Pornhub Sued By Dozens Of Women For Allegedly Depicting Rape And Other Nonconsensual Sex

Thirty-four women have sued Pornhub and its parent for videos posted on the porn website without their consent, calling the company a “classic criminal enterprise” with a business structure created to monetize nonconsensual sexual content.

The 179-page lawsuit filed in a California state court on Thursday alleged that MindGeek and its sites knowingly profited from videos depicting rape, child sexual exploitation, trafficking and other nonconsensual sexual content. MindGeek is operating a “Racketeering Enterprise” that is “Just like the Sopranos,” read the suit which sought damages and protection to the 34 plaintiffs, including minors.

“The company’s top management and shadowy international financiers and their investors are the “bosses” of this Enterprise and, together with their “capos,” run its rackets and schemes ,” it added.

Pornhub said it has begun an investigation on the complaint but it denied accusations made against its company structure. "The allegations in today's complaint that Pornhub is a criminal enterprise that traffics women and is run like 'The Sopranos' are utterly absurd, completely reckless and categorically false," Pornhub said in a statement to CNN.

Lawyers from Brown Rudnick LLP said that MindGeek websites, including Pornhub, RedTube, Tube8 and YouPorn, attract 3.5 billion views per month. They are flagship sites in an industry with an estimated revenue of about $97 billion a year, compared to about $11.7 billion of Netflix's annual revenue, according to the lawsuit.

The complaint includes just one named defendant while the other 33 women requested anonymity. One anonymous plaintiff on the call with reporters said that a video posted of her on Pornhub ruined her life, CNN reported.

Lawyer Michael Bowe, who is representing the complainants, told CNN that the online pornography industry “has operated like an old-school red-light district of commerce where rules that do apply and should be applied haven't been applied."

Pornhub removed content uploaded by non-verified users in December after a New York Times column accused the site of turning a blind eye to videos of child abuse, rape and revenge porn. Visa and Mastercard announced they would no longer process payments to Pornhub.

An online petition to shut down Pornhub and hold its executives accountable for aiding trafficking has gathered more than 2.2 million signatures.

Bowe told CNN that he expects that the case will be a “watershed moment” for the online pornography industry, which “simply hasn’t been policed enough."