Pornhub will use a third-party firm to verify IDs on uploaded content
The website has listed the steps it has taken since it was accused of hosting illegal content.
Pornhub has been on damage control ever since a New York Times report published in December accused it of allowing the monetization of child exploitation, revenge porn and other illegal content with its lax policy enforcement. Now, the website has expounded upon the steps it has taken since then, including getting the services of a third-party firm called Yoti to verify the identities of users uploading content.
Shortly after the NYT piece went out, Pornhub banned all uploads from unverified users and prevented people from downloading videos. It then removed millions of videos from its platform, all uploaded by unverified users and non-content partners. The website, and all the properties owned by its parent company MindGeek, now only accepts uploads by members of its Model Program, namely studio partners and verified users.
Anyone who wants to join the program will have to verify their identities through Yoti, which requires applicants to submit a current photo and a government-approved ID. According to Ars Technica, Yoti is a London-based company whose customers (Pornhub, in this case) wouldn’t see any documentation submitted at all. In its support documents, Yoti says it can only see people’s submitted data for up to seven days while it verifies that their photo matches the one in their government ID using face recognition software. After that, it encrypts the information such that the company itself won’t be able to see it anymore.
In addition, Pornhub says its parent company expanded its moderation efforts with human moderators dedicated to reviewing every single upload. It recently launched a Trusted Flagger Program, as well, which gives 40 non-profit organizations dedicated to child safety on the internet the power to flag anything they think violates the website’s Terms of Service. The videos non-profit partners flag will be immediately disabled to prevent their spread as soon as possible, in case they truly do contain illegal content.
