this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2024
102 points (70.1% liked)

News

23014 readers
6 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
102
She took on world's largest porn site for profiting off child abuse. She's winning. (www.usatoday.com)
submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
25 comments fedilink hide all child comments
all 26 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 224 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Never, ever, EVER trust ANYONE who says they're doing something "for the safety of children". The war against porn and sex work has been co-opted by christian fascists.

Make no mistake, there is a hysteria around "child trafficking" nowadays, and that hysteria is being harnessed to pass laws that suppress our freedoms. SESTA/FOSTA has put the lives of countless sex workers at risk by forcing them back into the shady world of pimps and back alleys. The Texas ID law is pure government surveillance, and Project 2025 explicitly linked any trans people's mere existence as "pornographic" and thus subject to all anti-porn laws.

Human trafficking is real. Child abuse is real. And it needs to be fought against.

But never EVER trust anyone who goes to the media and starts shouting about "our children". It's a fucking scam, and it's usually making things worse for the people they claim to want to protect.

NCOSE, the organization that co-sponsored Traffickinghub, was previously known as Morality in Media, and used to rail against sex shops, push abstinence education, and once boycotted Disney for offering partner benefits to gay couples. The group’s president, Patrick Trueman, has served at multiple far-right organizations designated as anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Laila founded Traffickinghub while on staff at Exodus Cry, an anti-trafficking organization that describes porn as a public health crisis. Its founder once called homosexuality an “an unspeakable offense to God.” One of its tax filings described a mission of “abolishing sex trafficking and the commercial sex industry,” which would seem to include porn.

https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/world/an-activist-tried-to-take-down-trafficking-on-pornhub-did-she-do-more-harm-than-good/ar-BB1qM6Ue

Fuck this bitch. Did she help some children? Maybe. But that's not why she did it.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Wow, great article, but it has even more info pointing out that this is a far right attack on sexuality that is using "trafficking" as its trojan horse:

Laila founded Traffickinghub while on staff at Exodus Cry, an anti-trafficking organization that describes porn as a public health crisis. Its founder once called homosexuality an “an unspeakable offense to God.” One of its tax filings described a mission of “abolishing sex trafficking and the commercial sex industry,” which would seem to include porn.

Helen Taylor, vice president of impact at Exodus Cry, told The Independent in an email that the group seeks to neither demonize LGBTQ+ people nor end legal pornography, and that it works to defend queer people, who are often singled out as victims of sexual exploitation.

“Exodus Cry has no campaign to bring down the porn industry,” she said. “We focus on identifying instances of sexual exploitation in the porn industry and calling for change, recognizing that Big Porn needs regulation.”

The questions over Mickelwait’s associations are likely to persist. The 2022 990 tax form for her new group, Justice Defense Fund, filed in late 2023, has the names of three of its four main officers “withheld for security reasons,” and lists only one contributor, their name also “restricted.”

These partnerships, as well as Mickelwait’s penchant for describing Pornhub in terms like calling it a “terrorist” organization, made her efforts seem counter-productive to some, painting the industry as irredeemable and evil rather than imperfect.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago

Never forget that the IRS spearheaded the biggest CSAM takedown in history by taking down a site called "welcome to video" they even caught a boarder patrol agent. So whenever someone says they want to protect children, remind them that we should be funding investigative agencies like the IRS and OSHA.

[–] [email protected] 90 points 3 months ago (1 children)

[...] it was about a 15-year-old girl who was missing for an entire year, and she was finally found after a Pornhub user had tipped off her mother that she was on the site, and her mom found her in 58 videos being raped for profit on Pornhub

That's dark

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's kind of insane how this can just fly under the radar. I don't think I've ever seen any sus stuff on big tube sites. Was this before amateur purge?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

I don't think it's that unbelievable. There used to be so many amateur videos with like 1-5 views.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

In case readers wants a journalist’s take instead of the subject themselves, link below. I think anyone noticing the hyperbolic way she spoke in the interview would quickly be seeking out a non-first-person perspective. The interviewer didn’t even allude to the pre-existing controversy around this lady, what terrible journalism.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pornhub-traffickinghub-laila-mickelwait-book-b2585302.html

This anecdote from the article is technically hearsay, but I for sure buy that a person who uses language like she does is the same kind of person who’d write this:

Aylo also shared a screenshot with The Independent of a post it said Mickelwait shared then deleted on X, describing her husband as a “trained sniper who can consistently hit a target 1360 yards away.”

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

who can consistently hit a target 1360 yards away

Hell, depending on the size of the target, I can do that too

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

Yeah, if you make the target "Florida", I think I could just about manage it too.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I've been skeptical of her work. She makes a lot of valid points about PH's shortcomings and things they need to fix, but she was also a prominent voice in spreading misinformation about at least one actress that I'm aware of, going hard into very serious accusations all based on a single tweet from some random person, causing pretty significant damage to the actress's career as now many platforms are afraid to host her content. To the best of my knowledge, she's never recanted the claims, although just about every media outlet that reported on that story has deleted their articles on it.

She seems to put about as much work into fact-checking herself as PH puts into protecting their users. And when you're dealing with a subject as intense as producing CSAM, you really shouldn't be loosey-goosey with your vetting process. I feel like she's doing this more to get eyes on her book deal than to actually help people.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Which actress?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Ellesclub. Mickelwait had spread this claim across a few of her Twitter accounts that Ellesclub was a trafficking victim and was underage in the videos on PH at the time. Most of the proof she refers to doesn't actually exist, though.

The most concrete proof she's put out was Elles' stated age on her social/content profiles. Because apparently Mickelwait can't think of any reason why a pornstar's bio would say she's been 18 for ten years straight.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Mickelwait can't think of any reason why a pornstar's bio would say she's been 18 for ten years straight.

Probably trying to avoid alcohol and renting cars. Definitely nothing to do with anything that rhymes with Square Lee: Bee Pal

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Totally thought you meant non porn when you said actress. I could definitely see how that would mess up someone's career when they are in porn.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The whole article reads like a pathetic plug for her new book.

When trying to click on the authors web page, Ingtid Jaqcues, the link is broken. To me, the whole article gives the gross vibe of being written as a favor.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Seems like pornhub really need to step up their game wtf

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Pornhub is just one of maaaaaaaany websites. They're just the most famous.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Sure. It's applicable to all of them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Cut one head, another takes its place.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

~~Presumably~~ Hopefully they have since they had the mass deletion of unverified content a few years ago.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

She probably hasn't visited Motherless.