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Porn WeekNovember 9, 2022

Who owns all the porn on the internet?

Contributing writer
blurred out letters with only fans, porn hub and mindgeek logo and some abstract shapes
Image: Tina Tiller

The mass migration of porn to the internet wiped out a swathe of small pre-digital industry players. Shanti Mathias outlines two of the biggest companies profiting from this shift, and asks whether it’s at the expense of those making the content.

All this week on The Spinoff we’re talking about porn. Click here for more Porn Week stories. 

According to Rule 34, an internet maxim, if something exists, someone will have made digital porn of it. Providing sexual content has been a major aspect of the digital world since the advent of the internet – and in 2022, the two highest profile companies are MindGeek and OnlyFans. 

MindGeek is headquartered in Canada, although it’s registered as a company in the European tax haven of Liechtenstein. In some ways, MindGeek is the equivalent of YouTube, but for porn: it owns YouPorn, RedTube, and its highest profile site, Pornhub, as well as a number of porn studios. These “tube” sites work on a similar model to YouTube: anyone with an account can upload videos for free. 

MindGeek then monetises the videos with targeted advertisements, as YouTube does. Like YouTube, there is some degree of revenue sharing with creators; the Pornhub Amateur Model programme allows some creators to receive a portion of the advertising money from the videos they post. 

But while some of Pornhub’s revenue goes to its creators, much of it enriches MindGeek’s majority owner, Bernd Bergmair, as well as paying for an estimated 1,600 staff, mostly based in Montreal. Bergmair is notoriously reclusive; in an investigation by British media company Tortoise, he declined to answer questions about his role in the company and allegations that it distributes content depicting sexual abuse. 

red youtube logo outside windows in london
Pornhub’s business model is similar to Google subsidiary YouTube, but more X-rated (Photo: Olly Curtis/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

While the company is clear about its adult industry properties on social media, with tongue-in-cheek posts, it’s less direct on its website, pitching itself to potential advertisers as managing “some of the world’s largest websites” and offering advertisers “extensive reach to their target audience”. 

MindGeek’s websites are popular; online aggregators rank Pornhub as the world’s 12th most popular website, behind WhatsApp and ahead of Amazon. That’s a lot of eyes – and with revenue of $450 million a year, it’s obviously lucrative, though as the company is private, its full value is unclear. 

As in the case of YouTube, this business model is not without controversy. Both Pornhub and YouTube’s early days were dogged with copyright complaints. Porn production studios were very threatened by Pornhub’s model, as users uploaded bootleg copies of professional productions to the site. This led to lawsuits, and forever changed the business model of porn: professional porn producers and amateurs have been levelled by the internet.

“With Pornhub, everyone can create content,” performer Valentina Balucci told Mashable in an article about the influence of Pornhub. Pornhub acquired and partnered with a number of porn studios so that parent company MindGeek could profit from professional productions with paying subscribers too. (Incidentally, Pornhub has also hosted other copyrighted material of a non-sexual nature, including a bootleg edition of the Hamilton musical under the title ‘revolutionary twinks have historical fun’.)

Because MindGeek owns most of the biggest free porn sites, it’s been described as a monopoly, with creators saying they feel like they have no choice but to use the platform: it’s good for exposure (lol), to attract audiences that may pay for their content elsewhere. 

young black womane on bt (clothed) with a computer
The ubiquity of cameras on computers and cellphones has made digital porn creation easier than ever before (Photo: Getty)

One of the alternatives those creators can go to earn more money from dedicated fans is the website OnlyFans, founded in 2016. OnlyFans operates quite differently to MindGeek’s advertising model; it’s more akin to Patreon or a paid Substack, where individuals subscribe to creators they like and profit goes directly to those creators. Paying for a subscription means individuals can get access to pictures, videos, and even personal messages from the creator. 

On its company website, it says that it “allows creators to monetise their content while developing authentic relationships with their fanbase,” promoting creators using the platform for its much lesser known areas of content such as craft, cooking, and travel, even though the bulk of its profit comes from sex work. Last year, after some banks refused to process OnlyFans transactions because of the company’s association with sex work, OnlyFans said it would ban pornography on the platform, leading to an outcry from sex workers and a prompt reversal. 

OnlyFans says it pays out over $5 billion to creators annually. For some of those creators, this is an important source of income; they say it allows them financial independence without a middleman, just the automatically deducted 20% commission that the company takes. Other pages are essentially run by “e-pimps” who do most of the work of communicating with fans and writing updates. 

The company was founded by British businessperson Tim Stokely and is currently valued at over US$1 billion, which makes it one of the bigger UK tech companies, although, like MindGeek, it’s not publicly listed. As tech podcast DownRound said, “Finally, the British invented something interesting.” 

OnlyFans and Pornhub both ban illegal content, including depictions of assault and imagery of minors, and employ moderators to ensure that content meets these standards. But both sites have faced controversy about whether those moderation processes are sufficient. A BBC investigation last year found that moderators on OnlyFans gave multiple warnings to accounts posting illegal content before banning them, and were encouraged to be more lenient towards more successful accounts. 

Chris & Eli’s Porn Revolution

Episode one: Understanding our porn past and present.

Episode two: Think of the children.

Episode three: Talking porn at the dinner table.

MindGeek’s moderation troubles have been even more prominent, particularly on Pornhub. A number of investigations have spoken to minors who found videos of themselves on the platform, which they hadn’t consented to. “Pornhub became my trafficker,” a woman named Cali told The New York Times; even years after escaping an abusive situation as a child, and despite many emails and requests to Pornhub to remove videos of her from their site, the content keeps reappearing. A New Yorker investigation discusses how Christian anti-trafficking organisations have been prominent in publicising Pornhub’s distribution of child sex content. Following some of this media, the company changed the rules so only verified users could upload content. Quoted in the New Yorker story, a spokesperson said that they had more stringent rules than most social media, and were being targeted because of the sexual nature of their content. 

The corporate structure of MindGeek has been described as a “bro club”; company spokespeople say that moderation processes have been improved, but complaints persist. Both the company’s CEO and COO have quit this year. Company insiders told the New Yorker that moderators, based in Cyprus, watch hundreds of videos a day, often on fast forward and with the sound off to get through as many as possible. 

While the possibility of new frontiers like virtual reality for porn seem enticing, perhaps the next big development in this fast-moving industry will be responding to the serious concerns about portraying illegal activity on commercial platforms.

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Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

Porn WeekNovember 8, 2022

What the data shows about youth and porn

Contributing writer
Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

Turns out, teenagers are a lot more sceptical about porn than their parents and teachers likely assume. Emma Vitz digs into the research.

All this week on The Spinoff we’re talking about porn. Click here for more Porn Week stories. 

As a society, we often see young people who watch porn as unwitting victims, completely unaware of the potential harms it could cause them.

This was seen in some of the views shared as part of The Light Project which surveyed family, schools, youth organisations, therapists and faith based organisations about their perspectives on young people and porn. Many parents who were interviewed said young people do not see porn as harmful and do not have a critical view of it. Similarly, schools said young people see porn as a healthy way to learn about sex.

However, research that engages with young people in New Zealand shows something much more complex and nuanced.

In 2018, the Office of Film and Literature Classification surveyed over 2,000 14 to 17 year olds in New Zealand about their experiences with and perspectives on porn. The results show that young people are very exposed to porn, but they’re not completely uncritical consumers that are oblivious to its risks. It also shows that young people use porn for a wide range of reasons, and that for marginalised youth, it fills the gaps left when society fails to meet their needs.

Young people are very exposed to porn

One in four young people have seen porn by the age of 12, and three out of four by the age of 17. Exposure to porn tends to start young – the average age of first exposure (for those who could remember) is around 13 years old. Most young people did not seek it out themselves the first time they saw it.

On the whole, many young people do not look at porn very often, but about 15% see it at least once a month. Boys tend to watch porn more frequently than girls.

But they understand there are risks 

While most young people have seen porn at some point and a significant minority watch it regularly, they’re also aware of some of the harms this might cause.

A full 89% of young people think that porn can influence people’s thoughts and behaviours, and almost 50% believe this can include both positive and negative influences. Only 3% believe porn only has positive influences on behaviour and attitudes.

The most common potential negative influence that young people brought up was that porn could give people false expectations of sex and what is normal (20%), while the most common potential positive influence is that it can be educational or a learning tool (9%).

This speaks to the complex, nuanced and sometimes conflicting views that young people in New Zealand hold about porn. They recognise that it can lead to unrealistic ideas about sex, but also see it as a potential learning tool.

Similarly, most young people believe that porn is too easy to access, including those who watch it regularly. Of the young people surveyed, 71% believe young people’s access to pornography should be restricted in some way, including 51% of those who watch it at least once a month.

Porn is used to fill the gaps by marginalised young people

It’s easy to think that young people watch porn purely for sexual arousal, and that is certainly a big part of it. However, for some marginalised youth, porn is also used to meet other needs.

Non-heterosexual youth were nearly twice as likely to use porn for education than their straight counterparts, and more likely to try things they had seen in porn. This speaks to the fact that sex education does not always address the specific needs of queer youth, leaving them to fill in the gaps as best they can. In 2020, the Ministry of Health updated the national curriculum policy for sexuality education, with one of the major changes being an increased focus on gender and sexual diversity.

Chris & Eli’s Porn Revolution

Episode one: Understanding our porn past and present.

Episode two: Think of the children.

Episode three: Talking porn at the dinner table.

Similarly, youth with a disability or long term limiting health condition were more than twice as likely to use porn for stress relief or to help with sleep. They were also four times more likely to use it to help with sadness or depression. This points to porn being used as a way of managing additional stressors in these young people's lives.

Young people using porn is a complex topic. However, we often forget that those young people themselves are capable of recognising this and contributing to the conversation. Without their input, it’s difficult to see a way for us to create a healthy environment for children and teenagers to develop in New Zealand.