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“While we have remained steadfast in our commitment to protect our users and the public, we recognize that we could have done more in the past and must do more in the future”: So said MindGeek CEO Feras Antoon to a parliamentary committee investigating Pornhub, the Montreal-founded company’s flagship pornography site. Antoon and MindGeek COO David Tassillo, along with vice-president Corey Urman, faced questions Friday afternoon from MPs in the wake of testimony earlier this week from Serena Fleites, the subject of a December 2020 New York Times op-ed that said Pornhub was “infested with rape videos.”
No records: Fleites testified about her repeated attempts to have Pornhub remove a sexually explicit video of her, posted without her consent when she was 14. Fleites said the ordeal led to her quitting school, getting into drugs and ultimately rendering her homeless. “With the information we have today, we cannot find anything from what Ms. Fleites is saying,” Antoon told the committee.
The law: In the wake of the Times column, Pornhub pulled between nine and 10 million videos from its site. “Your link searches before the changes included ‘13-year-old,’ ‘12-year-old,’ multiple variations of ‘middle school,’” NDP MP Charlie Angus said, before listing “runaway teens” and a litany of disturbing Google search terms that brought up Pornhub suggestions. “At any point, when you were promoting these links of 12-year-olds and runaway teens, was your conversation that you were actually breaking Canadian law?”
“If there was anything with ‘12-year-old’ in the title, it would be immediately prohibited out the gate, irrespective of what was actually depicted in the video,” said Tassillo. “I’m saying there would not be a video with the title ‘12-year-old’ in it.”
Fake MindGeek news: Antoon, who, along with Tassillo, has stayed out of the public eye until now, directed his ire at what has been written about the company over the last several months. “I mean, media articles are not facts. It’s journalists writing whatever they want,” Antoon said to Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith. Antoon was similarly dismissive of questions about his salary and personal wealth.
Pseudonyms: MindGeek vice-president Urman nonetheless confirmed what journalists have unearthed—that Corey Price, who is frequently quoted as company spokesperson, is in fact Urman himself. Urman also confirmed that Pornhub spokesperson Ian Andrews wasn’t a real person. “Some of our employees of the company have used aliases or pseudonyms from time to time because of safety. And we’ve seen a lot of threats and doxxing on 4chan and other message boards,” Urman said.
What’s next: Committee members have asked for a trove of documents from the Luxembourg-based MindGeek, including the company’s corporate structure, its content-moderation manual and information regarding its legal fees.
