Instagram Deletes Porn Site Account, PornHub, Due To Pressure From Evangelis Christian Groups

Instagram has removed the official PornHub account. (photo: doc. pixabay)

JAKARTA - Instagram has removed the official PornHub account due to increasing pressure from campaigners on the site. The news was first reported by Variety, which noted that at the time of its deletion, PornHub's Instagram account had around 13.1 million followers and 6,200 posts.

The account, as The Verge reports, actually posts secure content promoting various PornHub videos and artists. PornHub itself can still operate popular accounts on other social media platforms such as Twitter.

It's not clear why Instagram's parent company, Meta, removed the account, although a screenshot shared by anti-PornHub campaigner Laila Mickelwait shows the account was removed for violating Instagram's community guidelines.

Instagram: “We removed Pornhub’s account…”

Have a good weekend. pic.twitter.com/o9rIDlGyBa

— Laila Mickelwait (@LailaMickelwait) September 3, 2022

Mickelwait is the founder of the “TraffickingHub” campaign, an advocacy group aimed at “shutting down Pornhub and holding its executives accountable for enabling, distributing, and profiting from rape, child abuse, sex trafficking, and criminal image-based sexual harassment.”

Mickelwait positions himself as an anti-sex trafficking campaigner, but critics note his links to evangelical Christian groups that advocate the complete elimination of all sex work and commercial pornography.

According to Mickelwait's own website, he previously worked at Exodus Cry, a group of Christian "abolitionists" who want to "end the sex industry" and lists Mickelwait's "TraffickingHub" under the "our campaigns" section of its website.

As reported by The New Republic, Exodus Cry “appears to have been incubated at IHOPKC [Kansas City International House of Prayer], a Christian ministry led by pastor Mike Bickle, a dominionist. As Political Research Associates explains, he believes that 'God has called conservative Christians to exercise power over society by taking control of political and cultural institutions.'”

In a statement posted on Twitter, Mickelwait said Instagram and Meta had made the "right decision by cutting ties with Pornhub" and that it was time for other big tech companies such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft to "follow" that decision.

Criticism of PornHub for facilitating the distribution of child abuse material has increased in recent years, implicated its business partners, and led to the resignation of its CEO and COO.

In 2020, Visa and Mastercard stopped processing payments on PornHub due to “unlawful content” on the site, although this did not stop lawsuits against the company.

In August, a California judge allowed the lawsuit against Visa to proceed, arguing that the company "intended to help MindGeek monetize child pornography."

In response to the criticism, PornHub has taken steps such as removing all content from unverified users and removing the download function that allows users to download any video.