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Pornhub is a Canadian-owned
internet pornography Internet pornography is any pornography that is accessible over the internet, primarily via websites, FTP servers peer-to-peer file sharing, or Usenet newsgroups. The availability of widespread public access to the World Wide Web in late 1990s ...
website. It is one of several pornographic video-streaming websites owned by MindGeek. , Pornhub is the 10th-most-trafficked website in the world and the second-most-trafficked adult website after XVideos. Pornhub was launched in
Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...
, Canada, in 2007. Pornhub also has an office and servers in
Limassol Limassol (; el, Λεμεσός, Lemesós ; tr, Limasol or ) is a city on the southern coast of Cyprus and capital of the district with the same name. Limassol is the second largest urban area in Cyprus after Nicosia, with an urban populatio ...
,
Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ...
. In March 2010, the company was bought by MindGeek (known then as Manwin), which owns numerous other pornographic websites. The site is available internationally but has been blocked by some individual countries such as
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
,
mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the China, People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming Island, Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territorie ...
, the
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
,
Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
and
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
. It offers virtual reality porn, amongst other products, and hosts the Pornhub Awards annually. Incidents have been reported of Pornhub hosting non-consensual pornography. The company has been criticized for slow or inadequate responses to some of these incidents, including the hosting of the high-profile channel
GirlsDoPorn GirlsDoPorn was an American pornographic website active from 2009 until 2020. In October and November 2019, six people involved were charged on counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion. In December 2019, two more individuals we ...
, which was closed in 2019 following a lawsuit and charges of
sex trafficking Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery. Perpetrators of the ...
. In December 2020, following a ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' article on such content, payment processors Mastercard and Visa cut their services to Pornhub. On 14 December 2020, Pornhub removed all videos by unverified users. This reduced the content from 13million to 4million videos.


History

Pornhub was founded by web developer Matt Keezer as a website within the company Interhub, and launched on 25 May 2007. In March 2010, the company was purchased by Fabian Thylmann as part of the Manwin conglomerate, now known as MindGeek. In 2013, Thylmann sold his stake in the company to senior management – Feras Antoon and David Tassillo. As part of MindGeek, Pornhub makes up one of several pornographic websites in the company's "Pornhub Network", alongside YouPorn, RedTube, and others. Though not the most popular pornographic website, Pornhub is the single largest such website on the internet, hosting more videos than any similar site. The website allows visitors to view pornographic videos from a number of categories, including professional and amateur pornography. Users can share videos on social media websites and leave "like" or "dislike" votes. Users may also optionally register a free Pornhub account, which additionally allows them to post comments, download videos and add videos to their favourites, as well as upload videos themselves. Videos can be flagged if they contain content which violates the website's terms of service. In an effort to introduce quality curation to the site, the company launched a service called "Pornhub Select" in October 2013. Pornhub also launched a content curation website on 9 October 2013 called "PornIQ", which uses an algorithm to create personalized video playlists for the viewer based on a number of factors, including their porn preferences, the time of day they're visiting the website, what part of the world they live in and the amount of time the viewer has to watch the video(s). David Holmes of PandoDaily noted that Pornhub's data-intensive approach to playlists set it apart from previous attempts at user-generated playlists, and marked a new trend in the switch from content searching to passive curation among Web 2.0 websites. As of 2009, three of the largest pornographic sites "RedTube, YouPorn and PornHub—collectively make up 100 million unique visitors". In June 2015, Pornhub announced that it was going to make a pornographic film featuring real-life sex in space, named ''Sexplorations''. The site hoped to launch the mission and shoot the movie in 2016, covering the pre- and post-production costs itself but seeking $3.4 million from IndieGogo crowdfunders. If funded, the film would have been slated for a 2016 release, following six months of training for the two performers and six-person crew. On 1 February 2016, Pornhub launched an online casino, powered by Betsoft, Endorphina and 1x2 gaming software. In October 2017, vice president Corey Price announced that Pornhub would use
computer vision Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the human ...
and
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech ...
software to identify and tag videos on the website with information about the performers and sex acts. Price said the company planned to scan its entire library beginning in early 2018. On 17 April 2018, the site began accepting Verge cryptocurrency as a payment option. In December 2020, following a
column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression (physical), compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column i ...
in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' by Nicholas Kristof that was critical of the company, payment processors Mastercard and Visa cut their services to Pornhub. Pornhub then removed all videos by unverified users.


Non-consensual pornography

Pornhub employs Vobile to search for uploads of banned videos to remove them from the site, and non-consensual content or personally identifiable information present on Pornhub can be reported to the company via an online form. Pornhub has been criticized for its response to non-consensual pornography and sex trafficking. Journalists at ''
Vice A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character t ...
'' commented that Pornhub profits from "content that's destroyed lives, and continues to do harm". ''
Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
'' said that the move reflected a larger trend of Internet platforms using verification to classify sources. In 2009, a 14-year-old girl was
gang rape Gang rape, also called serial gang rape, group rape, or multiple perpetrator rape in scholarly literature,Ullman, S. E. (2013). 11 Multiple perpetrator rape victimization. Handbook on the Study of Multiple Perpetrator Rape: A Multidisciplinary Re ...
d at knifepoint and claims the videos were uploaded to Pornhub. The girl stated that she emailed Pornhub repeatedly over a period of six months, but received no reply. After she impersonated a lawyer, the videos were removed. Another case in October 2019 involved a man who faces charges of lewd and lascivious battery of a 15-year-old girl, videos of which were discovered on Pornhub, Modelhub,
Periscope A periscope is an instrument for observation over, around or through an object, obstacle or condition that prevents direct line-of-sight observation from an observer's current position. In its simplest form, it consists of an outer case with ...
, and
Snapchat Snapchat is an American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually only available for a short time before the ...
that led to his arrest. The UK based activist group Not Your Porn was founded by the friend of a woman whose iCloud storage had been hacked, leading to the hacker posting sexually explicit photos and videos on Pornhub alongside her full name. Pornhub removed the video when reported, but clones of the video using her full name replicated faster than the videos were removed. The woman found that "the fractured communication system at Pornhub has meant this has become an increasingly excruciating process". The founder of Not Your Porn reported that fifty women contacted her over a six-month period about non-consensual online pornography featuring them, thirty of whom reported that the videos were uploaded to Pornhub. In 2019, the official
GirlsDoPorn GirlsDoPorn was an American pornographic website active from 2009 until 2020. In October and November 2019, six people involved were charged on counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion. In December 2019, two more individuals we ...
channel, verified by Pornhub, was removed from the site. It was the 20th-largest channel on the website. On 10 October 2019, the two owners of GirlsDoPorn along with two employees were arrested on three counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion, after a civil lawsuit filed in July. The channel was removed a week afterwards, which journalists at ''
Daily Dot ''The Daily Dot'' is a digital media company covering the culture of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Founded by Nicholas White in 2011, ''The Daily Dot'' is headquartered in Austin, Texas. The site, conceived as the Internet's "hometown ...
'' and ''
Motherboard A motherboard (also called mainboard, main circuit board, mb, mboard, backplane board, base board, system board, logic board (only in Apple computers) or mobo) is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expand ...
'' said was a slow response to the incident. Additionally, the videos could still be found afterwards unofficially on Pornhub's website. The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) found 118 instances of child sexual abuse material on Pornhub between 2017 and 2019. Pornhub rapidly removed this content. An IWF spokesperson said that other social networks and communication tools posed more of an issue than Pornhub in regard to this type of content. In 2020, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reported that over 20 million reports of child sexual abuse material related to content on
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
, accounting for 95% of total reports, and that Pornhub and other MindGeek sites were the subject of only 13,000 reports. In response to abusive content on the site, an online petition calling for the shutdown of Pornhub gained over one million signatures throughout 2020. The petition was started by Laila Mickelwait, Director of Abolition at
Exodus Cry Exodus Cry is an American Christian non-profit advocacy organization for helping sex trafficking victims as well as seeking the abolition of the legal commercial sex industry, including pornography, strip clubs, and sex work, as well as illegal ...
, a Christian anti-trafficking and anti-sex work non-profit, and was addressed to the executives of MindGeek, the parent company of Pornhub. The petition notes numerous instances of non-consensual and child abuse material on the website, including a child trafficking victim who was made a "verified model" by the site. In response to the petition, Pornhub claimed they were committed to removing such material from the site. In December 2020, Nicholas Kristof's opinion column in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' described Pornhub as a company which "monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags." In response to the column, Pornhub announced it would prevent video uploads from unverified users and would disable video downloads. Visa and Mastercard also announced they would review their financial ties to Pornhub. On 10 December 2020, Mastercard and Visa blocked use of their cards on Pornhub. Pornhub told the ''New York Times'' that these claims were "irresponsible and flagrantly untrue". On 14 December 2020, Pornhub announced that all videos posted by unverified users had been removed from public access "pending verification and review". This reduced the number of videos on the website from 13million to 4million. In Brazil, according to Clayton Nunes, CEO of ''
Brasileirinhas ''Brasileirinhas'' is a Brazilian pornographic film studio founded in the late 1990's by Luis Alvarenga. ''Brasileirinhas'' label has some of the most famous pornographic performers of Brazil including Monica Mattos, Pâmela Butt, Júlia Paes, ...
'', the result of this action showed that the people who upload non-consensual pornography to Pornhub are the same people who upload pirated pornography. In December 2020, MindGeek, Pornhub's parent company was sued in
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
for hosting non-consensual videos produced by
GirlsDoPorn GirlsDoPorn was an American pornographic website active from 2009 until 2020. In October and November 2019, six people involved were charged on counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion. In December 2019, two more individuals we ...
, which coerced women into appearing in their videos under false pretenses. In January 2021, a class action lawsuit making similar claims was launched in
Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...
. The Canadian proposed class action sought $600million for anyone who had intimate photos and videos, some of which may have been taken when they were underage, shared on MindGeek's sites without their consent, since 2007. In June 2021, 34 women sued MindGeek in federal court in California, alleging that the company had exploited them and hosted and promoted videos that depicted rape, revenge porn, and child sexual abuse. In the wake of these controversies, ''Vice'' has reported that individuals tied to
far-right Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...
and Christian fundamentalist groups, which claim to be anti-trafficking and anti-pornography activists, have disseminated disinformation and made death threats towards Pornhub's staff and sex workers.


Non-pornographic content

Pornhub users have often uploaded non-pornographic content to the site, including posts of Hollywood films (under the belief that copyright holders would be less likely to look for uploads on Pornhub than on a mainstream video sharing service such as
YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
), to monetize content deemed ineligible for monetization on YouTube, or as memes and jokes. These videos often have
double entendre A double entendre (plural double entendres) is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to have a double meaning, of which one is typically obvious, whereas the other often conveys a message that would be too socially ...
titles resembling porn films, such as a pirated recording of the musical ''
Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: People * Hamilton (name), a common British surname and occasional given name, usually of Scottish origin, including a list of persons with the surname ** The Duke of Hamilton, the premier peer of Scotland ** Lord Hamilto ...
'' listed as "
Revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective, to refer to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor. ...
Boys Get Dirty on American Politics", a clip from the animated film '' Puss in Boots'' listed as "Hardcore
Pussy ''Pussy'' is a used as a noun, an adjective, and—in rare instances—a verb in the English language. It has several meanings, as slang, as euphemism, and as vulgarity. The most common as a noun, it means "cat", as well as "coward or weakli ...
Gets Wrecked", highlight compilations of
esports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional sports, professional players, individually or as ...
events tagged as a "gangbang", and Ryan Creamer videos, which feature comedic videos with sexual titles. In March 2020, Pornhub premiered Leilah Weinraub's documentary '' Shakedown'', which chronicles a black lesbian strip club of the same name in Los Angeles. The film streamed on the service throughout March, before being released via Criterion Channel. Brand director Alex Klein stated that the film's premiere on Pornhub was part of "a larger general commitment Pornhub has to supporting the arts."


Copyright infringement claims

In 2010, Mansef Inc. and Interhub, the then-owners of Pornhub, were sued by the copyright holding company of the pornographic film production company
Pink Visual Pink Visual is a reality and gonzo pornography film production company, based in Van Nuys, California, United States. It began as an Internet pornography provider before eventually moving into DVD production. Pink Visual also licenses adult cont ...
, Ventura Content, for the copyright infringement of 95 videos on websites, including Pornhub, Keezmovies, Extremetube, and Tube8. According to Ventura Content, the 45 videos were streamed "tens of millions of times" and they claimed the piracy threatened the "entire adult entertainment industry". The suit was settled in October 2010, with terms that remain confidential. The parties agreed that the site operators would implement digital fingerprint filtering on their sites.
Porn 2.0 Porn 2.0, named after "Web 2.0", refers to pornographic websites featuring user-generated content, including Social networking service, social networking features such as user-based categorizing, webcam hosting, blogs and comments. This is in co ...
sites such as these are seen as posing notable competition for paid pornographic websites and traditional magazine and DVD-based pornography. In July 2021, Pornhub launched ''Classic Nudes'', an interactive guide of classic art from major institutions, as a means to help museums recover from the financial toll of the
pandemic A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic (epidemiology), endemic disease wi ...
. However,
The Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
,
Uffizi Gallery The Uffizi Gallery (; it, Galleria degli Uffizi, italic=no, ) is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums ...
, and
Museo del Prado The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from the ...
sued Pornhub for copyright infringement, claiming that the museums had never "granted authorizations for the operation or use of the art."


Malvertising

In 2014, researcher Conrad Longmore found that advertisements displayed by the sites contained malware programs, which install harmful files on users' machines without their permission. Longmore told the BBC that of pornography websites, Pornhub and
XHamster xHamster is a Cypriot pornographic media and social networking site headquartered in Limassol, Cyprus. xHamster serves user-submitted pornographic videos, webcam models, pornographic photographs, and erotic literature and incorporates social ...
pose the greatest threat. In 2017, security firm Proofpoint discovered malicious ads running on the site that had the potential to install override software on users' PCs. The ads had been promoted on the site for over a year without intervention from Pornhub.


Products

Pornhub features
virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...
videos which allow 360° viewing for premium customers. It can be used with the
PlayStation VR The PlayStation VR (PS VR, known by its code name Project Morpheus during development) is a virtual reality headset developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, which was released in October 2016. It is fully functional with the PlayStation 4 an ...
, though videos need to be downloaded from a computer and transferred via
USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...
. In 2015, Pornhub announced a planned wearable device called the "Wankband"—a wristband which stores
kinetic energy In physics, the kinetic energy of an object is the energy that it possesses due to its motion. It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity. Having gained this energy during its accele ...
during male masturbation, and can then be used to charge devices. Pornhub's website says that the product is in development.


VPNHub

In May 2018, Pornhub launched a
VPN service A virtual private network (VPN) service provides a proxy server to help users bypass Internet censorship such as geoblocking and users who want to protect their communications against data profiling or MitM attacks on hostile networks. A wide va ...
known as VPNHub, a free service thats offers a paid ad-free version. VPNHub is operated out of Cyprus and was built with a partnership with US-based AppAtomic, with its servers located in the US. According to ''
TechRadar ''TechRadar'' is an online publication owned by Future and focused on technology. It has editorial teams in the US, UK and Australia and provides news and reviews of tech products and gadgets. It was launched in 2007 and expanded to the US in ...
'', VPNHub operates on the
StackPath StackPath is an American edge computing platform provider headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Its founding team was led by Lance Crosby, who also co-founded SoftLayer Technologies, acquired by IBM in 2013. Acquisitions * MaxCDN (CDN), 2016 * Stami ...
server network. VPNHub claims a no-logging policy, but this has been questioned by a reviewer based on their actual practices surrounding advertiser data.


Philanthropy

Pornhub has hosted events and campaigns to raise awareness of breast cancer. The first of these events took place in New York City on 24 April 2012, with the introduction of the "Boob Bus", which offered free breast exams for passers-by, as well as teaching self-examination techniques to use at home. Pornhub hosted a "Save the Boobs!" campaign in August 2012. For every 30 videos viewed in Pornhub's "big tit" or "small tit" category in the month of October, the website offered to donate a penny to the
Susan G. Komen Foundation Susan G. Komen (formerly known as Susan G. Komen for the Cure; originally as The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation; often simply as Komen) is a breast cancer organization in the United States. Komen focuses on patient navigation and advo ...
. However, the Susan G. Komen Foundation rejected the offer, stating that they were not a partner of Pornhub, would not accept their donations and asked the company to stop using their name. A total of 74,146,928 video views were watched, equalling approximately $24,716 worth of donations, which Pornhub subsequently tripled to $75,000. Donations were split amongst several charities, including the Eileen Stein Jacoby Fund and Cancer Sucks Inc. For Arbour Day 2014, Pornhub launched a weeklong environmental campaign called "Pornhub Gives America Wood", which started on 25 April 2014 and ended on 2 May 2014.


Pornhub Awards

The inaugural Pornhub Awards was held on 6 September 2018 at the Belasco Theater in
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
.
Kanye West Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and fashion designer. Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, West gained recognition as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records in the ea ...
was
creative director A creative director (or creative supervisor) is a person who makes high-level creative decisions and, with those decisions, oversees the creation of creative assets such as advertisements, products, events, or logos. Creative director positions ar ...
. At the event, West debuted the music video for his song, " I Love It". The second annual show was held at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles on 11 October 2019 and
Bad Bunny Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (born March 10, 1994), known professionally as Bad Bunny, is a Puerto Rican rapper and singer. His musical style is defined as Latin trap and reggaeton. He rose to prominence in 2016 with his song "Diles", wh ...
headlined the event. The third show was held online on 15 December 2020 and hosted by
Asa Akira Asa Akira (born January 3, 1985) is an American pornographic actress and adult film director. Akira has appeared in over 505 adult films as of May 2016. In 2013, she became the third Asian performer (after Asia Carrera and Stephanie Swift) to w ...
. The fourth show did away with a ceremony and announced winners on 23 March 2022.


Search trends

Under the heading of Pornhub Insights, Pornhub regularly releases information extracted from its archive of searches: in what regions it is most used (conservative areas), female searches ''vis-à-vis'' male searches, the most popular search terms by year or area, variations in searches that parallel current events, and the like; in the first half of 2017, the top search term in the US was "
hentai Hentai is anime and manga pornography. A loanword from Japanese, the original term ( ) does not describe a genre of media, but rather an abnormal sexual desire or act, as an abbreviation of . In addition to anime and manga, hentai works exis ...
", and 37% of searchers for gay male porn are women. Every year, it releases a "Year In Review". Because of this it has been called "the
Kinsey Report The Kinsey Reports are two scholarly books on human sexual behavior, ''Sexual Behavior in the Human Male'' (1948) and ''Sexual Behavior in the Human Female'' (1953), written by Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, Clyde Martin, and (for ''Sexual Behavi ...
of our time". According to research by data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, 25% of female searches for heterosexual porn on Pornhub involved keywords searching for painful,
humiliating Humiliation is the abasement of pride, which creates mortification or leads to a state of being humbled or reduced to lowliness or submission. It is an emotion felt by a person whose social status, either by force or willingly, has just decr ...
, or non-consensual sex. Pornhub have also reported on traffic trends and their relations to large events. Traffic was below usual levels during the solar eclipse of 21 August 2017. During the 2018 Hawaii false missile alert, web traffic to Pornhub in Hawaii fell by 77% (from typical Saturday figures) at 8:23am, after the alert was sent, and increased 48% above typical levels at 9:01am, after notification that the alert was erroneous. During the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, when Pornhub offered Pornhub Premium for free, worldwide traffic increased by 18.5%.


Blocks and bans

In 2011, European broadband provider TalkTalk (formerly Tiscali) received some criticism because its internet filter failed to block Pornhub, for over a week. This was due to the issue of child internet safety. In January 2013, ''
The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
'' commented that
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
"refused to air a short commercial for adult-themed site Pornhub during the
Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...
on Sunday ... . The 20-second spot, which features an older couple sitting on a park bench (that's really all that happens), includes no explicit content." It was rejected because the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
could hold CBS liable for endorsing pornographic content, as it is illegal to air pornography on US television. In September 2013, the website was blocked by the
Great Firewall The Great Firewall (''GFW''; ) is the combination of legislative actions and technologies enforced by the People's Republic of China to regulate the Internet domestically. Its role in internet censorship in China is to block access to selected for ...
in China. On 12 March 2014, Pornhub was blocked in
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
because one actress looked too young, leading some viewers to think she was a minor. In September 2016, the site was blocked in Russia due to "spreading harmful information to children", and reinstated in April 2017 after specifying the age of users. The site requires Russian users to authenticate themselves via the social network VK. In January 2017, the
Government of the Philippines The Government of the Philippines ( fil, Pamahalaan ng Pilipinas) has three interdependent branches: the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The Philippines is governed as a unitary state under a presidential representative and d ...
blocked internet users from accessing Pornhub and other pornography websites. The websites were blocked pursuant to Republic Act 9775 or the Anti-Child Pornography Law, which prohibits websites from hosting
child pornography Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a chi ...
content. In October 2018, the
Uttarakhand High Court The Uttarakhand High Court is the High Court of the state of Uttarakhand in India. The building of Uttarakhand High Court was constructed by Santoni MacDonald in 1900. The Uttarakhand State was carved out from the State of Uttar Pradesh on ...
reinstated a ban on Pornhub in
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
but made it optional for ISPs to leave sites that are free of child pornography unblocked. In order to circumvent the ban, Pornhub established a mirror website at Pornhub.net. In November 2020, the government of Thailand blocked Pornhub, amongst other pornography websites. On September 3, 2022, Instagram banned the website's Instagram account indefinitely. It had 13 million followers and posted non-pornographic material. The ban was lobbied for by the
National Center on Sexual Exploitation The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), formerly known as Morality in Media, is an American conservative non-profit known for its anti-pornography advocacy. The group has also campaigned against sex trafficking, same-sex marriage, sex ...
and others.


In popular culture

Pornhub makes a prominent appearance in many scenes of the 2013 American romantic comedy film ''
Don Jon ''Don Jon'' is a 2013 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt in his feature directorial debut. The film stars Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, and Julianne Moore, with Rob Brown, Glenne Headly, Bri ...
''. Pornhub Vice President Cory Price explained that one of the film's producers approached the company in March 2012, seeking permission to use the Pornhub brand. Price reviewed the movie's script and granted them permission, going as far as helping them find clips to use in the movie from their content partners (e.g.
Brazzers Brazzers (, company name: MG Premium Ltd.) is a Canadian pornographic video production company with headquarters in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and legal domicile in Nicosia, Cyprus. With an online network consisting of thirty-one hardcore pornog ...
,
Mofos Mofos is a Canadian pornographic production company focusing on reality pornography. About The Mofos website was created by Brazzers in 2008. The goal was to create videos with simpler storylines, as opposed to Brazzers' videos. The videos w ...
,
Digital Playground Digital Playground Inc. is an American pornographic film studio, headquartered in Burbank, California. It has been called one of the five biggest porn studios and, in 2006, was described by Reuters as one of the handful of studios that dominat ...
, and
Twistys Twistys is a major adult film studio, producing its eponymous pornography website, Twistys.com, a variety site that caters to many different preferences. The site Twistys.com launched in 2001. While occasionally featuring girl-girl and hardcore ...
).
Joseph Gordon-Levitt Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt (; born February 17, 1981) is an American actor. He has received various accolades, including nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his leading performances ...
, director and actor in the film, edited the clips together into rapid-fire montages, also featured prominently in the film.


See also

*
Internet pornography Internet pornography is any pornography that is accessible over the internet, primarily via websites, FTP servers peer-to-peer file sharing, or Usenet newsgroups. The availability of widespread public access to the World Wide Web in late 1990s ...
*
List of chat websites This is a list of websites used for online chat. See also *Chat room * References {{Reflist Chat Chat or chats may refer to: Communication * Conversation, particularly casual * Online chat, text message communication over the Internet in ...
*
List of most popular websites This is a list of the most visited websites worldwide according to the first 50 websites listed in the "Top Websites Ranking" lists published monthly by Similarweb, along with their change in ranking compared to the previous month. List ...
*
List of video hosting services Online video platforms allow users to upload, share videos or live stream their own videos to the Internet. These can either be for the general public to watch, or particular users on a shared network. The most popular video hosting website is Yo ...
*
Porn 2.0 Porn 2.0, named after "Web 2.0", refers to pornographic websites featuring user-generated content, including Social networking service, social networking features such as user-based categorizing, webcam hosting, blogs and comments. This is in co ...


Notes


References


Further reading

*


External links

* {{Portal bar, Erotica and pornography, Internet 2007 establishments in Quebec Canadian erotica and pornography websites Companies based in Montreal Cypriot erotica and pornography websites Gratis pornography Internet properties established in 2007 MindGeek Multilingual websites Pornhub Network Internet censorship in India