On Wednesday, MindGeek, owner of several entertainment sites such as Redtube, Brazzers, and Pornhub acquired by a Canadian private equity firm, Ethical Capital Partners (ECP).
The deal’s specifics were kept under wraps by ECP, which was only founded last year.
“In MindGeek, we have identified a dynamic tech brand that is built upon a foundation of trust, safety, and compliance, and with ECP’s resources and broad expertise spanning regulatory, law enforcement, public engagement, and finance, we have a unique opportunity to strengthen what already exists,” explained ECP founding partner Fady Mansour.
How was Pornhub acquired?
One of the most popular websites on the planet, Pornhub, has come under fire recently for allegedly making money off of content that violates children’s rights, including child sex abuse movies, rape videos, revenge porn, and other non-consensual material.
After a New York Times opinion piece referred to Pornhub as being “infested with rape videos,” Mastercard and Visa stopped accepting payments for the website in 2020. This decision was praised by opponents of pornography but criticized by adult entertainers.
A California lawsuit filed in 2021 by 50 women who claimed they had been victimized by the website was settled by MindGeek.
According to MindGeek, it has a zero-tolerance policy for content that is not authorized and is susceptible to malicious actors submitting content, just like other online platforms. In order to combat the spread of unlawful materials, the company has put in place a number of procedures, including verification for users who contribute content to the website.
The Pornhub acquired purchase comes after a difficult few years for the major porn company. In June 2022, MindGeek’s CEO Feras Antoon and COO David Tassillo both left the organization. Moreover, MindGeek is also facing numerous lawsuits alleging that it intentionally made money off of material containing child sex abuse (CSAM). The platform will eliminate all unverified content by the end of 2020, and anyone who appears in a user-uploaded video will now need to prove their identity. Similar rules are upheld by platforms like OnlyFans as a strategy to combat nonconsensual content.
In the middle of such controversy and struggle, it wasn’t clear how was Pornhub acquired, but ECP describes MindGeek as “the internet leader in fighting illegal online content” in its statement. A number of guidelines in MindGeek’s trust and safety program are listed by the private equity group, including its moderation procedures, which call for human moderators to manually evaluate each upload.
Regulations like SESTA/FOSTA enacted in the United States pose a serious risk to MindGeek and the internet porn business as a whole. Credit card processors are wary of breaking the law because the legislation creates an exemption to Section 230 that makes online platforms accountable for supporting prostitution and trafficking. Companies that have processed payments on websites like Pornhub, like PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, and Discover, no longer do so.
Controversies will continue flying around Pornhub for a while, however, it’s not clear if ECP is going to make specific changes in terms of the safety of its new entertainment sites. As OnlyFans is growing in popularity day by day, users are getting more comfortable with paying for adult entertainment and consuming verified safe content. In order not to miss out on future news and recent developments, make sure to check out our articles.
