Laila Mickelwait | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #559

today's guest is the co-founder and CEO. of the Justice defense fund she also. founded the trafficking Hub movement. she's been fighting against human. trafficking for almost 20 years and she. just wrote a new book called take down. inside the fight to shut down. PornHub we want to let you know as well. that this episode can be somewhat. sexually explicit at times so I want to. give you that warning in advance I'm. very grateful for her time and her.

advocacy and her information today's. guest is Lila. mwe and I will find a song I will. [Applause]. sing so take down inside the fight to. shut down PornHub for child abuse rape. and sex trafficking uh this is your book. and I'm sitting here with Laya.

mwe nice to be here is that the way to. say it you uh you almost got it lla mwe. okay so didn't get it Laya mwe um how. did your war against PornHub start sure. I will tell you that story okay so in. the context of years in the fight. against sex trafficking so I had been. fighting sex trafficking when this began. this began at the start of 2020 um this. was February 2020 when the the fight to. hold PornHub accountable for rape sex.

trafficking child abuse began and that. was in the context of over a decade in. the fight against trafficking at that. point and I had been paying attention to. the headlines obviously when when SE. sexual abuse um stories trafficking. stories uh came up you know I was paying. attention and one of the stories that. came up at late. 2019 that really arrested my attention. it was a story of a 15-year-old girl and. she was from Broward County Florida and. she was missing for an entire year and. she was finally found when her.

distraught mother was tipped off by a. PornHub user that he recognized her. daughter on the site wow and she was. found in 58 videos being abused for. profit um these are monetized videos uh. police you know were dispatched and they. actually rescued her out of his. apartment um she had been impregnated um. you know they got her out of that. situation but that was a story that had. made some headlines and it was a. horrifying story at the same time there. was an investigation that was released.

by the Sunday Times the London Sunday. times and they had found dozens of. illegal videos on PornHub within minutes. even children as young as three um so. these two particular stories were. standing out there was one other that. was really horrifying at the time it was. about an adult a woman named Nicole Adam. and she was from New York and she was. being abused by her partner she was. being raped and tortured he was filming. it and he was uploading it to Pornhub. and then she ended up killing killing.

him in self-defense but she was. sentenced to life in prison separated. from her two young children and. thankfully she had an amazing legal team. and they fought that and they got it. reduced to seven years and she's finally. out today wow but it was just. heartbreaking story and so I at the time. you know I was really actually. discouraged in my fight against. trafficking I had been doing it for a. long time I felt like we weren't making. very much progress but you know it's not. something that I can quit because I I'm. I'm dedicated to this um but I was up.

late one night in uh in early 2020 it. was I think it was let's see January. 31st 2020 and I was consoling my own. crying baby at that time cuz he was born. he had a birth complication he was a. very mad baby what do you mean oh crying. baby yeah crying baby yeah he was up you. know I was up at all hours of the night. I thought you said crime baby I was like. oh what is a crime baby no crying baby. yeah and so I was up late uh consoling. him and thinking about that story of the.

15-year-old girl and suddenly you know. an idea came to mind I just said you. know what how are they vetting these. videos um how is this abuse ending up on. PornHub and an idea just flashed into. mind said I'm going to test the upload. system for myself and I'm going to see. what does it take to upload content to. Pornhub so put the baby down got out my. phone um took a video of the computer. screen in the rug in the dark room and I.

uploaded it to Pornhub and I found out. what millions of people already knew. because at that time millions of videos. were being uploaded every year in fact. the amount of content that was being. uploaded to Pornhub if you put those. videos back to back just the amount of. content they would upload in one year it. would take 169 years to watch if you put. those videos back to back that's how. much content was being uploaded uploaded. or had been uploaded total you mean no. per year wow yes that's not even.

counting the images unbelievable so I um. tested the I found out like I said what. millions of people already knew and that. was that all it took to upload was an. email address so in under 10 minutes. anybody with an iPhone anywhere in the. world can upload a video and they were. not checking age they were not checking. ID to make sure that these are not. children in the videos they're not. verifying consent to make sure that. these are not rape or trafficking. victims and because of that I quickly. understood that PornHub was not a porn.

site it was a crime scene like it was. infested with videos of real sexual. crime um and so then the people would. upload them and then make money what off. of advertising on them somehow or who. yes yeah so the so the ones that were. making money off of this content because. this is free porn right right uh free. porn's not free right it is heavily. monetized with ads so they were selling. 4.6 billion ad Impressions on PornHub. every single day so they were heavily.

monetizing this content now the people. who were uploading were doing it mostly. for free like 80% of people who are. uploading were just doing it for social. currency like likes and clicks and. comments and shares and all of that the. reason why people upload to social media. right um some of them were doing pay to. download content where they could. actually do profit sharing with PornHub. that was happening as well but most of. the money made from free porn is. actually made by the corporation running. the site right and just to give you a.

little bit of um context for how big. PornHub and its parent company are who. were making all of this money uh so. PornHub at the time so by December of. 2020 they had capitalized on Corona. virus so they had done crazy stunts like. free premium to the whole entire world. um oh I remember something like remember. that yeah they had um done some crazy PR. campaigns at the time they figure people.

are stuck at home they'll watch porn. yeah well it was that plus they were. getting tons of bad press because. trafficking Hub movement had gone viral. starting at the beginning of the year. and traff hub movement was what so I'll. okay so I'll go back to the story so. well really quick I want to tell you. kind of just so you know what we're. dealing with like how big okay yeah how. big pornub PornHub is okay so by the end. of December 2020 so they had grown uh to. be the fifth most visited website in the. entire world.

un not just porn site website they had. 170 million visits per day 62 billion. visits per year and like I said enough. content uploaded every year would take. 169 years to watch so they had 56. million pieces of content on the site by. the end of 2020 and this was the year. that trafficking H movement began so go. back to the story so I made this. discovery oh my God massive I said oh I. literally said you oh my.

God what this site is infested with. videos of rape trafficking. non-consensual content we used to call. it Revenge por but we call it. image-based sexual abuse uh and I have. to sound the alarm on this I have to uh. you know tell people what's going on and. so I did the only thing that I could do. at the time was I took to my it was. Twitter right at the time Twitter and I. started to share this information share.

the stories share uh the the what I. discovered about the upload process and. in a burst of inspiration I shared the. hashtag trafficking Hub and the reason. why I did that is because per definition. so by. definition any sex act that is. commercialized and it's involving a. child or any sex act that's induced by. force fraud or coercion and it's. commercialized so it's for-profit like. it's something of value is exchanged for.

that sex act it is per definition an act. of trafficking so every child being. abused on PornHub every adult who was. non-consenting who was raped in traffic. those are instances of trafficking I. don't think people quite understand that. but that is per International definition. and and domestic definition and so. that's why I launched the trafficking up. hashtag and it slowly started to catch. on I had a few thousand followers on. Twitter at the time but people were. horrified to find this out oh yeah well.

I think when you hear trafficking you. kind of think like I mean I picture. literally like a train like people. commandeered from other countries or you. know I guess younger people that have. commandeered and kidnapped in like a. train car going across the country in. the night or something like I think of. it as a as a more like people like being. smuggled across the border or you know I. don't think of it as um I guess the. average person doesn't think of it in. such a a common kind of of I don't know.

if it's common as the word I guess yeah. the average person probably doesn't. think of that it's that expansive right. you know yeah well that's the way it's. portrayed in Hollywood movies and that's. the way that happens often right. sometimes but you know the amount of. trafficking going on if you think about. non-consensual commercialized sex acts. this is massive wow um that's. unbelievable yeah yeah I mean and so uh. sound the alarm. launch traffi him hashtag that started.

to catch on people started to message me. somebody said hey if you don't start a. petition um oh then I wrote an oped so I. said okay well what else can I do. besides just share this on social media. this has to get out to more people so I. wrote a an oped about what I had. discovered an oped means opinion it's. like an essay yeah right that's want our. listeners to know most our listeners are. just like me they don't know um yeah so. oped means an opinion editorial so uh.

like something that your opinion you'd. write it in like a publication that'd be. published in a newspaper or something. like that yeah okay great just want our. listeners to always know what that is. exactly what it is and so I wrote that. with kind of the findings highlighting. some of these stories that had just been. in the news making the connections and. that really caught on you know people. were sharing it and somebody who read it. messaged me and they said hey you need. to start a petition to shut down PornHub. and hold its Executives accountable and. if you don't do it I will I said okay. well I'll do that so I just went on. change.org I started a petition and.

instantly it started going viral so on. change.org you started a petition I. started it there yeah now it's at. trafficking Hub petition.com and today. we have um 2.3 million people who have. signed the petition from every country. in the world let's go um we're going to. get more that's we got to get more it's. trafficking Hub petition.com. yeah and this has been powerful to have. this because as this was going viral. victims were seeing it and then they. were starting to to reach out to me um.

sometimes on a daily basis victims I was. exploited on PornHub as a child as a. teen I was raped I was unconscious and I. was raped on PornHub and I begged to get. those videos down and I couldn't you. know all these stories started to come. forward not only that but whistleblowers. from inside the company started to reach. out to me and started to expose the. inner workings of the company even the. former owner of PornHub actually reached. out to me to say he wanted to help with. all this he had his own motives but. right Bobby trying to cover his own. tracks well yeah he had I discovered.

that he had some Financial motivations. uh for wanting to do that but he did and. one of the things that was so important. at this outset uh was we felt like you. know this com you know trafficking is a. transactional crime all of this is being. done for money like that's the only. thing that these companies care about. right and in order to you know make a. difference here we have to hit them. where it hurts we have to go after the. money and so we said we have to go after. the credit card. um to cut ties with PornHub and when the.

owner reached out he confirmed that he. said listen the only thing they care. about is money if you you go after the. credit cards that's the Achilles heel of. PornHub um so you're saying if visa and. Master Guard they will say we will not. allow our credit card to be used that. would be the worst thing that could ever. happen to Pornhub yes because they you. know they need those in order to sell. ads premium memberships all of that um. so reached out Tred you know credit card. Executives did. letters you know organizations were.

signing on um so all of this was. building momentum the petition was. gaining Steam and that's why lots of. media articles started to be written. about this um what like were some of the. crimes that you see like saw happening. what were some specific instances that. you were like oh my God this is just. yeah I mean okay is it okay to share. those or no yeah of course um and I. think it's important to share because I. think a lot of times people want to just. dismiss it and say you know.

you you what you saw was just consensual. you just didn't really understand that. it was know these were obvious yeah it's. vague until you make it specific I feel. like a lot of times so for example and I. I'll tell you some I can tell you some. victim stories I can tell you some of. the things that I saw myself on the site. I mean one of the worst things that I. saw on the site was an instance where um. it was a young Asian woman and she was. drugged so completely that she was her.

body was completely limp she was. unconscious and there was a masked as. salent who actually to proed to the. camera that she was unconscious he was. lifting her eyelids and touching her. eyeballs to prove that she wasn't. responsive because and then tickling her. feet and doing things like that um and. then the title was in Chinese and so. what I did was I took the title and I. put it into Google translate and the. title was uh um dead.

pig unconscious after being. drugged and it included eyes half open. after being drugged like that was the. actual title of the video and then of. course because there's the algorithm. right they have set up the algorithm to. make sure if you see one video like that. they're going to assume that you like. that content so then they're going to. take you on a crazy Rabbit Hole I call. it like you know just hell ho of rape.

like that's what it was and then you go. and they'll show you more and more of. the same kind of thing you know in my. book I do describe these videos I don't. really hold back because I want people. to know what actually was taking place. what these victims were going through on. the site and one of the things that. victims have shared that I think is also. really important to know is that when. those videos are uploaded they had a. download button so that anybody in the.

world could actually download and. possess that child abuse the rape all of. that on their devices and then re-upload. it again and again and again and again. and so victims actually call this the. immortalization of their trauma so they. say it's one thing to be raped but then. it's filmed and then it's uploaded and. then it's monetized for profit and. pleasure and people are actually getting. pleasure out of the worst moment of my. life and it'll never go away because.

once it's on the Internet it's out of. control and it's just like this. whack-a-mole game where they're. constantly just trying to find it and. then beg for it to come down and then. even if they can it just gets uploaded. again and one victim said my abuser put. me in a mental prison but PornHub gave. me a life sentence wow and that was. really powerful but and were all these. like for foreign were they domestic was. everywhere it was everywhere so here's.

one story I'll I'll share with you um. Serena Fus so Serena Fus she from. Bakersfield. California she was an innocent. 13-year-old girl and she had a crush on. a boy a year older than her so she uh. you know at the time she had never. kissed a boy before she was a straight A. student and he convinced her to send him. some nude images and videos of herself. MH which she did because she wanted to. impress him right this is like very. common today sexy all that and then he.

shared it with classmates and then the. classmates uploaded to Pornhub where it. began to get millions and millions of. views so she would then reach out to. Pornhub and beg for them to take the. videos down and they would often ignore. her and she's an adolescent yes she's a. child like she's a young teen right um. and then if they did answer they would. hassle her prove that you're a victim. prove that you're underage in these. videos now remember nobody had to prove. age and consent to upload but if you.

want to get it down she's testifying. she's testified this before Canadian. Parliament this she's suing pornub right. now um that she would have to she would. be hassled to prove that she's victim. then if she did get it down then it. would just get re-uploaded again right. and so this sent her on a spiral of. trauma and despair she ended up dropping. out of school because she was being. bullied she got addicted to drugs to try. to numb the pain she tried to kill. herself multiple times and then she. wound up homeless living out of a car. and that was her story right and like.

that could happen to any young teen yeah. I could imagine that a lot of people in. that instance you almost end up taking. wanting to take your life or consider. suicide because your life isn't even. yours anymore yeah because of it's like. that immortalization of the trauma it's. like I'll never escape this because you. know even if I can find Healing I can. you know do whatever trauma therapy but. then it's like it's almost like a wound. and then a scab just gets peeled off. again and peeled off again as those.

videos keep hell it's something you. would hear about happening in hell yeah. and actually to your point the stats on. ideations of suicide for victims of this. kind of abuse I it's. 50% who have suicidal ideations um after. going through this and and not just. child sexual abuse I mean that includes. you know when videos are consensually. recorded but then non-consensually. uploaded and the shame and all of that. that comes along with that I mean this. is the stats for victims of this kind of.

abuse and. so um so obviously once you start. hearing these stories the fuel has to. really ignite you um I would imagine. that at that point you just like this. has become like a life purpose almost um. were you letting go of a day job were. you like did you no I mean this was my. this is I've been in anti-trafficking. just okay all you know for years and. years and what I do yeah this is my. world but then it. came that I realized okay we're going to.

go after a mega Predator here and to. that point how big are they so it's not. just PornHub right PornHub is owned by. parent company that all of this kind of. I learned over the last five years so. called mindgeek okay now mindgeek has a. monopoly on the global big porn industry. so we call it big porn because there's. big porn just like there's big tobacco. there's big Pharma there's big porn and. it's dominated by one company mhm that.

company was was called mindgeek they. rebranded to ILO to try to escape their. reputation as Peddlers of crime but they. so with a $362 million loan from a hedge. fund called Co Colette capital and 125. secret investors who were outed as. including JP Morgan Chase and Cornell. University they had basically rolled up. the entire Global porn industry under. one company so so they owned it mind.

geek yes so they owned you know they. were managing Playboy um Digital. Playground wicked pictures. browsers um Reality Kings pay sites. subscription sites and then the tube sit. so they so PornHub and its sister side. so PornHub up porn red tube tube baate. gay tube x tube you know all I I could. go on and on they own the most popular. tube site so tube is that one that's no.

time for jokes um and who owns mindgeek. so mindgeek was owned by a secret share. M majority shareholder so nobody knew. who the owner of mindgeek was when all. of this began and were they in America. no we found out so we found them you. know through the course of this there. was a an investigation called hunt for. the porn king so they're they're not an. American company so you start on the. hunt for the porn King right so we. discovered who was the secret majority. shareholder of the company and his name. was burn Berg Mayer and he was in.

Austria and he lived parttime in Hong. Kong and burn Berg May let's bring a. picture of him up yeah you can I just. want people to know who he is bernberg. Mayor and let's look at his Wikipedia I. just want to get a little he grew up as. a son of farmers in ansfelden attended. grammar school in Lind transferred to he. studied University of Lind wherever that. is he worked at Goldman Sachs in New. York he became the owner of pornsite Red. tube in 2013 he sold to the site manwin.

now known as Alo he was a former. majority owner of PornHub and M geek. okay yep so we want to make sure we see. he was yeah he was the majority and then. feros Anon and David Dillo were the CEO. and the COO and they were the minority. shareholders and they had kind of hidden. themselves from the public as well for a. really long time okay and are these guys. all from Austria are they all from a. specific place so Canadian so the. company is an international corporation. MH are headquartered in Canada so they.

have most of their employees in Canada. but they have offices in now they have. an office in Texas they had one La. Cyprus. Romania offices everywhere everywhere. yeah so they are a multinational. corporation huge corporation hundreds of. millions of dollars a year multi-billion. dollar Corporation with a monopoly on. the global big porn industry and how. much money was that was it bringing in a. year do is it yeah they're estimated. about half a billion um year it's a the. value of the company is multiple.

billions of dollars um and you know. PornHub was the flagship site so this. was the Cash Cow of the company this is. how not only are they making money on. 4.6 billion ad Impressions every day and. all the traffic they're they're getting. but they're advertising their pay sites. on the free sites right so they kind of. have this ecosystem where they advertise. browsers on PornHub and drive traffic to. all the other websites that they own I. thought it was brazers which is crazy. but also. I don't care I mean it's either way it's.

bad yeah the start of the new year is. the perfect time to get organized to set. goals and prioritize what matters most. for me a top priority is my financial. Wellness which feels more important than. ever thanks to Rocket money my goals. feel achievable they show me all of my. subscriptions right in one place and. help me easily cancel ones that I forgot. I've been paying for that's where they. help me the most rocket money is a.

personal finance app that helps you find. and cancel your unwanted subscriptions. monitors your spending and helps lower. your bills so you can grow your savings. rocket money has over 5 million users. and it saved a total of 500 million in. canceled subscriptions saving members up. to. $740 a year when using all of the apps. premium features cancel your unwanted. subscriptions and reach your financial. goals fast. with rocket money go to Rocket money.com.

tho today that's. rocket.com Theo. rocket.com Theo I will tell you that. before we used Shopify uh we was doing. things a little bit more freelance we. had a fellow over there in akan my buddy. Kevin and he was putting our merch. together and slanging it out of the. basement over there with his brother who. was dealing with alcoholism. but things changed over time and we.

loved working with them but now we love. working with. Shopify you can upgrade your business. and get the same checkout that we use. with Shopify yes you can nobody does. selling better than Shopify home of the. number one checkout on the planet and. the Not So secret secret with shop pay. that boost conversions up to 50% meaning. way less carts go abandoned and way more.

sales. going ch-ching upgrade your business and. get the same checkout that Alo and all. birds uses sign up for your $1 per month. trial period at shopify.com. Theo t h EO all lowercase go to. shopify.com. Theo to upgrade your selling today. shopify.com. EO so this is the company this is the.

this is who we're kind of coming up. against right and so all of this started. to take off and go viral and victims are. coming forward whistleblowers I told you. about um the former owner who came. forward his name is Fabian Tillman and. he was called the Zuckerberg of porn. he's the one let's bring him up I want. to get a l i want to put a face to these. guys Fabian. [Music]. Tilman he looks Danish huh th y. yeah there you.

go yep Fabian thilman he's the one that. put PornHub on the map you know he kind. of had this vision for the German. entrepreneur who once built the biggest. adult entertainment company in the world. let's see him that's him uh. Fabian okay so he is he's one of the. guys slepping it so he yeah so he's the. one who actually revealed to me who the. secret majority shareholder was that he. sold the company to so that's how we.

found out who he was and what okay so. the movement's getting bigger right uh. so you have the traffic Hub yep. trafficking Hub it's taking off so we're. even out protesting on the streets. outside of M geek headquarters and. Montreal and London and La you know. sharing all tons of viral victim stories. are happening and then one of the things. we're going after having all these. meetings with the credit card companies. Executives trying to present evidence. and evidence and evidence to them and. saying listen you have to stop.

monetizing this content because actually. it's even illegal to knowingly benefit. from trafficking in the United States. right so at that point if they know if. you put the knowledge on them that. they're benefiting from it then that. becomes a crime against them knly. benefiting from trafficking and trying. to bring this to them and saying listen. you have to stop but they were resisting. right why because it's so much money you. think um I think there's multiple. reasons I think it's because one it's. they feel like this is a slippery SL if. we do this here we might have to do it.

there and they just don't want to take. action unless they're forced to take. action so they're like we're really. concerned this is so concerning thank. you for bringing this to us give us more. information more information I give more. information they want more information. anyway they're resisting right um then. um so I reach out and uh get the. attention of Nick Kristoff from the New. York Times so Nick Kristoff has a. history of really. compassionate reporting for victims of.

human trafficking and sex trafficking. specifically so I I was thinking if. there's anybody in the world that could. cover this story in a really meaningful. way it will be Nick Kristoff and so he. got engaged and he started a six-month. investigation of course he found out. exactly what we were saying was. happening on the site I was connecting. him with victims as they were coming. forward so he could be speaking to. victims and whistleblowers and he ended. up releasing. this groundbreaking article called the.

children of PornHub and it was featuring. Serena Story the girl I just told you. about Point flus flus yeah Serena Fus. and many other victims like her who were. children abused on the site and had you. been meeting were more people coming. forward at this point was it yeah all. the time so many victims and I you know. personally engaged with so many victims. of PornHub and thankfully attorneys were. also coming forward saying we want to. help really amazing hard-hitting.

topnotch. attorneys um you know one of the ones I. I speak about in my book who um you know. he had done the biggest hedge fund. insider trading case in history against. sa capital and Stevie Cohen his name is. Mike Bowie from Brown retnik and he. cared about trafficking and he came. forward he became Serena's attorney and. he started representing now he. represents um I think 200 victims or. let's bring that hero up bring a yeah. Mike Bowie there he is yeah Mike Bowie.

yep thank you Mike son of a firefighter. wanted to be a firefighter ended up. being a he's fighting huge fires now. yeah right you I mean that's one of the. biggest fires in the world it sounds. like human trafficking yeah taking. advantage of people's sexuality yeah um. so okay back to the story so Nick. Kristoff does this investigate he. releases the children of PornHub and one. of the things he does in his article is. he calls out the credit card companies. and when this is released I mean I. couldn't believe the impact that it had.

it started to like thousands of followon. Articles the pressure was on Justin. Trudeau in Canada was responding to the. article saying how horrific what was. going on was Canadian Parliament was up. in arms demanding an. investigation and the pressure was on. the credit card companies and within. days of that article being released Visa. Mastercard and discover join PayPal and. cutting all ties with PornHub leaving. them only with cryptocurrency as a. payment option incredible this was the. worst thing that could happen to Pornhub.

okay right and so they must have lost. panic in an absolute Panic this is the. worst thing that could happen to them so. they did basically the unthinkable for. their business model which relies on. massive amounts of content because. content is King for the porn tube sites. you have to understand this that uh it's. about getting unrestricted massive. amounts of content so that they could. get picked up in Google search results. so that they can drive massive amounts. of traffic so they can sell all those ad.

Impressions and make hundreds of. millions of dollars a year on free porn. Okay worst thing they could do is take. content down from the site but they. started to delete millions of videos. they deleted 10 million videos and over. 30 million images basically in 24 hours. um and what Financial Times called. probably the biggest takedown of content. in Internet history they deleted all of. their unverified videos because they had. no idea who was a child and like who was.

16 and who was 18 right who was uh what. was rough sex and what was rape they had. no idea what was consensually recorded. and non-consensually uploaded right and. so they took down that much content. because they're worried about the money. yeah they wanted to woo the credit card. companies back is they said okay we have. to we have to do this they basically. deleted their site uh they uh well 80%. of it at the time. sadly I found out that so then there's.

Global headlines right hundreds of. headlines all over the world Visa. Mastercard disc you the big takedown I. found out uh an Insider came to me. months later and said you don't know. this but two weeks after the credit card. companies disengaged with PornHub they. quietly snuck back to the advertising. arm of PornHub called traffic junkie. because they have their own ad arm right. and that's how they make most of their. money so business is going on as usual. and I said oh my this is like the worst. thing that I could have ever I can't.

believe that this is what happened I. said how what are we going to do now. like how and how wouldn't a CEO of Visa. one of these companies be like yeah. we're just not going to do this. anymore how would they well why wouldn't. they just say we would stop this is bad. this isn't good you know is at that. point is it because they're also worried. about free speech and stuff like that do. you think or this is not about free. speech I mean I think I think it has to. do with money as well because one thing. you have to know is like these are. high-risk transactions they charge more.

per transaction for high-risk. transactions which are porn transactions. I see so there's big money so there's. money right um big money they went back. and so it was another two-year battle to. try to get them to finally disengage. which. happened uh because. Serena sued PornHub not only Pornhub she. sued its individual owners and its. Executives and she sued Visa. for monetizing her abuse wow and she.

sued the hedge funds for funding the. whole Enterprise did she win and so what. happened was Visa lost their motion to. dismiss the case because they had filed. a motion to dismiss they lost it and at. the same time we were able to put the. pressure on publicly so Bill Aman was. one of the heroes in this story I mean. he knew the CEO of MasterCard and so he. was making phone calls yeah that's bill. lman right there so he got him and I on. CNBC squawkbox and we called out Al.

Kelly who was the CEO of visa for 17. minutes on the show and this was right. when Visa lost her motion to dismiss so. the pressure was on from motion to. dismiss is what so they say oh they want. to say dismiss the case dismiss the case. we not involved like this was had not. you know nothing we could do about this. we're not part of this problem and the. court says my G brother a damning. decision and it it wasn't just a a. decision it was a like they the judge. actually said that Visa gave PornHub the.

very tool through which to complete the. crime of benefiting from child. trafficking like those were his words in. his decision fu yeah and so the pressure. was on and then so then Al Kelly said he. did kind of an unprecedented thing he. actually who Al Kelly let's say he's the. CEO of Visa okay so the CEO of Visa Al. Kelly then then he says okay fine we're. going to cut them off once and for all. and he made a personal statement he said. I'm a father and I you know don't. approve blah blah blah and so we're.

cutting off PornHub and then of course. MasterCard quickly follow discover now. they've lost it totally so and today so. we found out they kept deleting content. right so today they have actually. deleted 91% of the entire site so they. went from 56 million pieces of content. in 2020 when this started to 5.2 million. pieces of content today and we're not. done because they still have unverified. content on on the site right so yeah. congratulations but what's fasc I mean.

congratulations thank you I mean it's. been not just I I have to pass that on. you know that congratulations to any. victims who might be watching this. because it's through their courageous. testimony and them you know stepping. forward um it's backlash and um you know. everybody who's been involved we had 600. organizations that were involved in this. and the lawyers and the journalists and. the whistleblowers and so many people.

came together to make this happen did. you guys um what was the one C what was. the CEO what was that transaction that. kind of occurred where he was like where. he reached out the previous CEO mhm no. he was the owner so oh he was a previous. owner Fabian thilman the Zuckerberg of. porn right Fabian thilman yeah he. reached out in summer 2020 to say he. wanted to help and so one of the things. that he did was he exposed the secret. majority shareholders name name mhm and. he said go after the credit card.

companies as the O as the former owner. he said if you want to make a difference. here you go after the credit card. companies to cut ties um and so that was. now what what I didn't realize at the. time I was suspicious right why is he. wanting to help and I kind later found. out that he had intention to try to buy. back the company so he kind of wanted to. make a killing again so I think he. wanted to help take it down buy it then. find a way to do it back probably with.

crypto or something on a on a different. chain I don't know what he was thinking. but he wanted to buy it back which I. found out later on but the CEO and the. CEO coo and the CEO were forced to. resign as well and today they're being. sued by nearly 300 victims in 25. lawsuits including multiple class. actions on behalf of tens of thousands. of child victims and they're doing. amazing in the. courts uh so much more has been. uncovered in legal Discovery so.

Discovery is this amazing tool when you. engage in a civil lawsuit the the Court. gives you permission to get behind your. opponent so you can get their text. messages you can get their emails you. can get and so much has come out of the. complicity like you just couldn't. believe the things that we've found out. just through legal Discovery process. like what are some of the things like. just itol like just okay so here's an. example. we found out that they only had one.

person so they had 1,800 employees they. hired one person 5 days a week to be. reviewing videos flagged by users as. terms of service violations including. rape and trafficking and child abuse one. person they had a policy where they. wouldn't even review a video unless it. was flagged 15 times now think about. this you're a victim say a child victim. like Serena she would have she would.

have to flag her video over 15 times. because it had to be over 15 for it to. be reviewed in order for that to even be. put in queue for review and they had a. backlog of. 76,000 videos um that were just waiting. for this one person to review them yes. and they had like we've discovered now. in a recent uh filing in December of. 2024 we found out specific instances of. prepubescent child victims who had their.

videos on there for years and they would. have like 14 Flags 13. flags and they just like that was the. policy and then the CEO and the execu. all this on PornHub yes yes on PornHub. yes um and so I'm just. so I'm just grateful that we're having. this conversation because I bet most of. the people who were listening to your. show had no idea yeah that this was. happening that it's ever happened that.

this is an issue on user generated free. porn sites. and and they keep it up because it's. content right like you're saying the. more content yes content is King right. they don't want to remove content. because that's how they have inventory. so here's another like egregious example. of how they did this was so you know. there's one case that I talk about in my. book where there was a case of a clearly. prepubescent child who is being anally.

raped in a video and she is being uh. tortured the tags on the video so the ti. like the titles and tags were describing. her abuse that she was young um that she. was being tortured all of this and I we. reported the video we tried to get it. down weeks go by it's not coming down. video view counts going up up up we. reach out to the FBI they demand that it. comes down so they connect with the. national Center on see and exploited. children who confirms this is a child so.

they demanded the video come down okay. and then what they did was they took the. video down but they left that black box. up that said removed at the request of. the national Center for missing and. exploited children and they left the URL. live the tags the titles the views all. of that and they did that with so many. videos why would they take the video. down but leave all of that up and it's. because it's inventory it's the C it's.

the URL it still shows like an ad. company that they're going to sell to it. still says well we have this many videos. right so you could search that right. most videos the tags the titles like. they'll drop they'll still come up in. Google search then you'll get to the. site you won't find that particular. video but the algorithm will then direct. you to others that are similar and it. will advertise to you right you'll get. that those ad views so that's why did. you give any victims that showed up to. thank you and person like you've had. experiences like that kind of yeah oh.

yeah I mean I'm still in touch with. victims on a regular basis um they don't. feel though that like justice has fully. been served yet I'm sure so PornHub was. criminally charged by the US federal. government in December 2023 for. intentionally profiting from sex. trafficking and they're still allowed to. stay open but they were offered a. deferred prosecution agreement which. is just unbelievable to me that that. happened where um basically they said.

you pay $1.8 million in a settlement and. you have a monitor over your company for. three years and you can get out of going. to trial uh so that happened but that. was related to a case like a specific. case of a 100 trafficking victims from. California so they were part of the. Girls D porn trafficking operation the. guy that was exploiting them his name is. Michael Pratt he was on the FBI's most. wanted list 10 Most Wanted lists. Michael Pratt let's get a look at it I. just want to put faces to these people.

so that they're not just names that pass. by Pratt right yeah Micha like on my uh. actually on my Twitter I just posted. about him yeah he's he is FBI's 10 Most. Wanted and he was running a trafficking. operation and over a hundred victims. were U exploited by him and let's look. at Wiki where is he from this guy who is. this guy let me see I think they have a. Wiki for this guy okay Friday is charged. in a 19 count indictment with sex. trafficking production of child.

pornography unbelievable and he had so. girls who porn was one of the most. popular partner channels on PornHub so. they had over. 760,000 subscribers and they had over. 600 million views on the videos of these. women's trafficking and most of them. were trafficked you think yeah oh it's. not I think I mean they've been. convicted like his accomplices are in. prisoned and this is in Spain it says it. was happening why law he ran away so he. was a fugitive so he was doing this in.

San Diego this is where it all happened. was in San Diego uh 62 of those women. have recently filed lawsuits 50 of them. filed lawsuits and settled those. lawsuits but they uh so this channel was. one of the most popular in PornHub and. that was what this criminal prosecution. was related to it was about these. specific you know over a hundred victims. of this particular crime ring but. there's so many others out there all but. he's not in jail this guy well they. captured him he's it's in process like. they're they're working on his.

prosecution right now okay yeah but his. accomp the others that were involved. with him are already prosecuted it was. just that they have more recently found. him and so he's going through the. process of being convicted understood is. pornography causing a problem in your. life do you find yourself watching porno. for longer periods of time and having. trouble. stopping is porn affecting your. relationship or dating life well you're. certainly not alone watching pornography.

has become so commonplace today and. often times men use porn to numb the. pain of loneliness boredom anxiety and. depression shame and stigma prevent men. from talking about these issues and. getting help for them I want to. introduce you to my friend Steve Steve. is the founder of Valor recovery a. program to help men overcome porn abuse. and sexual compulsivity. Steve is a long-term sexual recovery.

member and has personally overcame the. emotional and spiritual despair of. abusing pornography and has dedicated. his life to empowering men to do the. same Steve is an amazing person and he. is a close friend of mine I mean that. Valor recovery helps men to develop the. tools necessary to have a healthier sex. life their coaches are in long-term. recovery and will be your partner mentor. and spiritual gu to transcend these. problematic behaviors to learn more.

about Valor recovery please visit them. at. www.v Valor recovery. coaching.com or email them at admin at. Valor recovery. coaching.com thank you this show is. sponsored by better. help better help is is the group that's. in encouraged a lot of people to check. on their mental health especially when.

it comes to their relationships and. their life and just examining those. relationships looking for green flags. and red flags and learning how to. operate within those relationships. whether you're dating married building a. friendship or just working on yourself. it's time to form relationships that. love you. back that's the truth better help is. fully online making therapy affordable. and convenient serving over 5 million. people. worldwide access a diverse network of.

more than 30,000 credential therapists. with a wide range of Specialties easily. switch therapists anytime at no extra. costs discover your relationship green. flags with betterhelp visit. betterhelp.com. to get 10% off your first month that's. better HP betterhelp.com Theo. victims are so grateful for all that's. happened so far and they've been a big.

part of it you know I remember when the. big takedown happened and the most. meaningful thing that happened was that. victims were calling and they were. crying tears of joy because For the. First Time their rape and trafficking. was finally off of PornHub after. fighting for so long um but they just. feel like justice hasn't been fully. served yet because they're still waiting. for you know restitution the site is. still on online you know it's been. purchased now they're trying to do this.

whole Rebrand so it was sold as a. distressed asset okay to a company that. they created themselves to buy PornHub. okay and they are called ethical Capital. Partners wow what a name ethical Capital. partners and who is the who are the main. big wigs in that company do we know yes. we do they have themselves online you. know the the guy that's out there kind. of trying to do this whole Rebrand of. PornHub like we're ethical Capital. partners. um his name is Solomon fredman and he is.

a criminal defense attorney is he really. a Jewish guy from where where's he from. uh Canada from Canada yeah um so he. wants to Rebrand just make it more. ethical well I mean that's what they're. saying right they're saying they called. themselves ethical Capital yet at the. same time the the videos that are on. PornHub right now are still. unverified mostly unverified so that 5.2. million left. they had verified the uploaders right.

but not the individuals in the video so. that doesn't work because often the. abuser is the uploader and I'll give you. an example so there's a man named Rocky. sha Franklin out of Alabama and he. drugged and he overpowered and he raped. a 12-year-old boy and he filmed those. assaults and he uploaded 23 of those. videos to Pornhub with titles that. indicated this was abuse like young it. said like Uncle secret I mean I won't. say the worst things but it was clear.

right um he was put in prison for 40. years for what he did police reached out. multiple times to Pornhub to try to get. those videos down they were ignored for. seven months those videos stayed online. getting hundreds of thousands of views. that boy is suing PornHub today so he's. one of those many victims suing PornHub. but Rocky was a verified. uploader he had shown his ID and he they. know who he is they know who he is but. they didn't verify clearly right like.

who's in the video right so even today. you know as of 2024 PornHub had to. produce a report they sent it into the. European there's a European law called. the Digital Services act and in 2024 in. four and a half months they had to take. down. 3,770 child sexual abuse videos from the. site and over. 8,000 non-consensual and rape videos. from the site okay so but they're having. to be legally asked to do this right.

yeah well to disclose what they're doing. so that's all under ethical Capital. Partners right okay so that's you know. they didn't so so ethical Capital. Partners there's still there's still. stuff out there that's not supposed to. be there yes they still haven't actually. implemented the preventative. policies it's just a farce I mean it's. just uh you know and that's why I think. it's so important to sound the alarm on. this Rebrand because from a victim's. perspective like this is also a. miscarriage of justice for them to go.

out there and try to resuscitate. pornhub's brand to say oh we're ethical. Capital listen the same men who made all. those decisions that the one person that. was verifying videos they had 30. moderators 30 moderators moderating the. millions of videos on PornHub now. compare that with Facebook's 15,000. moderators and they still don't have. enough these moderators they were. viewing between 800 102,000 videos per. shift clicking through those videos with.

the sound off just clicking through them. guessing like I call it the underage. guessing game like this is a game of. russan roulette with people's lives. they're trying to guess who's 15 and. who's 18 who's 16 and who's 19 like. nobody can do that on a like even a. pediatrician can't do that yeah and what. happens to your brain at a certain point. after seeing so much traumatic stuff. that you were even like that should be a. crime and putting a employee through. that well I and I've spoken to those and. some of those employees I call friends.

today because they really have they said. that they've seen some it's been really. their conscience was pricked and they. came forward and I've spent hours and. hours in person and you know online and. on the phone speaking to them trying to. understand how all of this worked and. one of them um is especially dear to me. and he told me that it was so hard on. him to do this job but he needed the. money um and he was abused as a child he. was sexually abused as a child wow so it. was especially hard for him to do this.

but I think he almost wonder why he went. and did it it's like you could find. something else to do probably not. calling him out but it's like maybe. there's some weird thing that's created. there too that like you know I don't. know but I appreciate what he did and. coming forward but to say like the. executive so back to ethical Capital. it's like the men who made that decision. to have 30 moderators just guessing. what's rough sex and rape guessing and. they guess wrong all the time they were. skipping through 2 you know thousands of. videos per shift and they're still.

running PornHub today so they're still. on the sixth floor aquamarine Montreal. Tower of that Corporation running. PornHub today yes the CEO and the cooo. were forced to resign but they have the. same CFO they have the same clo who's. the CFO let's see Eddie Danto Eddie. Danto bring him up I don't know if. you'll find him they try to they hide. his they Tred to but some of them I mean. you can find Ryan Hogan Matt khichi. so you can look up Kareem Al morazzi he. is the CPO and he's running it today.

Kareem Al Marazzi so that's so and so. he's there today right yep about him. from. Canada as an integral part of their. mobile broadband. team telecommunication engineering went. to University of Montreal H so they're. still running they're just trying to. rebuild this company and still make. money off so I mean. ethical Capital right if they were. coming in and saying like we're going to. Rebrand we're going to do this new thing.

why would you still have the same men. responsible for the decisions that. destroy the lives of countless victims. just running the site today that's why I. it's like right it's just a farce like. it's not real yeah and even if it was. real it doesn't mean that they escaped. Justice being fully served um because. what's important is victims receive the. Justice they need for healing. um and to be a deterrent to Future. abusers like one of the most things most.

important things in the fight against. trafficking is not just to rescue. victims right and to rehabilitate them. that's important but to prevent it from. happening in the future and how do you. prevent it you have to increase risk and. eliminate profitability you have to make. the risk of continued exploitation. greater than the benefit that these. Executives get by maintaining the status. quo and then when you do that and you. end impunity for these abusers you. become a deterrent to future abusers. because explain that little part to me. again so so you want to hold these.

companies fully accountable to the full. extent of the law to me that means. PornHub gets shut down like we go from. 91% to 100% they do not exist anymore. because they have been destroying the. lives of countless victims since 2007. when they came online yeah and when that. happens other websites owned by other. Executives will say we don't want to end. up in that position so let's just clean. ourselves up because we can make a lot. of money on legal content right we don't.

have to monetize illegal content we can. do this in a way where we're not. Distributing sexual crime and they'll do. that because they want to avoid losing. the credit card companies they want to. avoid litigation they want to avoid. criminal greed at a certain point it's. some type of obvious RIS it's risk. benefit right about a sickness too to. think that you would be able to know. that that's happening right right and. keep going that's ins it's like what. type of sickness EX exists you know I. mean it's it's almost like a hell you're.

like in you're like a slave trader of. people's. [Music]. um like Solitude and and and peace you. know but no you know I don't know I just. can't I can't I can't. even I can't imagine that I can't fathom. that someone would be like yeah this is. okay I'm not going to that that's not. going to be the first thing I'm going to. worry about with my company right yeah. so so just I'm just fing tune into my my. view here so a lot of your combativeness.

is not against. pornography it's against the um sex. trafficking the like people illegally. filming people filming drugged people no. verification of age all of these crimes. basically yeah sexual crime being. distributed online in fact some of the. most helpful allies in this fight have. been those in the porn industry like at. one point you know I had um um those who. were producing their own porn on PornHub.

and they were doing this in a. professional sense and they were. reaching out to me because they said. listen we need to take this company down. because I'm sick and tired of spending. two hours a day scouring PornHub and its. sister tube sites trying to get my own. stolen illegal content off the site. because they were not only rape and. trafficking right this is copyright. infringement content like there's no. protection for that either no they're. just uploading they're just pirating and. uploading all of this content so so. those in the porn industry kind of hated. mindgeek already because the free porn.

tube sites were exploiting the legally. produced content of these those in the. industry yeah because even with YouTube. there's like there's like metad dat and. stuff that they could if they want to. they can make sure that someone can't do. it without it being claimed or known you. know right and so well they could do. these dmca takedowns so that's what they. would do so she was spending hours a day. multiple time doing that but as she was. doing that she was coming across. child abuse rape trafficking and then. they were sending the links and that was.

one of the things that was crazy that. was happening is that as this was all. going viral and there's all these. stories people around the world who were. on PornHub who would find an illegal. video would be sending it to me and so I. was in and so it was just kind of a. really. intense right looking at it seeing. what's going on you're like what am I. supposed to do and I have you know the. responsibility to report it to you know. take care of you know witnessing what's. happening and then trying to help that.

must have been insane huh and it's I. mean yeah it's real it's so this is all. real vile real stuff that was happening. and being uploaded yeah wow real real. sexual crime so so what do you think. kind of like the solution is at scale. you know when you think about that lla. yeah well so yes it's one thing to hold. one particular company accountable and. that's important but the question then. becomes because pornhub's not alone. right I want everybody to understand. that it's not like you go okay well x.

videos must be fine they're a free user. generated porn site that was operating. in a similar way of not verifying agent. consent and there's you Nick Kristoff. did an investigation and found you know. reported on the victims who were on x. videos and there's x hamster and there's. all of these x and xx right and there's. others that operate in a similar way and. so the question is well how do we stop. this across all of these sites right and. that goes back to the source of the. problem is not verifying agent consent.

we have to demand third-party agent. consent verification for every single. person in every single video that is. uploaded to a user generated porn site. and when that happens we're going to. make a huge difference in stopping that. illegal content from being uploaded but. that's a huge task right so it's not. just governments who have to do this. because this is an international problem. these sites operate internationally so. if the US does that well they're still. in Canada and they're in you know every.

country in the world so the solution at. scale becomes the credit card companies. implementing that policy because we know. they're highly motivated by money and if. Visa says we don't do business with user. generated porn sites that don't verify. the age and consent of every person. every video well all of these companies. are going to comply and they're going to. do it quickly so that's the solution so. how do we get because you I think at. this point they would just go on ahead. and say that because it's like it's.

obviously the next right thing to do. right and is in a moral sense it would. feel like well a lot of companies don't. operate from right business doesn't have. uh emotions well yeah and and it comes. from pressure right and so that's where. I see the litigation being important. where these survivors dozens um of. survivors has have sued the credit card. companies right so now they're facing. some of it right so they're feeling that. pressure at some point they go listen. it's better business to just let it go.

implement this policy just like we have. anti-money laundering policy we're going. to have anti-online sexual exploitation. policy and we just don't do business. with user generated porn sites that. don't verify agent consent because it's. too risky for us right right then yeah. it hits their wallet without any it's. like big Pharma it's like you know. litigation made a huge difference in um. reform in in the pharmaceutical industry. we saw in the hedge fund Insider trading. cases when they had big litigation and. criminal prosecution and it forced those.

changes to happen so I think that could. be uh that's where we're that's where we. hoping to get next yeah that's where we. need to go and who supports legally. supports you guys' um like the legal. costs yeah well that's where I mean. these firms a lot of them are working on. a contingency basis where you know. they're working with victims some do pro. bono um they have like different kinds. of arrangements and then we support. victims as well at the Justice defense. fund. um to help them get connected to lawyers. to support them along that Journey um.

it's a hard thing to do to take on uh an. abuser it's hard thing to go into. litigation and they need you know yeah. therapy advocacy like all the ways that. they need to be supported and so um yeah. that's our mission is to support. survivors to pursue Justice in court to. get that healing and to implement those. preventative policies to make sure it. doesn't happen again now MasterCard has. come a like a little ways so they. implemented a policy where they say you.

have to verify uploaders but that's not. far enough like you have to verify those. in the videos yeah so and do you think. there's like back room dealings between. my between these companies and the like. uh credit card companies where they're. like sending them extra cash or me you. know like they just know each other the. owners know each other and it's like. we'll let you stay open that type of. thing I haven't seen that I don't I. don't I haven't seen that happen I don't. get that sense I think that you know. this is just one of many industries that.

they can make money on and they will. maintain that position until yeah I one. if there's lobbying by the actual owners. of the companies towards the um towards. the credit card companies you know and. the banks possible definely you start to. figure that that's where a lot of things. really kind of happen yeah um and then. it bubbles up to the surface of what we. can follow the money what we can see. yeah um what what State because I've. noticed like you know I've watched. pornography before I've had issues with.

um uh pornography addiction kind of I. just I use it as an escape like. especially like in my 20s like um you. know I found pornography when I was you. know at a at a age where I was probably. maybe 13 or 14 and so then I would use. it to make me feel good it was like one. of the only ways I felt like when I was. young that I could feel good you know I. had really low self uh worth and so once. I realized pornography and porno and. everything I was like oh dang I can. control I have a control basically lever.

on my body as to when I can feel okay. right and so um it was magazines and. then I guess as thing you know then it. became like video online stuff like that. you know um over time um but it. certainly has been something where it's. like I don't feel good about myself I. feel down about myself what's the one. way I know to feel good and would be to. uh watch pornography you know or use it. to masturbate you know things like that. to make myself and then you get a you. get a hit of dopamine crazily and so. then you part of you feels good for a.

while you know um so that's been you. know that was kind of my story with it. except it got to it got to like I would. notice instead of going and meeting. girls or trying to like like well part. of my spirit started to suffer because I. was taking out like a important part of. like my soul and my physiology by um. ejaculating or like just like abusing. that part of me and it then I didn't. have you know I think that part of you. supposed to kind of build up inside of.

you and help you have like some um it. pushes you to talk to women and to want. to go on dates and things like that and. so for me I think it started to weaken. some of that over time it was like well. why go meet a girl or ask a girl out. when I could just masturbate you know. that was some. um uh that was kind of what happened I. guess in my head at sometimes yeah um. yeah and I've been in like recovery. groups to talk about that you know I'm. in recovery groups where there's like. multiple things that people have dealt. with you know a lot of for me has just. been like intimacy stuff you know.

because if you're looking at pornography. it creates it it skews the way you look. at intimacy because you start to think. of like um sexual activity just in like. frames and certain um like you don't. really think of connection because you. don't see a lot of connection in porn. you know it's not like you watch a 45. minute porn and it's people two people. getting to know each other you know at a. park or something you know or split in a. diet sodi or something so it's like you. know that part is all you know things.

get super I think things get kind of. convoluted in your psyche sometimes well. yeah and it's driven by an algorithm now. it's like right you know it's people's. sexual preferences and their their. sexuality in today you know this. internet porn saturated world that's. driven by an algorithm the algorithm is. driven by Executives who want to get as. many views and clicks um and impressions. as possible and then you know that's. kind of shaping the content that's being.

seen on the sites and what's. especially alarming to me and you know. it's what you experienced right because. you when you were 13 years old um when. you were first Expo exposed to porn is. that children you know are just in Mass. being exposed to not Playboy right not. the. centerfold that used to be but the free. porn tube sites because you know it's. they access do you guys know that.

children are accessing those like how is. there is there statistics behind it oh. yeah I mean you know I think you one. study from 2022 was saying that 75% of. 13 to 17year olds have viewed internet. porn I mean I think would probably be. more than that in every kid has a device. you know there's five-year-olds that. could click through the internet filters. are not doing a good job and you know. parents who you know may not even know. how to implement internet filters for. their kids and even if they do you know.

they can't control all the time so they. can't be you know at school and you know. other places when they go to their. friend's house or whatever it's just. what filters are they using are you are. they because there the ones that you. suggest kind of that people use um I. don't have any particular brands that I. would suggest but you know there's like. so many different apps that people can. install you can get like routers that. could actually block the content at the. router level oh that's awesome I didn't. know that yeah and so there's stuff like. that out there but I know states are. stopping people from like a lot of.

states are pro you have to upload an. identif ID now well there's like this. whole movement in the United States. right now that is saying look we. understand that kids are accessing this. content and we want to protect kids from. viewing and I call it um a form of. secondhand sexual abuse right for kids. to be witnessing this kind of content. and for my perspective I know how much. of this content isn't just hardcore. right it's actually criminal right where.

they could be watching um a real rape as. their sex education as an 8-year-old. child and you know they call it the. creation of a sexual template right so. it becomes like what is your sexuality. about and what is you know arousing to. you and if they grow up on this kind of. content I mean it could do so much. damage to an entire generation well. especially I think it's I think a lot of. that's already happened I think you've. seen like the a lot of the effects of.

pornography on um you know marriages. like you know people get addicted to. porn and then they're no longer um. expressing attraction to their spouse. and uh because it's being hijacked. basically by this algorithm by the by. the websites by this addiction and then. marriages fall apart and then families. fall apart yeah and another implication. of this is actually children who are. acting out on other children so we've. seen. um so I was just reading uh the amikas. should call amikas briefs so these are.

briefs that uh were submitted to the. Supreme Court so as these states Across. America are implementing age. verification to protect kids from. viewing porn online um the porn sites. are not happy about this so PornHub and. its um partners are suing those States. so for example they sued the state of. Texas to not have to abide by this age. verification law and it's gone now. they've appealed it they lost they.

appealed now it's at the Supreme Court. and on January 15 uh the justice has. actually heard oral Arguments for. whether or not we can have States uh. enacting age verification to keep kids. off porn sites so they're going to have. a decision by June but some of the. briefs submitted are so compelling and. one of them was this nurse Heidi Olen. and she's a sexual assault she's a. pediatric sexual assault nurse and she. was talking about her experience o with. over 1500 cases of of sexual assault.

that she had to um document and assess. and she saw that 50% of those cases were. children who were assaulting other. children uh and the the number one um. the perpetrators in that group were. 14-year-old males who were then. assaulting females other females yeah. children and you're saying that a lot. you think and they're citing pornography. as. the reason why they're acting out right. cuz like you just that's how that's.

human nature like especially with kids. oh yeah you see something you mimic it. or you I mean like my like son he's like. you know watch Spider-Man or something. and he's like jumping off the walls and. you know pretending that he's Spider-Man. they're acting out what they see right. and so you know if they're watching porn. and they're watching potentially. actually watching sexual crime on these. sites and they're you know kind of. acting out what they see and so it's. it's not surprising that that's. happening right it's sick it's literally. being in a spiral of sickness kind of I.

mean it's almost like what you would. feel like people would describe as like. some sort of a hell you know um one of. the wildest Things that happens on porn. sites is um how they I don't know if. this is targeted or what the goal is but. you talk about it ruining families some. of the videos are like uh stepson Mom. right Dad son's girlfriend M like [ __ ]. that's like you're putting things into. people's just even to put that seed into.

somebody's psyche people don't realize. or we don't realize that when we're. watching something that's that we become. we're a sponge right we might say I'm. not really I'm watching this but I'm not. it's just I'm watching it for a brief. second I'm using it right but it's also. whatever it is it's also using you right. it's everything is an is a it's a back. and forth relationship yeah so and teen. was I mean one of the most popular. categories on PornHub was. Teen um and teen right like teen could.

be 18 and 19 but it also is 13 and 14. and 15 and 16 and so many of that those. videos are you know where they could be. in someone who's of age but they're. intentionally made to look underage with. the pigtails and the flat chest and the. braces and the no no makeup and all of. that and they're you mixed in with. videos of real teenagers who are being. abused used and then this is being. pushed right it's one of the they were. you know PornHub was tracking down to.

the dollar how much they would make. monthly on those teen categories um on. their site and it was one of you know. one of the most popular uh that they had. and so whatever is making the most money. you push that forward right and so maybe. it's they're getting more clicks because. people are like horrified by it or maybe. you know I I don't know you know exactly. what um is happening there but whatever. it is that gets the most Clicks in views. they they will push the algorithm right. will push that forward but it's like why.

why I wonder how that even starts that. they say like Mom son you know what I'm. saying like where does something like. that DeMent like that idea even start. well I think it's so I've spoken to some. porn producers whove talked to me about. this and the way that there's been like. a trajectory from like Playboy into more. and more kind of extreme forms of um. porn in different situations. and they're you know saying like they're. just told to create the most extreme.

thing you can think of because you you. need more shock value there's this um. idea of uh you know kind of. desensitization for people where they. want to kind of in order to get the same. dopamine hit um with porn it's not. necessarily that you need more it's that. you need different and you need. something yeah more extreme to kind of. get that same dopamine mean hit what. does porn do to our brains do you have. anything on that trying to see just the. psychological effects new research sheds.

light on the global impact of. problematic pornography use okay I'll. look at this a little bit but after this. I want something more about the actual. effects of on our brain a comprehensive. international study involving tens of. thousands of participants from dozens of. countries suggest that problematic. pornography use might have a prevalence. rate as high as. 16.6% so that's saying that 16.6% of. people per this study have problematic. pornography use uh problematic. pornography use refers to a condition.

where individuals and experience an. uncontrollable urge to consume. pornography leading to significant. distress or impairment in their daily. functioning first most people use. pornography but only a small group of. them develop problems with it so we. wanted to see how many people may. experience such problems worldwide and. whether there are any country gender or. sexual orientation based differences as. most previous studies focused on really. specific populations I.E men from the. United States I think one of the most.

important takeaway messages from our. study is that problematic pornography. use seems to be as common as other. mental health issues I.E depression so. we need to better understand this. problem and provide appropriate care for. people experiencing this this issue. probably the most surprising finding of. the study is that only 4 to 10% of. individuals with problematic pornography. sought help for this issue with an. additional 20 to 40% want wanting to but. did not do so for various help reasons. MH well part of that is shame right and.

that's why I am so grateful I'm sure so. many of your listeners are grateful that. you talk about it oh well I'll say this. EXA I'll say this exactly and. specifically when I. um you know we actually a friend of mine. um started a a program called Valor. recovery and it's for porn addiction and. I know I met this guy in different uh. recovery meetings and he's a friend of. mine and so I'll go to the meetings and. um and I'm excited to go to the meetings. and I'm helping we're we're helping kind.

of work to try and make this thing. bigger right to make it bigger and one. of the things I noticed when I. took when I had the most time I ever had. off of pornography the shame I had. disappeared oh there was still some. shame at certain moments but it I was. able to finally notice it cuz before I'd. just been in this circle of shame cuz I. would masturbate I would feel ashamed of. myself I would start to feel a little. bit better um but I would be like had.

some but then when I needed to when I. needed to feel okay when if I started to. feel a little shaky or I needed to feel. okay again I would be right back to the. pornography and then the shame you know. the shame of it cycle it was I didn't. realize I I was stuck in it probably for. a decade I would still go on dates and. be in relationship stuff but it ruined a. lot of those are you like free today. from that or I wouldn't say I'm free but. I'm definitely on parole yeah you know. what I'm saying like it's a different uh.

I have tools and stuff now in place to. like battle against it and um so what. helped you the most to going to meetings. recovery 12-step recovery community. community yeah getting in groups and. you'll start to see in groups I've been. in groups where men at first can't were. scared to even talk like in the groups. and then like 3 months later you see. that like their wife has moved back in. they're spending time with their kids. they're not watching pornography they're. not acting out in these certain ways. with um you know uh escorts and uh.

prostitutes and all of that but the. biggest thing I noticed for myself was. shame I just noticed that it started to. disappear because i' always had this. heavy shame and I never really noticed. that it could have had to do with um. really the masturb just the part of like. if I need to make myself feel good then. I'll use masturbation you know um do you. think that there's I mean could be like. two sides to shame right shame could be. really destructive and unhealthy because. it causes you not to seek help or get. community or be able to talk about it. and so then you push push the problem.

down and then it becomes then you know. worse right because then you're trying. to alleviate that pain okay say it one. more time for me start so you know could. could the shame have two sides to it. where there's kind of like a healthy. shame where it's pricking pricking your. conscience and saying like this is not. who I am I can do better than this and. it inspires you to overcome but then. there's the other side of Shame which. keeps people kind of hiding it pushing. it down not be not being able to get.

community not being able to talk about. it which then could cause the problem to. be worse right for me yeah that I agree. both of those things can happen I think. some of them kind of happened at certain. moments for me but I think overall it. was just I didn't want to be doing it. anymore and I kept doing it yeah and so. for then it was this constant like. um like I don't have any willpower yeah. and so that made me ashamed of myself. yeah it wasn't it sometimes the act. itself would like definitely like I. would watch pornography on the computers.

or something and I would immediately. close it did you ever feel like you were. encountering potentially non-consensual. content when you I never felt like I was. watch I never felt like I saw anything. like that yeah but I do think that I've. this is how I've long I've long thought. this I believe cuz sometimes you see. like a lot of like people get. compromised right it seems like a lot of. times in our society that. uh like Freedom Seekers or people that. want to change the status quo that want.

to like rise up and do something. different at some point some of them get. it feels like maybe they get compromised. and. their I don't know if money hits them or. there's some opportunity that's. presented to them this is all this is a. lot of conspiracy Tim F hat stuff but. and then they change their tune or their. tune weekends or their goal their agenda. like kind of curbs a little bit and you. think oh somebody got to them I think. that a lot of these sites record somehow. secretly these days can record the user. watching porn and so then that they are.

able to use that. against users like say like because I. think everybody's probably watched some. type of pornography maybe I don't know. everybody that I know has watched it but. I would guess anyway like if you had a. tickle them and be like tell me if you. watch it they would do they would admit. it but um but that's what I've always. thought I'm like man I bet some people. it's like they use that that's something. like cuz you always wonder what's that. tool that like once people get like some.

power or something that what's the tool. that they use to keep them down and it. would either be like well we're going to. assassinate you or we have this video of. you masturbating that would be like oh. it's too much shame for me to handle you. know and even if it doesn't actually. happen the fear of that right a risky. card to say you know what I'm not going. to call your bluff that'd be crazy you. know well there is where some of the. opposition to user age verifications. coming from probably is from users who. are afraid that they are going to have.

to identify themselves for sure when. they're going to those sites but I would. assure people like that is actually not. a real fear in this situation because we. have ways now with technology and. there's third-party companies so I would. never want anybody to actually have to. give their ID to Pornhub because who I. would never trust them in a million. years with that content CU they EXP. exploit data like they're being sued. right now in class action for data. exploitation you know they gather so.

much information already and they sell. it to people they sell it to advertisers. so like when you go to Pornhub you think. that it's all private right and but. they're Gathering like the IP address. they can find out your ZIP code from. your ZIP code they can probably find. your income level they're looking at. your sexual preferences they're. determining if you're you know a male or. a female um you know what language you. speak what browser you use I mean. they're Gathering so much information. about everybody and so there's that but.

there's third party companies that can. verify age safely effectively with. respecting privacy and fact they don't. even have to actually take your image so. it's biometric scanning so there's a. company called yot where they actually. will in one second they can determine. your age 99 over 99% accuracy with a. facial scan but using AI That's trained. on you know thousands or millions of. images and so and they just look at. pixels and numbers they don't actually.

even store the actual image of your face. right and then they erase that so that's. you know that's how they can verify so. anybody who wants to oppose age. verification for the reason of privacy. concerns which is what PornHub is. shutting itself down in States across. the United States right now. MH they're they're shutting themselves. down in opposition to age verification. right okay so they're saying instead of. having people verify their age to watch.

we would rather shut ourselves down yes. because it costs them money and we have. their because they have to hire a third. party company to verify exactly they're. not allowed to age verify well I mean. it's not that they're not allowed to I. don't think that they can and I don't. and I don't think anybody would ever. want to like hand their ID over to. Pornhub so there's this thirdparty sites. that have that technology that can at. scale you know verify so used by meta. Tik Tock you know other um companies who. do this but they're saying oh it's too. much it's not cost effective anymore.

they're saying like pornhhub is out. there in the media saying we're protest. we're shutting ourselves down because we. care about user privacy because we don't. want people handing over their. personally that's a li they care about. your user privacy then they would care. about protecting people who were un un. non-consenting right nonon put but. that's the most privacy the most but not. only that it's like the same company. also runs sites that are collecting. credit card information right with your. name your you know when you put in your.

billing address your credit card details. so it's all a it's all a facade it's all. just a facade and so that's why I think. it's important for people to know the. truth about what is the opposition to. age verification what is what's really. going on behind the scenes here and it's. really about money and we even have. their senior community manager who you. know publicly admitted in a Reddit. thread she was having conversation and. she says um a verification would. basically devastate their traffic and it. costs us money to verify and that's why.

it would be a disaster for them is. because it costs them money and so. that's really what this is about it's. about money yeah yeah when people say. that how like how do you respond to that. argument that people say like oh we this. you're limiting freedom of speech right. yeah well I mean I would just well from. the or responsibility of the person. right so both of those things maybe well. there's two sides so there's you know so. we're talking about those who are in the. videos and then we're talking about. who's viewing the videos and I would. just you know over and over and this has. been judges have said this too it's like. you know child sexual abuse is not an.

expression it's not um an idea like rape. is not an idea like these are actual. crimes as Contraband being distributed. we're so anybody that's saying that [ __ ]. them really basically to be honest. because it's just a messed up it's like. what are you saying here you're saying. that because if you know that these. sites are doing that now and then you're. then you can't really argue freedom of. speech for them because they're not it's. not speech right it's not speech right. in in fact it's the fact that somebody. can't speak up for themselves and even. when people do they have to be videos.

have to be flagged so many times or they. don't have proper people in place to. help those people who are trying to. speak up for themselves right yeah so. that um so there's that on that side but. then on the other side you know they're. they're trying to argue this is limiting. Free Speech right for um us to implement. age verification and again it's like no. you know this is not limiting anybody's. ability to access access this content or. anybody's ability to express themselves. on these sites it's simply like a 1. second age verification biometric scan.

using you know the safest you know. privacy protection that you can um and. it's no different than if you go into a. physical store and they're selling. alcohol or right and then the bartender. would do like you know look at you and. determine do I think that they're a ag. or not let me see your ID take a moment. make sure you're an adult and on your. way like that doesn't. restrict uh somebody's ability to get.

what they want they still can go in the. bar and they can get the alcohol anybody. can still go to a porn site and access. porn if they want to they just have to. take these few steps in between and it. helps keep it out of the hands of. children if a kid gets on there also too. A lot of times the fear of something you. get on something like 18 or older you. have to verify yourself as a kid I. remember you if you even would have. clicked something like that and then it. opens to another page you get so scared. sometimes you close it down. You' be like oh my God they're going to. know my dad's going you know there was. just there was a lot of that kind of. fear but now there's just like the R8.

clickthrough button they didn't even. have that right at in 2020 finally now. if you're like on a mobile device it'll. be like are you 18 and then you could. just click yes but some of them now have. a thing where you have to have. identification right what. state level government are doing the. best help support um the the the battle. against I guess porn or dirty por you. know or like illegal content illegal. content illegal and then porn in general.

because at some point it becomes also it. can be a moral or ethical I don't know. if ethical it could be a moral choice. for a population at a certain point do. we want to continue to consume this yeah. I mean from my perspective you know I. think that we could come into agreement. about children like I think that that. could be pretty easy yeah I think that's. easily done I I think that's true it's. just obviously some people don't care so. yeah the states that are doing the best. to protect kids from access I would. probably say I mean the one that's kind. of taking up the fight is Texas like.

they have they're going they're in the. ring right they're at the Supreme Court. trying to battle this out with the big. porn um companies and to to implement. age verification so I think you know but. there's multiple other stes and I would. just say like this is bipartisan so. there's people from both parties that. are in agreement that kids should not be. accessing online porn that's true um and. then on the other side of the screen you. know I mean we've had several bills that. have been introduced in the United.

States since 2020 that would require. agent consent. verification um but they didn't pass. there's efforts in the UK there's. efforts in Canada because this isn't. just a US issue right right but why. aren't they passing more than a dozen. states have passed new laws that led to. restrictions on pornography now the. Supreme Court will weigh in right yeah. yeah you mentioned that right this is. but what's but we need the other side. too like we need our government not just. to implement age verification for users. but also for those who were in the.

videos right and that just but here's. the thing but has that bill gone to them. before and they didn't pass it it just. didn't it kind of U you know uh at the. end of it was like at the end of a. session and then it kind of died and. then you have to reintroduce it but. here's the thing we don't really have to. enact that law in order to reign in. these big porn companies because we have. laws that govern. studio produced porn like the brick and. mortar porn Valley you know pornography.

has always been highly regulated and. they've abided by those regulations like. one of them is called. usc2257 and that's been in place since. 1988 it's a law it's a law in the US. it's a crime to distribute or to produce. porn if you don't verify the age and. consent of those who are in the videos. and that has been in place for decades. and it has been complied with the only. problem is in the internet age when it. became user generated content then these.

sites say well we get a pass because. guess what we're not the ones that are. producing the we're just hosting it. we're just hosting it we're just but in. the case of PornHub they've tried to. make that argument it doesn't really. hold because not only is it about. producing it's also about Distributing. it's transferring and they had that. download button on every video where. from their servers they were. transferring this content to the devices. of millions of people around world and. that's illegal I mean isn't it true if. somebody if they find child pornography.

on someone that they can go to ja to. possess it I mean victims couldn't even. possess their own videos of abuse like I. had to be meticulously careful but then. these sites can like can transfer so. much possessing it on their servers is. actually is actually legal and they we. now in these litigation there's. employees who are going back and forth. in their messages is going I just had to. download one of the worst child abuse. videos that I've ever witnessed I need.

to see a therapist for what I just. witnessed uh oh I forgot to delete it am. I going to get I could go away for a. long time for this like these are the. conversations that are turning up from. PornHub employees wow in Discovery that. they are doing this so if you're. concerned right if they're concerned at. that level yeah so there's laws like we. already have laws that can be. implemented to like you can't distribute. child pornography. usc2257 it just they have to be. modernized and applied today over the.

modern way that we distribute porn on. the Internet it's funny sometimes it. seems like our government is kind of the. LA like once something has come through. and made all of its money and ruined so. many lives then they'll help with it. yeah that's why I'm always like how. complicit is our own government. sometimes in a lot of these things. because that's what it feels like it's. like oh after this wave of has ruined. the lives of a million people and made. half a billion dollars then we'll shut. it down you know but it's like not if. everybody's had their grift or their. hand in it yeah that's why I'm really.

hopeful about the route of you know. strategic civil litigation empowering. survivors in that way to hold the. financial institutions accountable. because I think that could go way faster. which credit companies are still. accepting payments for pornography. websites oh pornography websites um well. all of them except American Express okay. so American Express is the only they've. never been involved in online or like. pornography so American Express is the. only yeah credit card.

company that doesn't will not allow its. information to be used on pornography. websites yeah period yeah and I'm not. suggesting that that has to be the. position of like the other credit card. companies because no but if they're not. going to say that we're not going to. verify things yeah that well the that's. the easy route here is for them to just. say like we have anti-money laundering. policy we have this anti- exploitation. policy policy and you have to verify. agent consent if you want to do business.

with Visa that's it like and that will. that that will take place instantly and. globally like it'll apply everywhere so. what could we say then to the companies. like if we were to put out a clip it's. like hey this is what right now credit. card companies are. allowing transactions MH on pornography. that not verifying the age and consent. that are not ver verifying the age and. consent of every individual in every. single video every individual in every. single video and they need to stop that.

and they need to stop that right now the. only one who doesn't do it is American. Express right because they just have. like this blanket policy against because. they have a blanket policy but the other. ones um so you could so hypothetically. someone could be watching a pornography. video on a website that the user. is uh being coerced or trafficed Under. the Influence a child minor or a child. or a. minor.

and the websites are not verifying that. that isn't the case there's no. verification at the point of upload so. like what they try to say is okay let. anybody upload right and then later on. you know if somebody complains we we'll. try to take it down quickly and sometime. you know they didn't used to even take. it down quickly right um or our. moderators will view it but no before so. this is like prevention because there's. that immortalization of trauma right 1. hour is too long on a site that's.

getting 170 million views per day yeah. you know and even if they can't download. you can screen record like you can right. so like any minute is too long we have. to stop it before it gets uploaded and. the only way to do that is to agent. consent verify before it's uploaded and. they because of the technology that we. have like they can do that at scale like. they can do that on a they. but they don't because but they don't. because money because friction because. when you introduce friction to uploading.

you get less uploading right you get. less people who will do it and so that. goes against the whole big porn free. porn business model because they need. massive amounts of content right so. anything that you would do that would. diminish the amount of content on these. sites they don't want to do got it they. have to be forced to do it and actually. as of September of 2024 PornHub after. being criminally charged right and have. have this monitor over their site. they're finally saying that we're going. to start verifying the age and consent.

of those who were in the videos as of. September of. 2024 um however they still have millions. of videos that were uploaded prior time. they don't know that they don't know. yeah and visa and MasterCard and are. those companies are still accepting. payments on those site well no not on. PornHub oh not on PornHub not on PornHub. or any of the mindgeek ILO owned tube. sites okay they will not so they're on. those they're not so they are done yeah. and that's for the consent of the people. in the videos too yes so they they need.

to verify age and consent of those but. what I'm saying is is is Pornhub. currently accepting visa and MasterCard. payments at all no okay they can't they. would they would like to but they can't. they can't yeah no they've been cut off. from that but PornHub is still not as of. September 2024 they said they were going. to start verifying the age consent of. those. from then on not prior we don't know. yet for sure they're not they haven't.

deleted the content that was uploaded. prior to that where it's only the. uploader that was verified right and. it's not just like Rocky Shay Franklin I. mean there's multiple other victims who. are currently suing PornHub because they. had verified uploaders uploading their. trafficking their rape and abuse got it. so that's y so that's the lay of the. land that's the solution um going. forward and it's a matter of like. pressure so I believe like this. conversation is so valuable to this. fight because we're introducing not only.

the problem to so many people who. probably never heard that this was an. issue before but also the solution so. that we can pressure those imp positions. of power to implement the solutions to. make the internet a safer place right so. who do we pressure though like who do I. when if I have have I have them in here. yeah who do I ask and what do I ask them. okay so if you have like the CE Visa or. Mastercard or the VPS there that why do. you not have this policy in place and.

what will it take to get you there um. because the policy of say age and. consent verification for every single. person and every single video on a user. generated porn site like that it's not. going to stop it 100% but it's going to. stop it a lot it's going to really you. know just help make like I said like the. internet an actual safer place oh I wish. that 15 years ago I would open it up and. like [ __ ] I can't even get in this thing. I can't even do it [ __ ] it I'm gonna go. outside I'm gonna go take a walk or I'm.

gonna go do something I'm going to. respond to one of my buddy's text. messages that was asking me to go do. something I'm going to go do something. positive more positive for myself I did. a lot of positive things I'm not saying. like what was me or anything like that. but when it came to a lot of like uh. relationships and intimacy type [ __ ] I. was more like it was I it was just. uncomfortable and so using pornography. was easier but then that started to kind. of like Fray like the part of me I think. that even cared about building a.

relationship because it I didn't nurture. that part of me at all part some of. times it didn't it didn't even grow how. would it grow if I'm not sitting there. you know nurturing it or paying. attention to it yeah you know the only. part of just that dopamine freaking you. know my dopamine thing was just leaking. or whatever you know cuz I'm just. sitting there was watching all this. slurp Lord stuff on there it's just. trash it's just but anyway. whatever do you got well one of the. things that's also happening is not just. like intimacy and relational issues cuz. that happens right oh yeah dude but it's.

also um men young men are having kind of. an epidemic of what they call porn. induced erectile dysfunction oh yeah P. yeah P where so there was a study in. Canada and it was the Journal of sexual. medicine and they had found a third of. young men between 16 and. 21 had issues with porn induced erectile. dysfunction oh yeah buddy and they're.

young yeah well it's heartbreaking and. then here's that creates a ton of Shame. and a lot of that's just nervous energy. and then here's the thing if you get. used to watching porn then you finally. ear in an inance with a woman or there. is there some sexual activity or. whatever it's so foreign to whatever the. part of your brain that watches a screen. and the part of your brain that engages. with someone are to I don't know this. for a fact but to me it feels like two. totally different parts um one of them. is very active and feels very visceral.

and real and one of them feels very. passive and. uh um transactional almost in a way like. I'm going to give this my attention I'm. going to get some reward out of it but. that's all this is whereas over here. this is a field of communication and. connection right so. um so yeah I wanted to watch this right. here watching pornography this is a from. Neuroscience news watching pornography.

rewires the brain to a more juvenile. State that's. interesting um pornography has existed. throughout recorded history I'd love to. get someone to come in and talk about. just the whole history of. it um hundreds of at at the bottom here. we have the impact okay in the long term. pornography seems to create sexual. dysfunctions especially the inability to. achieve erection or orgasm with real. life partner marital quality and. commitment to one's romantic partner. also appear to be compromised to try to. explain these effects some.

scientists have drawn parallels between. porn consumption and substance abuse the. through evolutionary design the brain is. wired to respond to sexual stimulation. with surges of dopamine so if you get. sexually stimulated your brain gives. dopamine and that makes sense because. yeah we're creatures that are supposed. to reproduce right and have attraction. this neurotransmitter most often. associated with reward anticipation also. acts to program memories and information. into the brain this adaption means that.

when the body requires something like. food or sex the brain remembers Where to. return to experience the same pleasure. instead of turning to a romantic partner. for sexual gratification or fulfillment. habituated porn users instinctively. reach for their phones and laptops when. desire comes calling furthermore. unnaturally strong explosions of reward. and pleasure evoke unnaturally strong. degrees of habituation in the brain dang. that's wild I could definitely see that. MH yeah and then it's like and then you.

feel ashamed you know like what parent. wants to go and talk to their son and. wish him good night if he's been. mastered I'm sure that's a weird you. know what I'm saying like I don't know. what that's like but I'm sure that. there's some shame there it's like yeah. well that's where I think that one of. the the important things that we can do. is create like actually shame-free zones. where kids like the kitchen or whatever. I don't know I mean like your households. right like oh I seeing you know like. where you can feel like you're in a. relationship that is safe to talk about.

the things that you would feel ashamed. talking about you know because then you. don't just stuff it down well that's a. recovery meetings that's one thing I I. think 12ep meetings are great because. it's like and if people are wondering. how do I get into those meeting there's. s.org I think it's called if you want to. look at that up Nick and see um but yeah. but you can look SLA online and that's. just you can find meetings and then once. you get into a meeting you can talk to. people now you're not a weirdo now you. get in a program you kind of get some.

things organized you create a basically. a set of principles for yourself and. then you have a new kind of design of. for living I wonder to though like in. all of this and the recovery and all the. ways that you can help um yourself and. people who are struggling with this you. know does hearing this truth about the. victims who are on the other side of the. screen I've had. numerous people and men and women who. have struggled with compulsive porn.

addiction that they didn't want but they. couldn't like kick it they just really. struggled with it and when they heard. about the victims who could be behind. that screen on these sites right which. is the primary way that porn is. distributed today they felt like it. finally gave them the like fortitude or. the motivation to just be like I don't. want to participate in somebody else's. trauma like I don't want to participate. in their suffering I don't want to give.

money I don't want to give clicks and. Views to a big porn corporation who's. making a living off of the devastation. of real victim's lives and that is. actually what gave them. the um I guess like the ammunition to. just finally like be like no like I'm. not gonna I'm not gonna do that yeah. what we're well I certainly think you're. right though it's like I have some. friends that work in porn and that sort. of thing and it's not like I don't think. what they're doing is bad I don't think.

that por for me porn isn't good right. it's not a good it's not it hasn't been. a tool that I use properly or whatever. and I don't think it's good for me right. it may be good for some people might be. good for them um but I'm not damning the. people that work in it or anything like. that neither am I I mean I like to each. his own and for sure but the kids should. be able to access to think I don't think. it's good I think kids is where you draw. the line can't choose like they need to. be able. to get to adulthood before they decide.

where they can make that decision and. also it's that prefrontal cortex of the. brain where it's like that decision. making center of the brain it's not even. developed so they can't like reason. should is this going to be good for me. or do I want to do this or what are the. consequences of me you know and they. just don't have that yet and so like. they definitely need to be protected but. once you're an adult you know you can. make decisions like you should have the. freedom to make whatever decisions you. want and I take the position of like.

what you know it's consenting adult like. that's their business right and Y I. agree but they'd also be we also have. this like imagine if you opened your. door and there there's a bunch of porn. there that's really what it's like it's. like you know I mean the internet's just. our front porch now it's like so you. open your door and everything is there. everything is there so if you as a. parent or as a um country kind of can't. decide maybe what should and shouldn't. be there sort of and at a certain point. you see enough proof MH well 90% of this.

many this much percentage of people. maybe get addicted to this it ruins this. many marriages hypothetic like at a. certain point you might think this isn't. for our society this just doesn't help. society that much overall I'm not saying. that I don't know if that's true but at. least we can all I mean everybody can. agree that like step one let's just keep. kids away from accessing it and then you. know because they will get a they will. get that compulsive porn use when they. oh yeah no doubt about that I think we.

get it yeah yeah yeah I think that's. yeah I think there's no doubt about it I. it would be hard to hear listen to. anyone's argument against that well it's. I mean they're not arguing that kids. shouldn't watch porn but they're arguing. against the ways that we can prevent. them from doing it which is kind of the. same thing isn't it I mean it's just a. different yeah I guess it's a different. way to say it but yeah and who are the. people that are arguing doing against it. the porn the big the people who profit. from it right which is the the big porn. industry um but yeah that's crazy um if.

you had a politician uh sitting in front. of you um you know I think probably you. could just ask them look we need to. introduce preventative laws to help keep. victims from being abused um on these. sites across the internet and that is. again agent consent verification for. every individual and I don't think there. would be resistance to that like I don't. even think that the the porn industry. itself has a real legitimate uh you know. way to resist that or they would because. they have been complying with usc2257.

for so long like since 1988 that. standard has been like brick and mortar. Studio porn but they've been doing it so. the internet just hasn't yeah so they're. just it's just evolving with the. internet and so we the government's. always behind the times yeah so they. just need to get up get up with the. times it's the Gap in between when the. government is behind the times and when. when people get hurt right oh yeah yeah. just like this recurring yeah it's this. recurring Market that continues to. happen just the uh the gravity is.

different the the source of the gravity. is different um we certainly appreciate. appreciate your work and appreciate you. coming through here to share about this. journey and what it's like to take on um. something like PornHub well thank you. for shining a light on this thank you. for caring about it thank you for. talking about it um thank you for being. vulnerable about your own Journey oh. yeah I think I mean what all I am is. just [ __ ] mule for my own [ __ ] at. this point or mule for my own problems I.

mean I think it's so valuable because I. think that it helps like normalize that. conversation so that people can actually. feel like they can talk about it and get. help if they want to get help I think. well I've been in a relationship one. time I was just like I've watched. pornography instead of hook up with my. girlfriend or have some sort of intimacy. with my girlfriend and I man I feel. horrible about that years later you know. I just didn't have. uh I didn't know how to do it there you. know I just was kind of I don't know I.

think I was I didn't I was I didn't want. to talk to her about stuff and so I just. it was easier to do that yeah than uh. like engage with her and yeah you know. but it's just it you know just all comes. at a cost at the time I didn't think. that it was you know I don't know what I. thought I don't think I was thinking I. think just I was like oh this is the. easy way and I wasn't kind of brave. enough to take the tougher the tough for. R of like let's lay here and talk and. see what's going on and then maybe build. up some intimacy but even to just. recognize that is like so awesome I was.

Outsourcing a lot of my intimacy you. know just to this screen that didn't. care about me really yeah and then to. potentially the people on the other side. of the screen you're saying they don't. even know you know it's like it's a. really pretty Twisted s you know both. sides if you say if like there's. somebody who's masturbating into a video. of something that they the person didn't. want to be in it right they're being. exploited this person is doing it just. because out of addiction or shame you. know or addiction they're stuck in this. cycle that this is how they do to make. themselves feel okay then you basically.

have this exploitation cycle yeah. neither one of them wants to be doing. anything that they're doing and it's. just this magnet lack of Freedom here. and lack of Freedom here because they're. doing what they don't want to do and. they're being forced to do you know. they're being exploited here their. freedom is being taken away just like we. need freedom freedom on both sides right. yeah it's inter I mean being alive is a. it's in it's a journey. um but yeah thanks for coming and and. and sharing some of that information. with us thank you yeah and also just to.

not also if you like pornography and you. can use it in a way that's okay for you. then that's your world too I don't want. everything to be a Debbie down or that. everything is horrible and this and that. um we're not looking at that you know if. you can casually jerk off or whatever. touch your body or whatever then that's. good for you you know but I think this. is when it maybe gets out of control and. then. at certain ages people look at. pornography differently too I think you. know I think when you're 17 or something. you're like just you know you're just.

freaking rabbiting around the town you. know you can you know you're not even. thinking about a bigger picture of. things literally not thinking because. they don't have that reasoning Center. developed till you're like mid 20s oh. you're just freaking right serving jerk. chicken all around town anyway but um. yeah what what can people do to help uh. support yeah well so easy thing they can. do is sign the petition right which is. trafficking competition.com um they can. read the book Tak down 100% of all.

proceeds from auor proceeds from that. are donated to the Justice defense fund. to support victims in their pursuit of. justice and healing amen and the book it. like it will um it's written in first. person present tense where you go on a. journey of Discovery with me where you. go from that night I described in early. 2020 all the way through this fight you. meet the victims you meet the. whistleblowers you you know go through. this day-to-day with me and so at the. end of it you really would feel like you. are immersed in it you understand it.

really deeply at like a heart level you. know that was my goal for writing that. book was that it wouldn't just be like. information that people get but they. would go on this journey and they would. um come out of it feeling inspired and. activated to take action and um on that. note like they could join team takedown. we've created team takedown and so you. can go to takedown book.com and you can. join there and all of that so yeah we're. going to just keep at it until until. Justice fully prevails yeah yeah and.

it's you know it's like yeah once you. start to put the light on something it. grows you know and that's such a nice. gift that you gave us here the truth is. like a lion Let it Loose it will defend. itself St Augustine that's really cool. um take down inside the fight to shut. down PornHub thank you so much uh for. your time today I really appreciate. thank you so much for having me was. really an honor now I'm just. floating and fall. leaves.

Cornerstone oh but when I reach that. ground I'll share this piece of my life. I can feel it in my. bones but it's going to take.