Laila Mickelwait Profile picture
CEO/Founder, Justice Defense Fund | Founder, Traffickinghub | Bestselling Author of Takedown: Inside the Fight to Shut Down P*rnhub (Penguin Random House, 2024)
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Sep 25 5 tweets 2 min read
A 12 yr old boy in Alabama was overpowered, drugged & raped in 23 monetized videos uploaded to P*rnhub for profit with titles containing phrases like “Young ass is best.” PH said they viewed and approved each video. They also earned 35% of the sale of each rape video. Today the boy is suing P*rnhub for profiting from his horrific abuse and is battling this predatory corporation in court.

Despite this, the UK children’s charity Internet Watch Foundation has entered into a public partnership with P*rnhub. This is incomprehensible. @IWFhotline Image
Sep 12 5 tweets 2 min read
A 12 yr old boy in Alabama was drugged & raped in 23 monetized videos uploaded to P*rnhub for profit. Today he is courageously suing P*rnhub using RICO & sex trafficking statutes that produce treble damages (3x the award). His jury trial could easily put P*rnhub out of business. You can read the details of his amended complaint filed last month here documentcloud.org/documents/2504…

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Dec 16, 2023 5 tweets 4 min read
Beginning at age 7 Jane was raped and trafficked. The first recording of her being raped was made in a garage in Maryland when she was 10 years old. The abuse was then monetized and distributed on P*rnhub to 130 million daily users.

Jane sued P*rnhub in 2021.

She is aware of at least seven assault videos of her that have been distributed & monetized on P*rnhub. The seven videos were uploaded multiple times. In some instances, Jane’s traffickers forced her to upload and reupload videos of herself as a form of punishment.

She later did unsuccessful takedown demands.

We now have evidence from CEO/owner emails, employee text messages and depositions uncovered in legal discovery and published September 1, that P*rnhub owners & executives hid all child abuse videos they knew about from authorities for over 13 years and did not report any of it. This policy prevented law enforcement from finding and rescuing countless child victims for over a decade.

They had policies in place to easily allow the criminal content to be uploaded and monetized again and again. The CEO admits in emails that as a policy they didn’t verify the age or consent of any of the individuals in millions of homemade, user-generated videos they were profiting from.

The CEO emails with his executives and VPs confirmed they only had one person reviewing flagged videos 5 days a week with a backlog of 706,000 flagged videos.

The company policies as confirmed in emails by the CEO, would not put flagged videos in line for review unless they were flagged over 15 times.

Jane could have flagged her child rape 15 times and it wouldn’t have been put in a review queue.

In text messages employees say that management made it clear they “didn’t want the rules [against criminal content] to be enforced.”

The CEO acknowledged that they were “obviously hiding” these policies.

#TraffickinghubImage This is a link to Jane’s lawsuit where she and 33 other victims sued P*rnhub in federal court mindgeeklitigation.com/asset/2021.06.…
Sep 20, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
P*rnhub CAUGHT ON CAMERA Pt. 2 by Sound Investigations:

About child sexual abuse:

“We weren’t taking it seriously”

“Nobody gave a sh*t”

“We don’t have consent and we’re running ads”

“don’t have enough moderators,”

execs “made a sh*t ton of profit” This is part of an undercover investigative series by @SoundInvestig and @arden_young_ #Traffickinghub
Sep 17, 2023 5 tweets 4 min read
A 15 yr old girl was trafficked in Colombia by American, Victor Galarza (sentenced to 17.5 years in prison). Her abuse was filmed by Herbert Fletcher (sentenced to 7.5 years in prison) and then uploaded to P*rnhhub using a title with the words “school girl from Colombia” and “forced.”

Immediately upon learning of the video, the girl contacted OUR, a nonprofit dedicated to combatting child trafficking who demanded the videos be removed, but during the 7 months the video was on P*rnhub it was downloaded and reuploaded multiple times.

P*rnhub monetized her abuse videos, distributed them to 5 million users per hour and earned profit from her trauma.

The victim sued P*rnhub/MindGeek in US federal court in California.

Here is a small sample of evidence we have about P*rnhub’s complicity:

-The CEO/owner admitted in emails that they did not verify the age or consent of any of the millions of individuals in the homemade user generated sex videos on the site. (10.6 million videos and 32 million images)

- They ignored victims who were begging for their abuse videos to be taken down including underage children.

-When they did respond to victims they would hassle them to prove they were underage or victims of rape in the videos.

-Legal filings show they also ignored police demands to remove underage abuse on multiple occasions. If videos were removed they would just get uploaded again and again.

-The company had 1200 employees and was making hundreds of millions per year, yet they employed only 10 moderators per 8 hour shift for all of MindGeek/Aylo’s tube sites including P*rnhub, Redtube,YouPorn, Xtube and more.

-Moderators were reprimanded if they watched less than 700 videos per shift and were expected to watch up to 1200 with the sound off. Some of the more experienced moderators would skip through over 2000 per shift.

-Multiple whistleblower moderators have said their job was not to remove content, it was to allow as much content to go through as possible because more content=more traffic=more money.

-Legal discovery proved Pornhub had only ONE person employed 5 days a week to review flagged videos.

-They had a backlog of 706,000 flagged videos.

-They had a policy not to even review a flagged video until it has over 15 flags.

-A victim could flag their rape 15 times without ever triggering a review of the video.

-The CEO called their flagging policies “good and reasonable” in uncovered emails.

- On September 1, 2023 text messages exposed in legal discovery were published by the court where MindGeek employees said “The problem is that management does not want the rules [against criminal content] enforced.”

-The depositions published Sept. 1 confirm that P*rnhub was hiding child sexual abuse they knew about from authorities and not reporting any child rape to law enforcement for over 13 years until the #Traffickinghub movement went viral. Not reporting CSAM is a criminal offense in Canada where their headquarters is.

- The depositions confirmed P*rnhub wasn’t employing any industry standard technology tools to detect or remove child sexual abuse for over 13 years.

-The CEO admitted in emails it was obvious that they were trying to hide their policies from the credit card companies.

-Tapes were published this week of a P*rnhub senior employee who was at the company since 2007, caught on hidden camera in 2023 admitting the executives were confronted about the fact their policies encourage and allow sexual crime to easily be uploaded and monetized. The CPO told the concerned employee to “f*ck off” and “shut up.”

Hold them accountable.
Image This is a link to the victim’s lawsuit:
mindgeeklitigation.com/asset/2021.06.…
Sep 9, 2023 5 tweets 5 min read
A 15 year old from Broward County Florida was missing for a year, she was found when her distraught mother was tipped off by a Pornhub user that he recognized her child on P*rnhub. The girl was found being raped in 58 videos on on an account called “Daddys_Slut.”

Police matched the abuser’s face in the videos to 7-11 convenience store surveillance footage and identified 30 year old Christopher Johnson. When police rescued the girl from his apartment and arrested Johnson she said the videos were filmed inside the apartment and that he had impregnated her.

The videos on P*rnhub were monetized with ads and sold as pay-to-download content where P*rnhub earned 35% of the sale of the videos.

The girl’s life will never be the same.

Here is a small sample of evidence we have about P*rnhub’s complicity:

-The CEO/owner admitted in emails that they did not verify the age or consent of any of the millions of individuals in the homemade user generated sex videos on the site.

- They ignored victims who were begging for their abuse videos to be taken down including underage children.

-When they did respond to victims they would hassle them to prove they were underage or victims of rape in the videos.

-Legal filings show they also ignored police demands to remove underage abuse on multiple occasions.

-If videos were removed they would just get uploaded again and again.

-They employed only 10 moderators per 8 hour shift for all of MindGeek/Aylo’s tube sites including P*rnhub, Redtube,YouPorn, Xtube and more.

-Moderators were reprimanded if they watched less than 700 videos per shift and were expected to watch up to 1200 with the sound off. Some of the more experienced moderators would skip through over 2000 per shift.

-Multiple whistleblower moderators have come out and said their job was not to remove content, it was to allow as much content to go through as possible.

- Last week text messages that were uncovered in legal discovery were published by the court where MindGeek employees said “The problem is that management does not want the rules enforced.”

-Text messages also show employees saying that management instructed them to stop sending notices of child sexual abuse on P*rnhub to management, presumably so they could claim ignorance.

-The depositions published last week confirm that P*rnhub was hiding child sexual abuse they knew about from authorities and not reporting any child abuse for over 13 years until the #Traffickinghub movement went viral. Not reporting CSAM is a criminal offense in Canada where their headquarters is.

- The depositions confirmed P*rnhub wasn’t employing any industry standard technology tools to detect or remove child sexual abuse for over 13 years.

- Legal discovery proved Pornhub had only one person employed 5 days a week to review flagged videos.

-They had a backlog of 706,000 flagged videos.

-They had a policy not to even review a flagged video until it has over 15 flags.

-A victim could flag their rape 15 times without ever triggering a review of the video.

-The CEO called their flagging policies “good and reasonable” in emails.

-The CEO admitted in emails it was obvious that they were trying to hide their policies from the credit card companies.

All of this was intentional company policy and practice. These were all decisions made by the owners and executives.

(The comments on the image below are real P*rnhub user comments)
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Sep 9, 2023 5 tweets 4 min read
A 12 yr old girl from Ontario Canada had her sexual abuse uploaded to P*rnhub where it was monetized, globally distributed for profit & made downloadable for 130 million visitors per day.

Traumatized and desperate she contacted P*rnhub to demand they takedown her abuse videos. 5 days later she got an auto-reply and nothing else…ever. Her demand went ignored and her abuse remained on the site.

She has now filed a $600 million dollar lawsuit against P*rnhub.

A few days ago on Sept. 1 new evidence was uncovered in legal discovery that proves P*rnhub had only one person reviewing flagged videos only 5 days a week. They had a backlog of over 700,000 flagged videos and a policy to not even put a video in line for review until it had over 15 flags.

The depositions also proved P*rnhub hid child sexual abuse they knew about from authorities for over 13 years. Not reporting known online child sexual abuse is a criminal offense in Canada that carries a 14 year prison sentence.

In the documents published by the court P*rnhub employees are also on the record saying management did not want to be told about the abundance of child rape on the site and that management did not want them to enforce rules that were put on paper against criminal content.

#Traffickinghub
Image Her story and lawsuit
registredesactionscollectives.quebec/en/Fichier/Doc…



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Sep 8, 2023 4 tweets 3 min read
Serena was only 14 yrs old when nude videos of her were uploaded to P*rnhub, sending her on a spiral of trauma, including suicide attempts, homelessness, & drug addiction.

She recounted during parliamentary testimony how she begged for her abuse videos to be removed from P*rnhub over and over, and was ignored or hassled. Even when they were taken down the videos would be uploaded again.

Serena is now suing P*rnhub in federal court.

On Sept. 1 new evidence was uncovered in legal discovery that proves P*rnhub had only one person reviewing flagged videos only 5 days a week. They had a backlog of over 700,000 flagged videos and a policy to not even put a video in line for review until it had over 15 flags.

The depositions also proved P*rnhub hid child sexual abuse they knew about from authorities for over 13 years and employees are on the record saying management did not want them to enforce rules that they put on paper against criminal content.

Hold them accountable. #Traffickinghub
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Sep 6, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
A 12 year old boy in Alabama was drugged, overpowered and raped by a man now in prison for 40 years. 23 of his rape videos were uploaded and monetized on P*rnhub. Police reached out multiple times to get the videos down but were ignored.

We now have new evidence that P*rnhub intentionally employed only ONE person to review flagged videos 5 days a week. They had a backlog of 700,000 videos flagged for criminal content. Based on how they ran the company is it any surprise P*rnhub ignored police demands to takedown child rape?

#traffickinghub
Image The boy and his mother are now suing P*rnhub in federal court. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Jul 29, 2023 21 tweets 6 min read
Elon and Linda please help bring justice to countless victims globally who’ve had their rape, child abuse & sex trafficking distributed and heavily monetized by P*rnhub.

The PH crime scene shouldn’t be supported on any social media site. @elonmusk @lindayacc

THREAD Not only has PH exploited the trafficking of children and adults on their own site, they have advertised and linked to confirmed sex trafficking victims **on Twitter** in severe violation of this platform’s TOS.
May 25, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
Remember Nikki.

Tonight Nicole Addimando sleeps in a prison cell separated from her two young children because she killed the man who sexually assaulted and tortured her and uploaded her abuse to P*rnhub.

#Traffickinghub

https://t.co/NGcpzzPKUHdistractify.com/p/nikki-addima…




Mar 17, 2023 5 tweets 2 min read
Beginning at age 7 Jane* was raped, trafficked, and exploited. The abuse was recorded, monetized and distributed on P*rnhub to millions of daily users. The first recording was made in a garage in Maryland when Jane was 10 years old.

Jane sued P*rnhub in 2021.

#Traffickinghub Jane is aware of at least seven sexual abuse videos of her that have been distributed & monetized on PH. The 7 videos were uploaded multiple times. In some instances, Jane’s traffickers forced her to actually upload and reupload old videos of herself as a form of punishment.
Mar 15, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
“For 8 years, I was r*ped and beaten and video taped by hundreds of men, women and even married couples. I never thought I would live to be 18…”

Below is the story of a child victim of P*rnhub, told in her own words & shared with permission. She pleads with us to take action. “I am now 20 years old, and I am a sex and porn trafficking survivor. At the age of 9, my biological mother sold me to johns (people who buy sex) in exchange for drugs and for money. This happened until I was rescued at the age of 17 and placed into a safe house, where I was able… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Mar 7, 2023 4 tweets 3 min read
A 12 yr old boy was drugged, overpowered & repeatedly raped by Rocky Franklin in Alabama. The rapes were filmed.

23 of the rape videos were uploaded to P*rnhub & sold as pay-to-download content. PH took 35% of all sales.

Franklin is in prison.

The boy is now suing P*rnhub. Police sent takedown demands but P*rnhub ignored the police until the 3rd demand. Some assault videos stayed on the site for 7 months, available to download for 130 million site visitors per day. Franklin was sentenced to 40 years in prison. These are some of the PH video titles:
Mar 6, 2023 4 tweets 3 min read
A 12 yr old girl from Ontario Canada had her sexual abuse uploaded to P*rnhub where it was monetized, globally distributed for profit & made downloadable for 130 million visitors per day.

She’s now leading a Canadian class action lawsuit against P*rnhub for $600 million dollars. #Traffickinghub
Mar 3, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
Serena was only 14 yrs old when nude videos of her were uploaded to P*rnhub, sending her on a spiral of trauma, including suicide attempts, homelessness, & drug addiction.

Today this courageous woman is suing the hell out of P*rnhub, its executives, and Visa who enabled them. Image Read more: ImageImageImageImage
Feb 21, 2023 6 tweets 3 min read
P*rnhub verified a 15 yr old who was missing for a year into their “ModelHub” program. She was found being raped in 58 videos. PH took 35% of the profit from her rape video sales.

Twitter recently suspended P*rnhub’s ModelHub account.

This art piece was inspired by her story.
Feb 5, 2023 5 tweets 3 min read
Nicole Addimando was sent to prison in New York for killing the man who tortured her and who filmed and uploaded her sexual abuse to Pornhub. This is a recap of Nikki’s story published today distractify.com/p/nikki-addima…
Nov 11, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
A 12 yr old boy was drugged & raped on Pornhub. The videos were sold by his trafficker in a contractural profit sharing partnership with Pornhub, who refused police demands to remove them.

Shut down Pornhub and hold its executives accountable. #Traffickinghub ImageImage The boy’s rapist was sentenced to 40 years in prison. You can read all of the horrific details of this child trafficking lawsuit against Pornhub/MindGeek here #Traffickinghub storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Sep 24, 2021 6 tweets 2 min read
THREAD: This is a Pornhub child rape survivor’s story. She said “my story needs to be heard. I deserve to be heard.” Let’s listen, share and take action.

“I was drugged and gang raped when I was 16 yrs old, a year after that I found out the video had been shared on Pornhub…1/6 “I didn’t know a video of that was even made. I attempted suicide twice when I first found out & I was really young and I could never even report what happened to me…when the video was still there it had nearly a million views. It has broken me. I tried to kill myself twice…2/6
Dec 8, 2020 8 tweets 3 min read
Thread: 1. Pornhub just conceded to the pressure, admitted their guilt, & made drastic changes to the way they operate. This is a huge win for the movement! However we need reliable implementation, apologies to victims, restitution for victims & more. @NickKristof #Traffickinghub 2. Pornhub has shown that it cannot be trusted to self police. It has spent years knowingly making hundreds of millions of dollars on the bloody, bruised, abused, raped and trafficked bodies of society’s most vulnerable.