getty

Pornhub is cracking down on videos uploaded by unverified users, new reports state.

The sitewide move is in response to a recent New York Times report that claimed underage people, including many abused children, were featured on the adult site. Mastercard and Visa began an investigation into unlawful material on Pornhub, following NYT’s allegations, and eventually decided to stop processing payments with the company.

“Pornhub made the policy change on Tuesday to ban all unverified users from uploading or downloading content to the site, and said it would expand its moderation efforts. But by Thursday, Mastercard and Visa announced that they’d both stop processing payments with the site altogether. Visa’s announcement specifically stated it would drop all of the Mindgeek network, which includes a number of adult sites, including Redtube, Youporn, XTube, and Brazzers,” VICE’s Motherboard reports. “Videos that are suspended are displaying a notice that says it has been flagged for verification ‘in accordance with our trust and safety policy.’”

As of this morning, it appeared millions of videos have been deleted from Pornhub, in accordance with the new verification policy. As far as what a “verified user”constitutes, Motherboard states:

Verified users, according to the site, are those who have submitted a selfie of themselves holding a piece of paper with their username and pornhub.com (or the Mindgeek site they’re signing up for) handwritten on it. Pornhub told Motherboard that this process will be more thorough in the new year, but didn’t provide specifics about what that will involve.”

“While Pornhub’s decision to stop unverified users from sharing videos on its site could greatly reduce abuse on its platform, it’s not a guaranteed method to stop all abuse,” Motherboard goes on to note, adding “Pornhub continued to host Girls Do Porn and even promoted it as a ‘Pornhub Content Partner’ while it was being sued by 22 of the women for fraud, emotional distress damages, and misappropriation of their likeness, and after a Motherboard investigation showed Pornhub was being used to dox and harass the women in the videos. Pornhub only removed Girls Do Porn’s official channel after Girls Do Porn’s owners were charged with federal sex trafficking counts. Other Girls Do Porn videos remained on the site via unverified uploaders who slipped by Pornhub’s faulty moderation.”

Let us know your thoughts on Pornhub’s policy change — too little, too late?