Advocacy Groups Demand Google No Longer Allow Users to Search for Abusive Pornography, Sites Such As PornHub, XVideos

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA – Groups that advocate for victims of sexual exploitation are issuing a plea to Google to no longer allow the popular search engine to return results of what they are calling “abusive pornography” that includes such activity as sexual violence and incest, claiming that these sites often contribute to sex trafficking and child sexual abuse.

The groups refer to a New York Times article published earlier this month entitled “Why Do We Let Corporations Profit from Rape Videos” which alleges that popular online porn sites – such as PornHub and XVideos – have become place where videos featuring the rape and sexual abuse of children are often published, and that Google’s search function is the prime method that consumers of this material are finding it.

I've been working for months on this piece about how some huge companies like XVideos—now the most visited porn site in the world—with help from Google and Paypal, profit from rape videos and illegal child sexual abuse material. They devastate kids' lives https://t.co/99CQ89l52I

— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) April 16, 2021

Often, the article claims, these children are the victims of sex traffickers, and that sites such as PornHub and their ilk are giving these people a prime location to ply their dire trade and to make a profit off of it.

104 sexual exploitation survivors and victims’ advocates, spanning from 13 countries, recently sent a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, asking him to change how his company’s search engine functions so that it no longer returns results to websites that contain “sexual violence, incest, racist or other abusive pornography.”

As @NickKristof pointed out, search engines like @Google must stop 'leading people to rape videos.'

Google must take responsibility for preventing the spread of CSAM, rape, incest, racist and abusive content that is peddled by the pornography industry.https://t.co/dPO6C8GBqY

— National Center on Sexual Exploitation (@ncose) April 20, 2021

Haley McNamara, vice president at National Center on Sexual Exploitation and director of the International Center on Sexual Exploitation, said that in its current form, Google’s search engine makes finding illegal and exploitative sexual content all too easy.

“The reality is Google helps people find and watch rape videos, sex trafficking, and even child sexual abuse,” she said. “Google rightly doesn’t produce ‘how-to’ articles in top searches on suicide, yet it allows searches for non-consensual materials to go straight to the source: pornography websites that are infested with illegal and non-consensual content.”

Both MindGeek, the parent company of Pornhub, and XVideos have been the subject of lawsuits recently from attorneys representing survivors of child sexual abuse whose images have allegedly appeared on their respective websites.

“MindGeek is arguably the largest pornography corporation in existence. If abuse content is a problem in a company that spends millions marketing itself as mainstream & socially responsible, then it is a problem everywhere.” @HaleyMcNamara #Traffickinghub https://t.co/rVazX5dupU

— Exodus Cry (@ExodusCry) April 23, 2021

Google recently released a statement on this issue, saying that child sexual abuse is an “abhorrent crime” that “has no place in our search results.”

“We proactively detect, remove and filter this content, and have additional protections in place to filter and demote content that sexualizes minors,” they said. “We also have policies and systemic protections for non-consensual explicit content. Our approach aims to protect children and victims while also ensuring we do not broadly limit access to legal content in our results.”