PBD Podcast - “130 Million Daily Users” - PornHub Owner On Moderation, Sex Work & Morality | PBD Podcast | Ep. 484

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

Patrick Bet-David sits down with PornHub owner Solomon Friedman to discuss the controversial acquisition of PornHub and the ethics surrounding adult content in the digital age. With a deep dive into legal challenges, moderation practices, and industry reforms, Friedman sheds light on what it takes to manage one of the internet’s most contentious platforms. ---- 🎟️ ELECTION NIGHT IN AMERICA @ VT HQ: ⁠https://bit.ly/3XPbyt0⁠ 💸 BUY 1 VT WALLET, GET 1 KEYCHAIN & CARD HOLDER FREE: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3N6VHkr⁠⁠⁠ 📕 PURCHASE VIVEK'S NEW BOOK "TRUTHS": ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3TOnlq0⁠⁠⁠ 📕 SIGNED COPY OF PBD'S NEW BOOK "THE ACADEMY": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3XC5ftN⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧢 NEW FLB HAT - WHITE W/ RED LETTERING: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3BgUAvR⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧢 NEW FLB HAT - RED W/ WHITE LETTERING: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3MY7MIQ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🇺🇸VT USA COLLECTION: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/47zLCWO⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📰 VTNEWS.AI: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3Zn2Moj⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🏦 "THE VAULT 2024" RECORDING: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4ejazrr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 👕 VT "2024 ELECTION COLLECTION": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3XD7Bsm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON SPOTIFY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3ze3RUM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ITUNES: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/47iOGGx⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ALL PLATFORMS: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4e0FgCe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3MGK5EE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📕 CHOOSE YOUR ENEMIES WISELY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3XnEpo0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4d5nYlU⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🎓 VALUETAINMENT UNIVERSITY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3XC8L7k⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 JOIN THE CHANNEL: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3XjSSRK⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💬 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! ABOUT US: Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pbdpodcast/support

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Were you aware that these kinds of things was happening on Pornhub? On Pornhub? I mean, these are things that we're not really unfortunately able to talk about because these are about ongoing litigation. In every western democracy, it's constitutionally protected. It could not be outlawed, even if you wanted to. There is no way you're working there and you don't know this is out there.

We are doing more than any other platform to keep it safe. We're gonna make that mandatory though. Who's they? US government. Why not? We think they should. We think they should tomorrow. You think they should make it mandatory to opt in?

But I see where you're trying to go. No, no, it's a good question. Wait a minute, why are you worried though? No, not worried. We're not worried at all. So are you a man of faith? I am a man of faith. Are you ever conflicted?

What a ridiculously insecure method and totally violating of the privacy of 130 million people a day. It's sounding confusing, Rob, what my ask is because I feel like I'm delusional right now. Do you understand what I'm requesting? I do. If you did do that, your traffic will drop 90%,

but go ahead. Come on, that's a ludicrous assessment at 90%. You'll see when I say this, go ahead. Why would you bet on Goliath when we got bet David? Value taming, giving values contagious. This world are entrepreneurs, we get no value to haters. I ain't running homie, look what I become. I'm the one. So today we have with us Solomon Friedman, who him and his organization, I think ethical, what is it called? Ethical capital partners decided to buy Pornhub out of all the companies.

We're going to talk porn today. And we also have somebody who's been with them since 2013, Alexandra, if I'm not mistaken, who's here to teach us how to work at a Pornhub type of company while still having HR. I don't know how you do that. We're going to ask those questions as well. I've got a lot of weird questions for you. I'm a family guy, I've got kids, so some of them's gonna be uncomfortable for you. We have a lot of viewers that listen to this as well

and watch us as parents, but with that being said, appreciate you guys for being on the podcast. Thank you for having us. So out of all the businesses you guys could buy, why did you guys target buying Pornhub? Yeah, so we saw an extraordinary opportunity. The fact that it's newsworthy or noteworthy that we've made the acquisition, that should tell you that this is a space that has not had mainstream investment,

right? That it's a space, I always said, you know, when we looked at the business, it's a business that's legal. Not only is it legal, but in every Western democracy, it's constitutionally protected. It could not be outlawed, even if you wanted to, but it doesn't have that legitimacy. And one of the reasons for that, and we started to examine the business further, was that you wanted to, but it doesn't have that legitimacy. And one of the reasons for that, and we started to examine the business further, was that nobody wanted to say, we are the owners of a major adult company, right? Everyone, they sort of, they wanted the benefits

of owning a major adult company. It's a profitable business, but nobody wanted to be out front and engaging with other tech businesses, with government, with law enforcement, with regulation, in that sort of way that the modern tech industry has to. So we saw in that this arbitrage opportunity, right? Where if people who come from, you know, the mainstream professional networks,

whether it's law, law enforcement, tech, finance, et cetera, this is an opportunity to really bring this industry into the 21st century. We saw an extraordinary opportunity to do that with this, you know, this jewel of an asset, Pornhub, but obviously with the entire company. I love it, it's a jewel of an asset. So I'm gonna give you some stats here that we see.

So one, it says 2018 Pornhub alone witnessed a jaw drop in 5.8 billion hours of content consumption, which by the way, it's kind of strange because most men should only be watching for a minute or two, right? But this is like when you hear 5.8 billion hours. No Patrick, our average visit is about 10 and a half minutes. They probably got off the computer and left the website on, but there's a different story there. So that's nearly 665 centuries of material over a single platform in just one year. Here's another one for you. The world was flocking to Pornhub in 2018 with a whopping

63,992 new visitors per minute. Is that true? 63,992 new visitors per month. Does it sound unreasonable? 33 and a half billion visitors. Insane, right? And the most popular day to visit Pornhub is Sunday. You guys got all these different stats and you even put up a stat recently on which state consumed the least while the election was going on and who was committed to it, so you're also involved in the election stuff that's going on, right? But at the same time, you got a petition, I think something came out that says, more than 2.2 million people have signed an online petition to shut down the site.

Why do you think that is? Well, I think that the topic of pornography has always been a divisive one. I think it has to do with the topic of sexuality in general, right? There are always going to be different views about human sexuality, and pornography is just emblematic of those. In fact, it's a little more public, it's more in your face, that's the nature of it. It's sex for the public. So you're going to have people who have really deeply held convictions about the proper place of sex in our society.

And that's a good debate. There's something wrong with that debate. But you take two and a half million signatures, we have 130 million daily active users. So people have voted with their mice and with their feet in terms of where they're going to go. But of course, it's going to be a subject of public debate. How do you handle that? How do you handle that? When these 2.2 million, I'm assuming some of these guys are, is this the one shutdown porn hub and hold its executives accountable for aiding, aiding trafficking, right? So that's what, what side is this on Rob? If you can show me what's started at change, change.org petition. And then apparently

so many people signed it. They changed it to traffickinghubpetition.com. And let me ask you, so what does this do? What if they get five million? What if they get 10 million? What if they get 20 million? Does it mean anything and can they do anything to you to shut down the website? Well, I say this, I'll let Alex from the ALO perspective,

that the company itself, I'm obviously in the ownership group, but it's based on false premises, right? It's based on a conflation of consensual, legitimate sex work with trafficking. And even using that terminology, trafficking hub, what that does is it robs people of agency. We believe in self-determination, individuals have the right to make free choices

about their body and to monetize those choices as responsible adults on a safe platform. And yes, there will always be those who ideologically believe that that is wrong, but we disagree, whether it's 2.5 million or however many signatures. But Alex has seen that for a decade plus, obviously. Unfortunately, that's exactly right. So there is this continuing conflation. And I think that it's really important to clarify the fact that sex trafficking and consensual sex work, they don't even exist on a

spectrum. These are two very different things. We're talking about something that is against the law and putting people in a lot of danger. And then what Saul was saying, it's people that are just trying to make a living and pay taxes when we, when we're talking about legal, consensual sex work. So what we do at Pornhub specifically is we offer a platform that is safe, that is leading in trust and safety, that is leading in compliance. And we offer a platform where people can do exactly that. They can express themselves. We're very big on freedom of expression.

That's one of our core values as a brand. One of our core values as a brand. One of our core values is also consent. So we're very proud to have a platform where people can do exactly that. They can express themselves and they can monetize their legal work. Okay. So is there any underage porn on Pornhub? No, absolutely not. Zero. Zero.

And how do you verify? Like how do you know out of all the porn that's on Pornhub that nobody that ever shot the video at the time was under 18 years old? Sure. Yeah. We can both answer that one. Sure can. Go ahead Alex, you go first. But I think it's really important that people understand that to upload content to Pornhub, it's actually, it's quite difficult and that's by design. It's not just like, okay, I can kind of like you do on Instagram or on social media where I have something on my phone, I just want to throw it up there for public consumption. It's quite the opposite. So in order to be able to upload anything to PornHub, you first have to become verified.

So that means you have to go through a program where you have to scan an ID, you have to make sure that there's a likeness test that matches the ID of the person that's on there to the face of the uploader. Only once you've gone through that process, and that's been verified by a third party that we use called Yodi, can you then get to the point where you're actually able to upload. And then again, there's a number of different checkpoints that a piece of content has to go through before it ever goes live. So these are things like verifying the consent and identity of every single person that appears in a scene.

We then scan the content against a number of different databases that contain hashes. So to make sure that there's no known illegal content of any kind, so that could be. How do you know how old the person was in the porn when it was shot, at the time that it was shot? Because somebody could have give you the porn and today I shot, at the time that it was shot. Because somebody could have give you the porn and today I'm 19 years old but when the girl shot at you was 15 and a half.

How do you regulate that? So the ID has to be current of the time that the paperwork is submitted. I know but how do you know when the video was shot, when the porn was shot? Because there's... do you want to the video was shot, when the porn was shot? Because there's, do you wanna talk about 2257? It's important to understand the legal regulations that are behind this. So first of all, for any adult content that's produced in the United States,

the regulations require that prior to the shooting of the content, that there is a form filled out that has age, identity, consent, and rights released for the use of that content. What many people don't know about Pornhub is that all the content is moderated. So unlike YouTube or X, you can't just upload something. It has to be reviewed by a moderator.

And the moderator is looking at, number one, the documentation, but this is just to understand that the scale of this effort, right? I always say there's a company that really puts its money where its mouth is when it comes to keeping the platform safe. This is not cheap to do this. We're in an age now where trust and safety is being reduced

on many of the major platforms. We're investing, I can say this from the ownership perspective, we're investing more heavily than ever. But what that- But how do you do that though? Like what I wanna know is, you know, and by the way, just so you know,

right now while I'm speaking to you, I'm looking at stories that's coming up. So like right now I just typed in, this is my first time ever going on this thing called Trafficking Hub after I saw that. I saw the 2.2 million people here based on what's on Wikipedia, right? So if I go over here, then a story comes up

with New York Times, the children of Pornhub, right? So I clicked on that. So this story right here, right? Can you zoom in Rob? What's this story about that New York Times wrote? Do you guys know? Of course. What's it about?

That's the story by the way that gave the opportunity to purchase this company because it led to some really significant reforms. So prior to the publication of this opinion piece, and that's what it is, it's not a news piece, it's an opinion piece by Nicholas Kristof, Pornhub did not require the ID for all uploaded content. Within weeks of the publication,

this is well before we acquired the company, the company took a pretty dramatic step, which is it removed eight million pieces of content where they didn't hold the ID for the uploader. So the rest of the industry, which continues on by the way, doing exactly what was happening pre 2020, said your site's gonna die. Nobody is going to upload content

if they have to provide their ID where every single uploader has to provide ID. And in fact, Pornhub transformed the user generated content industry as a result of this and other challenges, which is by the way, exactly what should happen in the tech industry. Problems should be identified.

So like I don't hold any grievance against the identification of problems and challenges. That's how you get better, right? And what happened, this is my description, it's only my opinion, is that you had the content creator revolution, which has changed the internet. It collided with the adult entertainment industry,

neither were really ready for each other. So from the content side, the creators said, we're gonna get eyeballs and monetization. The adult industry said, we're gonna get content. And figuring out how those two go together with the kind of safeguards that we have now, that took time to happen. I think we really, as the system exists today,

not historically, not a 2020 New York Times article, how it exists today on the ground is an example for the rest of the content creation industry to follow. So if we go a little lower, because I still want to figure this out. So go a little, is suing Visa, go up Rob, let me see what it says, is suing Visa the best way to shut down Pornhub?

Biologics, or such, are targeting credit card companies in a war against online sex trafficking have pushed too far, can cause unintended harms. Go a little lower. The story that I still want to get to, zoom in right, okay second paragraph. The article denied the Firestone protests and litigation that deeply impacted online pornography industry. Survivors and anti-trafficking advocacy organizations, many have ties to Christian right and anti-pornography efforts of the 1970s and 80s gather more than 2 million signatures on the tongue. Okay, we

just read that and survivors of the anti-trafficking League who claims a Pornhub's parent company MindGeek seeking millions of dollars in damages notably Serena Flaites who was 13 years old when her ex-boyfriend uploaded a sexually explicit video on Pornhub brought a novel trafficking lawsuit against Visa she alleged that the credit card company who's provided MindGeek its payment networks knowingly monetize these images for profit. So, Alexander, you've been there since 2013, right? When you were there, were you aware that these kinds of things was happening on Pornhub? Hey you! Yeah, you. Scrolling TikTok and avoiding your chem homework? Chegg here.

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Limited time offer, condition supply. Visit rbc.com slash Avion. On PornHub, I mean, these are things that we're not really unfortunately able to talk about in too much detail because these are about ongoing litigation. So what I'm able to comment on is limited. There's an active litigation going on right now. There's lawsuits that relate back to how the site used to be prior to the acquisition. And I'm asking you because you've been there since 2013.

So I'm kind of glad you're here because that's, how much have you noticed culturally the place changing? Because there is no way you're working there and you don't know this is out there, right? You would know if you're working there that this is out there. I mean, what I can tell you is that I've seen a tremendous evolution in Pornhub since I've been there.

I've been there, like you said, since 2013 in very different capacities. Like when I started there, I was working in social media and customer service. So I can say that I'm very proud to work for a company where I was able to grow in the way that I have up to an executive level today. But during that time, more importantly,

like yes, like Sal said, there's been colossal evolution in the way not only the adult industry moderates itself and how trust and safety has evolved, but also social media in general, right? Like this is a topic that we're really, that we're dealing with as a larger society, right? Like how do we keep online spaces safe? And I really do believe that we are pioneering a way that what that can look like in a very manageable and you have you look like you have a question. I do you guys bought it in March of 2023. March 23rd if I'm not mistaken. Okay, how many people from Pornhub employees and executives and directors and VPs, who for sure knows at the time

that these types of content was there have been fired. So in terms of major personnel changes, so prior to the acquisition, this is probably the biggest one, tells you about a difference in direction, well prior to the acquisition, a few months prior to the acquisition, the previous two owners who were owner operators,

they were the CEO and the COO, they departed the company. Change was required. The CEO and who else? And the COO. And the COO. Right, they were also the minority shareholders of the company. Were they fired or they were bought

and they just stepped away? They departed prior to the acquisition. Prior to, so you guys bought in March, when did they depart? Summer, the summer. Okay, so 2022. 2022. Okay, I got it. But once again, when we were acquiring the company, we were looking at the executives. Tuesday on MindGeek, a parent company in Portham have resigned and allegations that the site

does not immediately assign a very removed content involving non-conceptional underage sex. MindGeek confirmed the departures of CEO Ferris Antune and CEO David Tassilo. Can you see what their background is, Rob? I'm just curious to know what their background was prior to doing this. Okay, so they stepped away June of 2022,

resigned after these stories are kind of getting public. Yeah, I mean, look, they had their reasons for stepping away. I can tell you that in terms of the executive group, when we evaluated this opportunity, we spent time evaluating the company and the executives, including executives like Alex, but the leadership group, they had really taken the company in a different direction

in the years prior. And we wanted them to continue taking the company in that direction, but we wanted to invest in them, to provide them with the resources to do this kind of work, full moderation, full verification of age ID consent of all uploaders and people appearing in content. The company needs to evolve, it needed to evolve, and our view is that under our ownership,

they're gonna continue to evolve. So who else do I mean, I've ran, I've been in business for many years, you got C-Suites, you got VPs, you got directors, you got a lot of people that are involved that know this kind of stuff. So who else that was aware that this kind of stuff existed, got fired after you guys bought them?

So I just wanna be very clear. It's important to make a distinction here, okay? Every single online platform that allows for user-generated content is going to have criminals who try to exploit it. Facebook is going to have criminals who try to post illegal things for sale who do post, we're going to post death threats, we're going to post non-consensual intimate imagery. That is the nature of an online platform. It is. Okay. Platforms of course need to take reasonable steps to guard against

that. We can have a discussion about what those reasonable steps look like. I think our steps that we take today are go above and beyond anyone else. That's not to say that in 2020, this company was not taking reasonable steps. That's the subject of litigation. That will get a just outcome one way or another. So I don't want for a moment to leave you with the impression that our views, we look back on this and say, oh, it was just the Wild West back then, because that's not true.

Even back then, Pornhub was doing moderation, was working with child protection NGOs, was scanning all content against lists of known bad content, but they were grappling with the- That's not possible though, because you're saying you guys removed eight million pieces of content, right? If you're dealing with moderators.

No, but just to be clear, that doesn't mean those eight million pieces of content, right? If you're dealing with moderators. No, but just to be clear, that doesn't mean those eight million pieces of content were problematic or illegal or underage at all. Why would you remove them then? Because we did not have the, because we, it was before we acquired the company, because the company did not have the ID of every single one of those uploaders.

That's why. So it's important. Yeah. Like it's very easy, especially if you come from a position where you want all porn gone. And you saw, even in that article, how these groups are described.

Okay, just wanna be very clear. The group that became Trafficking Hub used to be called Morality in Media, and they were protesting against sex shops in New York in the 80s and 90s. So they have an ideological perspective, which is they don't want any porn to exist. I don't have a problem with that.

I actually don't have a, you have to realize, you're not talking to a guy that is this square guy that I'm you know I was the you know, I was an atheist till 25 my past friends who know me they know but I was an adult that you know I'm interested in you know, whatever I'm consuming. My concern is purely one thing. It's underage So then you and I and Alex we have exactly the same concern. There's a difference I know you say this and it's like the right thing we have to say. However, this place had underage stuff

for many, many years until now. So even when I'm asking the question, it's still not been answered because I'm still trying to find out how, it's mathematically impossible. How can you get a video to know the person when they shot it wasn't underage to allow that video to know the person when they shot it wasn't underage to allow that video to be uploaded? I understand you're asking me for my ID today,

but how can you verify? There is no, we understand there's deep fake, and that's one side, but how can you be able to authenticate to say when you shot this you were over 18? How do you do that? So a couple, there are technological solutions. I'm happy to talk about some of the trust safety. There are actually ways whether it's examination of metadata or looking at cues in the video. But at the same time, what a platform has to do is take reasonable steps. Okay,

will a criminal like it's like, imagine where it's funny, we're in a bank vault today. Imagine you walk into a bank and you say, can you guarantee me that this bank will never be robbed? Say, well, no, we got alarm systems, we've got security, we got arms security, we've got sensors. We're fighting the criminals every single day. The same is true on our platform. We have an extraordinary security system that goes above and beyond.

In fact, one of the things that we did as new ownership, and I'd be happy to do this with you or anyone from your team, is we walk people through the back end. We actually show off the trust and safety. We don't show all the alarms. We don't show where all the sensors are, but we show that we are doing more than any other platform to keep it safe.

Let's ask Instagram, for example. Instagram can let you post all kinds of sexy content. They have to have ways of ensuring the age ID consent of people appearing, right? They have to. There's a difference though. So in other words, what I'm getting from you, I asked three times now, there is no way to verify at all. There is no 100% proven way to verify if any of the porn that is on Porn Up isn't under age at the time that it was shot. There are many ways, many ways to verify.

So we have humans who watch every video. Let's start there. Well, you can watch a video and you won't be able to tell if somebody's under 18 or not. Of course, you certainly can. You can tell if somebody is well under, you can tell if somebody is of age.

We can look at the ID, we can look at the time of upload. We can do that, buddy. We can look at the circumstances of the making of the video. Mathematically impossible for you to be able to know if at the time that the video was shot, the person was underage.

If you tell me there is a software that is known that the world knows about that is able to detect it, I will say, great, let's give it credibility. But if everything else is for me to watch and say, guys, I think this is risque, let's not put this one up and let's not approve it, that still makes Pornhub the god of deciding if this video was shot at a time where the person

was above age or under age. Well, it's not about being the god. It's about any kind of reasonable approach to trust and safety means that you must protect the platform. You must keep things that are, let's start with a spectrum. Clearly unlawful, of course, those go. Then you have ones where we identify risk characteristics,

we ask for additional documentation. That's something we do all the time. If there are suspicious circumstances about video or ID or documentation, we ask for further documentation. We hold material, we remove material, right? Because as a platform, we have to take reasonable steps. The other side that we haven't discussed here at all, which is essential and very, very different

from what was characterized in that New York Times article, is our policy now with respect to removal, which is we have a take down first, ask questions later approach. Anyone who identifies I'm in this material and either I was not of age or it's non-consensual, we take it down immediately. Which Facebook doesn't do, which Instagram doesn't do.

So this idea of holding porn to an impossible standard, I reject that premise. First of all, you have to realize, I'm literally trying to think from compliance standpoint from a guy who's been in the financial industry since the day before 9-11, building an insurance agency with 60,000 agents, dealing with Department of Insurance and regulators

from every single state, because we were in every single state, that we had to deal with that, and with FINRA, and with NASD, and with SEC. I dealt with everybody, right? So you have to know how to prevent certain things happening in the financial industry. The real only way to have this being done

is for, there needs to be, while the video's being shot, there needs to be someone saying, before we do the scene, this is what it is. I am at this age, we're shooting it at this age. Here's how old I am, and here's how old he is. I am 22 years old, he is 24 years old, I'm 21 years old, he's 19 years old. This is what's about to happen.

Then you could say, yes, 100% we know, and then you have to see, is that ID being verified on an ID website to be able to the ability to check so now let's go back to the other question what is the business model of Pornhub I don't know what the business model point how do you guys make money it's an ad-supported platform primarily so it's not a membership it's an ad-supported that's right so ALO as a company we have Pornhub that's ad-supported and then we have subscription-based sites like browsers So you guys are gonna do roughly 500 to 550 this year give or take?

We can't disclose our it's a private company. Okay, so I mean, that's the number I saw online So if it's you can't disclose that I get it half a billion is a real number that is plastered all over the place. Let's say somewhere on that number and That's advertisers. So outside the place. Let's say somewhere around that number. And that's advertisers. So outside of advertisers, there is no membership, there's nothing else. There's no membership economy. For Pornhub specifically. For Pornhub specifically.

But the company has other brands which are subscription based. And is it porn or it's... It's adults. It is a studio produced content. So the ones that are membership based, how different is that than Pornhub? So those are seen, so we're talking about the flagship brand for that would be Brazzers. So that's studio produced professional grade content.

See for that to me, that's something where it's like, hey, here's professionally done, this is the age. So Pornhub, is it like the YouTube for porn to kind of? Yeah, so basically what's happening right now is that exactly the process that you just described, that's pretty much what happens on a porn set. On the browser site. On a professional set, but now because so much content

is being produced at home, we're seeing a time where that is becoming the norm, and this is exactly the methodology that we've adopted on Pornhub, which is why we require all of these checks, we require IDs, we require... There's no way you're able to do it though. I'm sorry? There's no way you're able to do it.

There is no technology to be able to tell if somebody was under the age of 18 or not. There is no way you can 100% guaranteed verify at the time of the video being shot the person was under 18. But the point is like you set this impossible standard that applies only to adults. But then tell me based on, you tell me the 100% that you can do it based on technology. What you need to do is you need to have

a reasonable level of assurance that this is legal, consensual, informed consent content, okay? So we start, you start with having the age ID consent of every single person who appears in content. Like that's wild. When I tell you that we do that, no other adult platform or mainstream platform comes close to that.

Like think about that for a moment. You upload a video, has three people, has four people in it. It cannot go live on the site until we, on the trust and safety side, have verified the age ID consent of everyone appearing in there. Now, you raise this other scenario,

like well, what if you have all that, but one of the people have lied to you about when the content was actually shot, we're like, okay, but we have already guaranteed more than anybody else in terms of the fact that this content is completely legitimate. That doesn't mean anything, that doesn't mean anything,

it's just lip service, right? I mean somebody. No, it's beyond lip service, no, it's a huge financial investment. I understand, if I'm playing, listen, what I'm saying, guys, I play devil's advocate with everything you do. We don't take it personally at all. What I'm saying to you is this isn't everyday,

if you're friends with me or your family with me, my family and people who have been in business with me, they're like, this is how we have lunch everyday. So it's just a conversation. So brazzers, okay? Everything is shot professionally, everything goes through, I'm assuming like, hey, you have to show me your HIV test that you just did, that you don't have any sexual transmitted.

I'm assuming it's that level of professionalism, similar to Vivid or some of the other guys that do it. Yes? Is that what Brazzers is? Correct. But what I'm trying to impart here is that this is the model that is being adopted because, like Saul said, the creator at home industry has collided with the professional and we're seeing this across the board,

across all types of entertainment systems, where you could say arguably that people that are creating YouTube programming at home, very similar to someone that's watching a morning show. There's a big difference though. I mean, that's different though, because YouTube programming at home, I'm not showing penetration

and I'm not getting out there and saying, hey, we're gonna do this and no, I'm sitting there giving my opinion on something. And if it's- Oh, I hear what you're saying. There's a big difference between the two. There is, but because this is an industry that is under a lot of scrutiny,

understandably so for the reasons exactly that you mentioned. These are protocols that people are adopting at home as well when they're, like these are not, I think it's really important to get away from the idea that it's just someone with like a webcam that wants to throw something up. These are business people. So what is the process for me to upload a porn video

on Pornhub? What's the step-by-step process? We'll start with you need to verify your age and ID as the uploader. How do you do that? Okay, so we use first the third party provider, then we verify it with a moderator. So that involves three things.

Number one, a scan of real government ID from your country of origin. That's verified, it can't be a screen cap, can't be whatever, compliance measures, like you're used by banks, insurance companies, governments around the world. Then a biometric scan of the face that requires movement to create what's called a photogrammetric measurement

to make sure you're a real 3D human being and not a picture. Then a comparison between those two done by the software compares the face that's been verified as being real with the government ID and then a match between the two. That gets you level one. If you pass all of that, you then get handed off to our in-house moderation.

So we don't, unlike most social media companies, we don't outsource any moderation. We have a full-time staff working, verifying identities and moderating content. That moderator has to review that, ensure that you haven't been previously banned, which we would know because we hold ID obviously, ensure that you are who you say you are, that you're not from a country that

raises flags, that all of this has been verified. Now you are eligible to attempt to upload content. Not to upload. Okay, how long is that process? To get approved it takes between 24 to 72 hours. So I can have a video up within 24. No, we're not there yet. We're just talking about to get approved so you're at a status where you're even able to upload. How long after that can I upload a video? Depends on the content.

So the next thing you do, once we've verified the identity, you can then submit content for review, not upload. There is no auto upload, it cannot happen, okay? That content, so let's say you submit a video. First of all, if it's more than just you in it, we need the same age ID consent for everybody appearing in the video.

Okay, then we run it through automated processes. So we use, I think now about 13 automated tools. We work with any organization, government who will give us a list of content that they have flagged as being problematic so we can scan all the content against it. We have our own in house tools, another reason we made this acquisition was because of the tools that the companies developed of content fingerprinting identification and tagging,

a very interesting area that we wanted to be part of. If it passes all of those checks, it then goes to a human moderator for review. A real-life person who is trained to review content, not just for age ID consent, but we have many, many rules. 100% of the videos is watched by somebody. 100% of the videos is watched by someone. How many people work at Pornhub right now, full time? About 1500 employees.

1500 employees, got it. And how many videos are uploaded daily on Pornhub? Submitted for upload. No, no, I'm talking, get to the point that somebody has to watch for upload. It's a couple thousand. Couple thousand. And the average video is how long?

It varies, but you know. But I see where you're trying to go. No, no, it's a good question. Wait a minute, why are you worried though? No, not worried. We're not worried at all. So how long does it, if it's 2,000 videos that somebody has to watch,

what is the average length of a video on Pornhub? It's a bit between five, 10 minutes. Okay, let's say 10 minutes. Let's do some math. So if we do, if we do 2,000 times 10 is 20,000, right?

Minutes. Yeah, I did 2,000 videos times 10 minutes. Yeah, I did 2000 videos times 10 minutes. Yep. Okay. How big is a department that monitors this? So it varies, but hundreds. Okay. Right, obviously one of the things we change,

depending on how many videos are in a queue, what our needs are, right? And you guys watch a hundred percent of the video. A hundred percent of the video now, just to be very clear. In addition to an AI transcript of the audio that hundred percent of the video. A hundred percent of the video now, just to be very clear. In addition to an AI transcript of the audio that's happening in the video. So the important thing, and that's why I kind of was preemptive as far as... I'm a math guy, I'm just trying to do the math.

Super fair. But the thing is, it doesn't matter if there's a million videos or five videos. The important thing to sort of take away from this is that a video will not go live until it has been reviewed by a human. So that means if that video has to sit in a queue, you know, we're not just trying to crank it out there to make people happy. We keep it in the queue until it has been reviewed. So that means, of course, we go through periods where there's backlogs and sometimes creators get frustrated with us because they say, you know, I put all this work into a video, it's been three, four days, why isn't it live?

And we understand that frustration, but we don't make exceptions. We have to wait until it has the chance to be human moderated before it's still alive. What's the fastest somebody uploads a video that'll upload? There's no, like, I can't really give a number on that because it really- Can it happen same day?

Very rarely. Very rarely. But also it depends, like, if it't really give a number on that because it really- Can it happen same day? Very rarely. Very rarely. But also depends like, if it's a 25 second clip, just one individual that's showing themselves and what they're up to, that's an easy one, right? Like that's quick. And it's one person and there's not co-performers because that's the thing, it's like we need the paperwork

and the IDs and consent for everybody. So I think where your mind goes, which is where my mind went when I learned about this is, this is an enormous scale, right? So one of the reasons that you wanna talk about, you go back to your first question, why do we acquire this company? Because they have developed processes

both on the human side, but also on the software that we think the rest of the internet is going to need. That we are three years ahead of where social media has to be. And we are looking forward to not just setting an example. So many is different than you though. That's a very different, like, but okay.

So actually it's not so different. The problems might be a little different, but whether it's threats to violence or incitement or hate speech, there are always gonna be material that as a society we've decided are just unacceptable. So for example, if you go on a rap, can you type in the Wikipedia child pornography laws? Right?

If you go on here, Supreme Court in the United States has found child pornography outside of the protections of First Amendment in the United States. So child pornography is outside of US jurisdiction. Federal Sentencing Guidelines on Child Pornography. Okay, okay. US laws distinguish pornography and images of actual minor realistic images that are not actually non realistic

But the latter two get categories child pornography first became illegal strange to say this the year I was born 78 I'm surprised it wasn't before that with the enactment of the protection shield protection of children against sexual exploitation of 1977. Before the law of 1978, child pornography was illegal in only two states. The 1978 law was subsequently strengthened in 1984. With the passage of the Child Protection Act, there was a goal of the Reagan administration to crack down on child pornography, with then President Reagan stating the following in 1987, the administration is putting the purveyors

of illegal obscenity and child pornography on notice, your industry's days are numbered. Okay, for example, is there a website that's doing a petition to shut down OnlyFans? I'm sure there's hundreds. Is there like, what's the most signatures OnlyFans got? The only reason I say this is because I think only fans total users on

only fans, what is the Total numbers on you. Holy so you said 130 million with you guys, right? So watch this. This is the comparison only fans He's got two hundred and thirty eight million users Okay generates a yearly revenue of two and a half billion dollars and You've got 238 million users, okay? Generates a yearly revenue of $2.5 billion. And BlackChina, don't know who that is, was the highest paid OnlyFans creator in 2023, earning approximately, damn, 20 million monthly with a subscription price of $199 million.

OnlyFans has a monthly- Are you considering a career change? I'm seeing it on your face here. But you know what the difference is? Here's what the difference is. The OnlyFans process is what? Is 18 and up, right? It's very, you're 18 and up, you wanna do it,

and there is no millions of petitions to wanna shut down OnlyFans. But there's two and a half million people that wanna shut down. Just be very, we gotta cut to this. Give me both of them. We gotta cut to this, okay? Because the problems that the creator industry faces,

OnlyFans faces a strong, every question that we can talk about, every moderation issue, the difference is that our trust and safety staff reviews every single piece of content, that doesn't happen on OnlyFans. It just doesn't. That is not their process.

We are also exclusively 18 plus. Now the difference is- Who's the girl that had to wait till she was 18 to get on OnlyFans? What was the girl's name, Rob? Oh, Bad Barbie? Bad Barbie? I think Bad Baby.

Bad Baby, okay. So Bad Baby, Bad, oh, B-H-A-B-I-E, right? So Bad Baby had to wait until she's 18 only fans. Oh, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, she made what? Million dollars on day one on only fans, but she had to wait until she's 18, okay? So one could say, I mean, look, she's made $57 million since 21. She's about 18 years old. So my only concern with Pornhub in this sense is underage.

That's the difference why maybe there's not two and a half million people trying to shut down Pornhub versus trying to shut down, yeah, two and a half million trying to shut down Pornhub versus OnlyFans. I would happily go toe to toe when it comes to trust and safety between us and OnlyFans. In fact, just so you understand, like,

these are issues that are discussed in the industry. I've been on panels, I don't wanna finish. I've been on panels at law enforcement conferences invited to speak me and OnlyFans and talk about our processes. We're very proud of them, right? And we are second to none when it comes to the resources we put into ensuring age, ID and consent.

Since you guys bought them? We wouldn't have bought the company otherwise. All I can speak to is the company from March, 2023, that system we look like, that we acquired, we bought that. So we didn't buy anything in the past. Let me show you a clip. Let me show you a clip, Rob. This is June of 2023.

June, this is three months after you bought them, right? This is production coordinator, Sylvain Fernandez from MindGeek ALO. Rob, go ahead and play this clip. So it gets some educational aspects. Yep, this is Production coordinator Sylvain Fernandez from mind geek a low Rob go ahead and play this clip. So it gets some educational aspects of go ahead Rob Let's say you're 12 years old you're still figuring out your sexuality and then just go to the site. Let's say you're 12 years old, you're still figuring out your sexuality, maybe even your gender. Wouldn't it be helpful to see,

not a celebration, but just like maybe a normalization of something that you think is what you want, you know? Probably helps a lot. Let's say I was 12 and I saw like Trans Angels, I saw all these different sites, it would help me figure out what I do like and what I don't like. I need to try to push stuff that's more, less accepted.

Like putting a trans male or a trans female in a scene, you wouldn't get that on a normal mainstream site. So test it out. See if you get a bigger audience with it. See if you can convert somebody, right? Maybe somebody who's never looked for anything like that might find it interesting and click on it. Same thing for buy stuff, same thing for gay.

If you've seen our previous undercover releases, you may be familiar with Mike Farley, the current Pornhub product manager who became one of Pornhub's first employees over 10 years ago, and Dylan Rice, the senior scriptwriter for Pornhub product manager who became one of Pornhub's first employees over 10 years ago. And Dylan Rice, the senior scriptwriter for Pornhub's parent company, MindGeek, now rebranding as ALO, who has written scripts for MindGeek's porn sites and advertisements for over five years. Today, meet Syll Fernandez. Fernandez is a production coordinator for some of MindGeek's plethora of porn sites. Is this James O'Keefe or somebody else? Is this James O'Keefe or somebody else? Somebody else.

While states are currently enacting laws to require IDs to prevent children from entering porn sites, these three men talked to our undercover reporter about children viewing pornography on MindGeek sites, including PornHub and TransAngelsinMen.com, which are MindGeek sites featuring studio-produced transgender and gay- and Men.com, which are mind geek sites featuring studio produced transgender and gay focused pornography. How easy is it for an underage person to view the site? You can pause it right here. This is 15 months ago, right, that this has taken place. And it's not like people that have just been there for six months.

It's a guy that was there for, who was it? He was a product developer or whatever his name was, the main guy. It seems to be like a regular day at Pornhub. And this is three months after you bought them and this was recorded. I'm gonna disagree, respectfully. What you have here, you have employees who think

they're on a date with a woman. That's the context of the creation of these videos. And they are not properly representing the truth about trust and safety. Although there's like three different topics mixed in. So it's important that we're very clear. I'm a clear guy. I like to always get to the truth

and the point of something. So number one, every single video is reviewed by a human. We have age ID consent for uploaders, everybody appearing in content. There is absolutely no incentive to do otherwise on our platform. I always make that point. Like from a business perspective,

there's no incentive to do anything but the highest standards of trust and safety. So you have a company with 1500 people, you're gonna have people who are saying nonsense. Technical product manager? So I have to say this, this is not someone, obviously when I'm reviewing the company and I look very, very carefully at it,

including spending time, none of these, these are not trust and safety staff, these are not moderators, these are not people in compliance. Whatever idea they have, although it's very interesting, we learned something from these videos. We actually learned a very important lesson, which was you can have a company of 1500 people

and you'll have graphic designers and you'll have salespeople and customer support. All of them need to be educated on our trust and safety system. So we actually, the company in response, and I think it was absolutely the right thing to do now, whether you, doesn't matter if you're the janitor at ALO, you will have mandatory training so you'll understand what's happening, even though it's a job that has nothing to do with you. But so you are absolutely educated on trust and safety. Because it just became clear to us that that was something important. Not that it became clear that it reflects on what the reality is,

but you know, these people were woefully misinformed about the truth of trust and safety. And then I think the other thing that's being referred to here is the issue of children accessing the site, right? Which is something that we've been talking about a lot. This is an issue that we take quite seriously and the fact that we've mentioned a couple of times as well that our sites are strictly adult entertainment. We have a zero chip.

I have no problem with that. If it's adult, it's the minor. Yeah. We also don't want. It's the minor. Yeah. We also don't want minors viewing the site. So that was the question that was asked there. It's important. I mean, we can focus on- He said how easy is it to get on the site?

No, he meant to get on to watch. He meant to visit it. To watch. This has nothing to do with uploads. This is about- Patrick, you gotta understand that distinction. He was being asked. That's also a problem.

Totally a problem. And we are fighting hard every day to fix that. I can tell you what we're doing. What we want to have happen, what we want the adult internet to play. The traffic will drop dramatically. Absolutely not. If you have to ID everybody. Okay, no, disagree.

Let's think about it this way. Let's talk business for a second. I always say there's two reasons we don't want young people on the platform. One, we think it's wrong for young people to watch. Right. We think it's wrong. Kids cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality.

I'll give you a guarantee. You say that, I'm gonna listen to you, but I'm gonna tell you something. Your traffic will drop 90%, but go ahead. Come on, that's a ludicrous assessment at 90%. You'll see when I say this, go ahead. So that's number one. Number two, from a business perspective,

think about it this way. We are an ad-powered platform. Our advertisers can only sell products and services to adults with adult credit cards or other similar adult sexual services. So for them, just think about it from a cost per click perspective, every person who clicks an ad who's underage gets them zero benefit and costs them money. So from an ad marketplace, nobody wants young people on the platform.

So do you know what we're doing every single day to actually change this? We are pushing for something called device-based age verification. We want it to be the law that every single operating system, Google, Apple, Microsoft, by default blocks adult. I want to think about that for a second. We want every- Blocks what?

Adult. We want to be blocked. It should block porn. We want to be blocked by default. Oh, I'm sorry. Got it. The only way to be able to access adults is that on your device, you have age assurance built in there.

So in other words, instead of like nowadays parental controls, you have to opt into them. We want them to be that you have to opt out of them. That is Pornhub's position. We want to be blocked by default because we don't want a single minor to be able to access a site.

Now at the same time, we totally reject this idea that you're gonna hold up your ID and give it to every porn site on the internet. Because it's nonsense, it's nonsense. But that's the only way to make sure kids don't log in. No, in fact, that will make sure kids do log in to all of the non-compliant platforms.

How? Because it goes like this. Let's say we've tested it. Sure. The state of Louisiana, okay? We are the only major adult platform that's actually complying with the law in Louisiana. Right.

So we take what's called LA Wallet, that's Louisiana state ID, we accept it, we don't ever get the identifying information, we just get a thumbs up or thumbs down. Within 24 hours of implementing that, we had an 80% drop in traffic. Not because 80% of the people are young, but because 80% of the people are like,

I'm not giving my ID to a porn site, and they're not wrong. So instead, I always say this, the device should be the key to the internet, we will be the lock. That means that it will actually prevent young people from accessing adult content because the point of entry that is the device itself will be prohibited from accessing adult.

And we are pushing for that at the state level, at the federal level. Can I give you the counter to it? I'm not a lawyer, but I like to argue and debate because it's fun to do, right? Sure is. So when you told me earlier the process to upload a video, I had to not only show you the ID

through this outside website that you guys use, third party, right? Then I had to do the whatever the Apple is to make as you guys use third party, right? Then I have to do the whatever the Apple is to make sure I'm not a picture. Yeah, right. I'm doing this To know a hundred percent Who is getting access to it, right? You can do that as well for people that are watching the content sure But if you do you will lose 90% of your traffic the point is You will use 90% of your traffic the technology exists is, the technology exists. But you will use 90% of your traffic. The technology exists. To do what? To do it.

To verify age. Sure, why don't you do it? If we do it, and we have tested it out, we've tested it out in France and Louisiana, people just go to non-compliant sites that don't, by the way, do what we do when it comes to public safety. Who cares? Who cares what they do? Because the difference is,

if you're going to non-compliant sites, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of adult sites that exist out there. I disagree. I think here's what'll happen. I think what'll happen is the following. Okay, so you're making the argument of legalizing marijuana and making it so expensive will make people to go buy illegal weed from bad quality.

That's the argument you're making. No, no, no, think about it for a second. What'll happen is if I'm the other side and if I wanna eliminate all of the non-compliant sites, right? These guys have to find a way to make money and I Merchant services i'm very familiar with if you can't get merchant services to accept payment, you know right now Visa used to have a hard time with charge back three percent now

They're at 1%. They want to be at 1% if not even less than 1%. You know exactly what I'm talking about because I've dealt with Visa, MasterCard, all these guys. So if all of a sudden these guys don't have a method of getting paid, so what if they're going to a non-compliant website to watch porn? Those guys will be shut down soon as well. They're not going to be though because the issue is the enforcement is not happening.

Why don't you do it? Who cares what they're doing? No, we do it. We do it. What I'm saying to you, why don't you have everybody do this and do the ID to watch porn? Because if you're talking about everybody again, that's millions of websites, who is going to go and make sure that every single website... But be the pace setter, be the pace beater, be the trailblazer.

But think about it this way. No, no, it's like you can either stop it at the source. Am I sounding confusing, Rob, what my ask is is cuz I feel like I'm delusional right now Do you understand what I'm requesting? I do what can you repeat what I just said? I'm just curious Why they're not using the verification system? Which verification system am I asking about the ID and and the face that had not yeah I don't know the term for the head. Right, you were. It's a biometric scan.

Biometric scan, okay. So if you're doing a biometric scan to upload a video, why can't you do a biometric scan on who watches it so kids don't watch it? No, but don't you realize you can either do it, have a hundred thousand or a million sites doing this and taking people's ID, or you can have three operating systems.

Do it one time, Apple, Google, Google Microsoft and you have locked down that device to be able to either access adult or not access adult I mean that is a no-brainer and we're not the only one saying this Meta has come out and said that device-based age verification is the way to go like the French government just came out and said that anybody who understands the way the internet works says look hmm either you can go give your ID to every single porn site you visit. And look, we are responsible. We take privacy seriously.

But I always said this, like, if this was the law, that every site had to take ID, I'd stop running a porn site. I'd just go run an identity fraud site. And I'd say, well, I'd love to show you some porn, but first I need your ID. What a ridiculously insecure method and totally violating of the privacy of 130 million people a day. If you did do that, 90% of people who watch it would never go on your website and you will lose ad dollars.

That's what would happen. No, but we want it to happen on the device. We want it to happen on the device. Kids can get access to it from different places. They don't just go watch it through the phone. A person can go on the internet and compute and watch porn and say, here's what I'm doing, I'm over 18 years old. No, no, we have operating systems now

that almost exclusively require a login, a user account. And what we are saying is that the default for every user account, I want you to understand this, every user account cannot see porn. You buy a new computer, it cannot access adult. It's important that you understand that. You update your iPhone to the new version like that. It can't access adult until you verify on that device

with all your other secure tokens, your credit card, your health information, and then that becomes your key to the adult internet. Like this is obvious. Of course that's the way to do it, to do it from one device to be the key to all, as opposed to having tell every platform, randomporn.com, to take people's ID.

And your impression is that if you do that, it prevents what? Kids from watching porn? Yes. Yes. So why do you then do the verification of when people upload videos, they're facing their ID? Because these are people that are monetizing their content with us. These are people that are business people that are uploading adult content to our site.

And for that reason, it's of course important that we're verifying the consent and identity of those people. It's very different than a private citizen trying to watch content. If you were to do the same standard to people that are watching porn so kids wouldn't do it,

what percentage of your viewership would drop? It's interesting. That exact question was considered in Texas when we challenged the constitutionality of this law. Okay? We took this to court because we said, private individuals in the United States who have a First Amendment right to see this

should not have to identify themselves to the platform, which the government could get access to. And you know what the judge in Texas said, by the way, who was a Ronald Reagan appointee, not some namby-pamby liberal judge. He said that if somebody, for example, wants to go see gay porn in Texas, totally illegal, they have to give their ID to that platform,

have it verified by the government, the same government that 20 years ago, not 200 years ago, 20 years ago, tried to outlaw being gay in Texas. Like, we don't want to live in a society where you have to give your ID every single time you go to look at legal content. Having it locked down on the device

avoids all those privacy issues. I think you're assuming that if you do that, kids still won't be able to watch porn. Under 18 kids will not be able to watch porn. No, I'm saying that's the biggest step that you could take. That's not the biggest step. To ensure that young people cannot access adult content. I think there would be a bigger step than that.

I think that is a step to not have to lose 90% of your people that are trying to consume the content because that'll be like, for example, the other company that was called what? Brazzers? Brazzers? Brazzers, is it members only or is it open to everybody? It's members only. Yeah. Okay, so that means I can't see anything until if I,

what would be equivalent of a browser? Is that like the Netflix of porn? Netflix. Oh, so Netflix of porn. So you're paying 10 bucks a month and I can consume whatever I want. And if I'm buying it, you're gonna see my age and what I am anyway, because I got a credit card.

Yeah, okay, got it. That model to me is straight up, great. Makes sense, go do your thing. But it's different if somebody just can come on Pornhub, log on, watch, whatever they want, and they're 12, 13 years old. Which is why having device-based age verification, people have individual devices,

they have individual user accounts, it would lock it down by default. And the funny thing is, this has very little to do with porn. Porn's the example here. But we need to secure the internet, both we need to secure adult spaces from kids coming in, but here's the real revolution. We need to keep kids spaces safe from adults. We need age assurance methods on the internet. The idea of doing it like scattershot, having every site with a different protocol for verifying age,

when we have three operating system manufacturers, who already have the tech built in, by the way. Apple will let you store your IDs and use them for all sorts of purposes. It already has it into your device. So the device would just become the key to all the spaces that we want to be age-segregated. Has that already started or not yet? Oh, it's happening. It is absolutely happening.

We're pushing for it every day. When you're saying it's happening right now, what are you saying? You're saying that right now, kids are not consuming content and porno. What I mean is the tech exists. The tech has been built. Google has their version, Apple has their version,

and Microsoft has their version. Who's using it right now? But they're not mandatory. That's the difference. They're opt-in. Parents have to turn them on. And I say this, right? Like I look at my kids' Family Link on Google.

How does Family Link really know how old my kids are? Because it's opt-in. If it was opt-out, that means I would have to have ID. They're not gonna make that mandatory though. Who's they? US government. Why not? We think they should.

We think they should tomorrow. You think they should make it mandatory to opt-in? That adult content cannot be accessed on any device unless the age assurance is satisfied. Who's pushing that? Who's pushing that today? So it's actually interesting. If you would've asked me eight months ago, I would've said, we're the only ones. unless the age assurance is satisfied. Who's pushing that? Who's pushing that today? So it's actually interesting.

If you would have asked me eight months ago, I would have said, we're the only ones. That's changed because now the other social media companies, this is where we share the same issues. Mark Zuckerberg goes in front of Congress and gets lambasted with Instagram's trust and safety. They're coming around to, we do need to keep kids out of these spaces

or to have different degrees of access. The only way to do that is with age assurance. And the only way to do age assurance properly is at the device-based level. They have now joined that. And there's a chorus and it's growing because we realize we need to age control access to the internet in a way that works

and protects people's privacy. The only way to do that is at the device level. Okay, so let me ask you this. Can you tell me about the chairman of your company, Ethical Capital Partners, about the company? Who's Rocco Meliambro? Sure, so Rocco is, he's our chairman. He's a finance guy from Canada.

There's nothing you can find on the guy. There's lots you can find on him. How did you make his money? Started out in financing mining and then went into the regulated cannabis space, right? Which is actually how a number of us met in the regulated cannabis space in Canada. Canada is federally legal recreational cannabis since 2018.

Before that was medicinal. Rocco took public one of the largest cannabis companies in Canada. Got it. So there is no background with Rocko and any kind of porn companies. Nope, not with any of us actually. We don't come from the industry.

We come from outside the industry. Got it. So Cannabis Canada is how you guys met. That's how you guys made your money and then you guys decided to buy this company. So I come at from the legal side. I did a lot of work doing advisory work for regulated businesses, including cannabis.

Our head of law enforcement engagement, he's the former chief superintendent of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It's like our FBI, but they have horses. He also came from after law enforcement to regulated cannabis. And we thought that this industry shares a lot of the same struggles.

Needs legitimacy, needs security to be a priority. Ever since you guys bought it, have you noticed it going up or going down, revenue-wise? It's doing well, it's doing well. You should run for office. You're in the wrong business, you should run for office, man. Your answers are very good. But the only reason I ask that question is because,

and maybe I'll answer it in this way, if your revenues are down, that means you're doing something right. You know what, actually, it's interesting, I disagree. To me, and we have this discussion, we had this discussion in the acquisition phase and when we talked to the executives. I get why the people that are there will agree with me and I get why you would disagree with

me because... No, no, let me explain why. Because they're going to be like, well, look, you guys came and became a pain in the ass in all this regulation back in the Wild Wild West days. We could do everything and anything and now you're saying we can't do this. That's why we're down 42%. But this is also why we're being more transparent than ever. Because what you're talking about...

That's why I'm saying if you're down, that means you're doing something right. What we're talking about also is we've introduced what could be called friction, right, to the upload process. So when you're talking about content creators who are business people that are using our platforms to monetize their content, like I said earlier when we were chatting, it's hard, right, to get content up onto PornHub. And part of the work that I'm doing is going out and speaking with people and listening to their grievances on that front. And sometimes those are uncomfortable conversations where they're saying, like, you know, it does take me a couple of days to get my content up there.

You know, it is taking me more time to go through the process of getting all this paperwork up there. But these are things that we just we are not able to negotiate on because we just can't, we can't take steps backward on that front. But there's two business cases to be made here, okay? Because that's how I look at it from the ownership perspective. Number one, people want to go to a platform where,

and I think it's true in sex more than anywhere else, where they have this assurance that what I saw is okay. In other words, it's legal, it's consensual, it's voluntary. So we wanna provide that platform where people are as sure as anyone can possibly be. That's business case number one. Business case number two is we wanna take the processes

and the software we've developed here and to deploy them outside of adult. Like that's actually the opportunity in this business is to look at an industry that has made tremendous strides, but that is applicable to many other adjacent industries. Like, you know, this was, I always say, this is our first investment. It's not our last investment because we see a lot to do.

So you're gonna get into more porn sites. No, that's why. That's interesting. You know, I don't know if we could get into more. I don't know if there are more. Are you, you got a family, you got kids? Yeah. How are your kids?

Sure, so I've got two 19 year olds-olds and a 16-year-old. How you talk to them about you guys run this? First of all, I don't run it. I'm very proud of the people who do. We bought it, there's a difference. I mean, you're- But Patrick, before I did it, before I did this acquisition, I sat down with them

and I laid out the plan. I said, this is what I wanna do. This is what my interest is. And obviously, I wear the compliance hat in the ownership group. I want to raise the standards here. I want to invest in trust and safety. I want to keep kids off the platform from viewing it.

And you know what's funny? My kids have been raised by a criminal defense lawyer. That was my first career, 15 years in criminal defense. And my daughter said to me, she said, hold on, you defend people who are legitimately doing wrong things. You do that as a defense lawyer, you know, my kids know why I do that. They understand probably more about the criminal justice system the most. And here you have a company that wants to get it right, that wants to improve.

How, why wouldn't you do this? Like it was just a no brainer. Maybe the, you know, the wisdom of the young there. After decades of shaky hands caused by debilitating tremors, Sunnybrook was the only hospital in Canada who could provide Andy with something special. Three neurosurgeons, two scientists, one movement disorders coordinator, 58 answered questions, two focused ultrasound procedures, one specially developed helmet, thousands of high intensity focused ultrasound waves, zero incisions, and that very same day, two steady hands.

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There's a part of it that I think if you guys go to the last episode it shows when Vince McMahon was running it. And it was like they're all telling stories of what used to happen with girls and sex and drugs and cocaine and steroids and all this stuff, right? And obviously Vince being the promoter that he is, you know, some call him the greatest promoter of all time. And then it ends with them endeavor buying him out and changing the culture to what it was once like, okay? And Triple H runs it with his daughter because he had to step aside for many different reasons, legal issues, I don't know if you're following

the story closely or not. And now that Triple H runs it and his wife, that's his daughter, I think they said they had the biggest, Rob, did they say the biggest WrestleMania ever or they had the biggest? This year was the biggest one. Biggest WrestleMania ever because they cleaned house with a lot of the old ways of doing business. So for me, I have a very big, like when people tell me about OnlyFans, a guy asked me a question

the other day, who was it, Stiney, that asked me the question on Nelk Boys, Rob, he's like, what would you do if your daughter at 21 years old wants to get on OnlyFans? As if she wants to get on OnlyFans, I did a bad job raising my daughter, if that's what she wants to do, but there's nothing I can do about it.

She's an adult, she has a choice to make, right? What are you gonna do, sit there and say, hey, I'm gonna give you a papaw and let's go, you're not gonna get ice cream, and you can do whatever you wanna do with yourself there and say, hey, I'm gonna give you a papaw and let's go. You're not gonna get ice cream. You can do whatever you want to do with yourself when you're above 18 years old. You do your best to raise your family in ways where they make decisions, certain decisions when they're above 18.

I worked at Chatsworth Valley Total Fitness. You know what Chatsworth was known for decades? 80% of the porn in America was produced in Chatsworth. You know what percentage of our members at Bally's were porn stars? You know how I know that? Every other day I got a job offer. You would look like a good porn star.

You ever thought about getting into the industry? I never heard that, wow. That's not a compliment. Every other day they're like, I can see you as, I'm like, is that like, what do you mean? It's like, well, we pay very well. I'm like, dude, I'm good, man. So I come home, that's what I used to look like.

Look at that right there, that's this guy. No, not that one. The one to the left looks like a porn star. Look at that. I think they all look like porn stars. But anyways, but the point being is the fact that there is a difference between, you wanna do your thing, you're about 18 years old.

You wanna mess with kids, I have a problem with that. And if we can find a way to be responsible with that in the best possible way, it is what it is. Go ahead. I agree. So we are actually really involved in, cause like you said, right? People more and more, the sort of the barrier to entry

to the adult industry is much different than it was say 20 years ago, right? Where it used to be you get an agent and then they book you and it's professional scenes. And now because of platforms like ours or platforms like OnlyFans, people are able to be independent creators at home. And we're not blind to the fact that, you know, there are certainly risks that come along with that. Like, we're never never gonna say that, you know, it's all sunshine and rainbows in the adult industry.

There certainly are, much like any industry, there are people that could take advantage of folks. And so that's why we're partnering with people in the child protection space. We're also partnering with people in the anti-trafficking space. We work very closely with a group called the Cupcake Girls, and we're actually creating educational content for people specifically that are thinking about getting into the industry

or that are new to the industry on things to look out for. So how you can do this work as safely as possible and avoid these kinds of situations. We support the anti-trafficking work that they do because we're not trying to put our head in the sand here, right? Like these are things that do happen that do exist and we do take it quite seriously as a part of our responsibility as leaders in the industry to make sure that we're helping people do their work as safely as possible. You know what that reminds me of? You ever seen that? And I'm not trying to be funny but I am because it makes me laugh every time. Sure. Rob, what

is that commercial? I don't know which CEO it is. Is it Harrah's or Casino? He says, look, if you are finding yourself at the casino, you're gambling too much, please step away and call this 1-800-GAMBLING-HOTLINE, right? I mean, it's a good thing to do to be a part of it. This is a very risque industry you're a part of. You guys know that. It's not like a industry you are that... I don't know how you say you're positively changing people's lives. Like it wouldn't be like oh my god we are positively changing people's lives on a daily basis. It's

purely a business. It's for profit. If you do it following the certain guidelines and the laws in the state state what they state, there's ways to make money with this legally. But it's not a, do you feel like the company that you get, like for example, let's just say if you work at Apple, we're thinking different and we're making the world and da da da da da, right? You're working at Walmart and here's what we're gonna do with serving people.

Working at this restaurant. Sorry, Walmart is gonna be given as our number one ethical company example. Sam Walton, I'm talking with Sam Walton, ran it. It was like, we're gonna serve our people right today in restaurant. We're gonna do this. There's visions like we're correct and injustice. Does it bother you at all? And if you do, how do you guys sell the dream to employees?

Like, is there a way of selling the dream to employees where they feel like, man, we are really changing people's lives? Do you have that feeling? Do you have that feeling? Or? I would disagree with you, yes, because what's important to remember is that content creators are business owners.

Each single person that has an OnlyFans or each single person that is uploading content to PornHub for the purposes of monetizing their content, these are independent businesses. So these are people whose lives are changing in some cases drastically because of the money that they're making that way. So yeah, it's helping people to feed their families in some cases, it's helping people to stay sheltered, it's helping people to pay for school, whatever it is. It does change people's lives. You know, and on my side, when I look at it from the, you know,

the ownership level, the compliance level, what we have put into place, it's it's it's not just for us. And this is important. Like we talk about like, why? Everyone should feel good doing the work they're doing. It's very hard to work hard if you're not really feeling that it's meaningful work. And money is a pretty you know, this was a pretty limited motivator, right? To really get the best out of people. Money doesn't cut it.

Okay. For I'll tell you what happens inside. When I talked to the trust and safety folks, we publish, for example, twice a year, transparency report where we set out everything we're doing so others can copy it, let that sink in so others can copy what we are doing on the platform. So to me, I was like, what's a success? The success is if what we are doing, the example we're setting, becomes the standard, becomes the regulation. Then you have a safer internet.

Are you a man of faith? I am a man of faith. You would say you are? Yeah. Are you ever conflicted? I think that the work we are doing in an industry, whether you like it or not, right? And we happen to, we like the people we work with. We like, we like the industry. Okay. It will exist. So to be part of the movement that's going to make it safer, not by getting

2.5 million, shut it down, have a petition, be nasty, but by actually doing the work, investing in making it safer. And this's an extraordinarily positive thing to do. And destigmatization as well, because one of the realities is that this is a very stigmatized industry, right? And we know full fact that when there is increased stigma, right, there's more, there's increased violence. So whenever we have... I'm listening. I'm just reading hard. Okay. Okay. No, I just want to... I got a big nose. When I breathe, the whole city

hears about it, so don't forgive me. No, but it's true. And so that is why we're public. And that is why we, Sal and I are very proud to be transparent and represent the company that we work for and the industry that we're in, because the more that we're able to destigmatize it, the less harm truly will come, hopefully, eventually to people in our industry. Let me tell you about a project that we've been working on for two years that is now live and running, that tells you about the values of this company.

We have what's called a band word service. So that's 50,000 terms that are banned. You can't search for them, you can't tag content, you can't use it in comments that basically represent illegal activity. So we made a decision as a company that when you search for one of those terms, first of all, it's not like Instagram

where it says show results anyway, you remember that controversy. We've decided that it shouldn't redirect you to even legal content. Obviously you're not gonna find that content, but it shouldn't redirect you to legal content because we don't wanna make a penny off somebody searching for an illegal term.

But that's number one. Let's go to two and three. We have a warning that what you're looking for is illegal. Okay, this content, you're not gonna find it, but it's illegal. And here's number three. We have partnered with NGOs in every jurisdiction that will have us, including Canada, United States.

Try this out yourself. Go on Pornhub and put in the search word underage. You will see we have linked up with organizations that try to, people who are looking for this material, deter them, get them help. Because it would be very easy for us to just turn a blind eye and say, well, you know, they're never gonna find that material

on our site, so, you know, just have nothing. Our work's done. But it's not, we take it the extra step. So we've partnered in Canada, where we're from in the United States here, where people can actually get help who are looking for illegal material. And that means, so what's the meaning of that? Imagine those people get the help they need

and that saves a child from a lifetime of victimization. Now, is that a porn site's job? No, it's not, but we have these eyeballs. And if we know people are making these searches, even though they're not gonna find anything, that is something that we can do to make a positive impact. I wanna get your reaction to this. So this says Solomon Friedman,

a rabbi overseeing Pornhub, right? What a great way to go. So I'm just saying, that's what it says. There's already falsehoods in that number one, right? Which one is a falsehood, the rabbi part or? I was educated as a rabbi. I never practiced as a rabbi, it's part of my education. Are you Jewish or Jewish? What do you think? Solomon Friedman this face. Do you think I'm Jewish or Jewish? No, no, meaning what I

mean is like do you practice or is like this? I mean you know you're like fully committed to all this. I always say this. I say this. Can I take you to dinner every night of the year and we're gonna be fine or do you take some days off? I'm gonna keep practicing until I get good at it. Okay, so there's this guy that I want to show you. I want to see what you're gonna good at it. Okay, so so there's this guy that I want to show you I don't see what you're gonna say to it. I mean, it's not like I am sure you're gonna take some shots at him It's okay. It won't hurt my feelings. I've read lots of gonna so

Not this guy Rob. There's the other clip. There's a clip I think that Let me see which one it is Let me see this year Rob. There's one that you guys showed me earlier, Shmooly. And I'm sure you know who Shmooly is, right? I know who Shmooly is. So Shmooly has a clip that Rob, you guys showed me with, what's his name, with Brandon. Do you know which one I'm talking about or no?

Yeah, let me find it right now. Yeah, you guys texted it. I think, let me see where this is. By the way, just so you know, I don't wanna make you guys uncomfortable. It's not porn. We're not gonna sit here. Oh, thank God.

I was worried we'd sit here, we're gonna watch porn. We can, on the business side, we're gonna watch it, but we're not gonna sit here and judge. What do you think about this clip? You think this is, here Rob, let me send it to you, I just found it.

I wanna get your reaction to this to see what you're gonna say. If you have it, great. If you don't, this is the one I'm sending to you. I have. Okay. Do you know which one it is? I think so.

All right. Do you know who he is or no? I know who he is, sure. Okay. Are you guys friends, buddies? This is my world. So you guys know each other? I know who he is.

Okay. But like, do you guys kick it or like you guys- Do we kick it? No, you guys grab a Shmoly if we kick it. We don't. We don't kick it. All right. So guys, it's very important to note.

They don't kick it, but let's just see where we stand here with Mr. Smuley and our friend here, Friedman. Go ahead, Rob, play the clip. There clearly is a need for pornography as evidenced by the huge supply there is. So my question is, instead of trying to eliminate

pornography from our society, why aren't we trying to find a cure for loneliness? She's a great advocate. I love it. Rabban Shmueli. I have to say that Great Britain has a minister for loneliness, and it's an interesting concept maybe other countries should take up. Well, it's one of the reasons getting back to this issue of celibacy. The very first thing that the Bible says is bad

is that it is bad for man to be alone. And that's the beginning of Genesis. I completely agree. But how is pornography possibly compensation for real human company? To the exact opposite is true. Pornography is the living degradation of women. It trains the male mind to see a woman as a means to an end. It makes women into the walking embodiment of a male erotic fantasy. And it leads to disrespect because

it means that women exist to fulfill those erotic fantasies. I actually think that it does a serious toxic harm to how men view women and it makes them very objective about women, meaning the only synonym I can find for love is the word subjectivity, because to love is to be rendered subjective. Your emotions actually color and transform and enhance the object of your love.

But when you become too objective, when you absorb thousands and thousands of these images, you learn to look at women very objectively to the extent that it's difficult to be attracted to women because you're no longer responding instinctually, you're responding almost instinctually. There are lots to say about that. So pornography is the living degradation of women, okay?

And he says on porn and loneliness, your thoughts on it. Yeah, I couldn't disagree more. I think that pornography, like any other form of expression, we have Hollywood movies full of fantasy. So people who can distinguish between fantasy and reality can enjoy fantasy. It's funny, I wonder what he would say about the over 30% of our visitors who are women.

There's a big misconception there that pornography is only consuming it. Huge, huge women in the leadership, right? The couples who view it, the people who find all sorts of sexual meaning and avenues in it, I disagree. I couldn't disagree more. I think sexuality is an important part of the human expression.

And if somebody says, look, sex, and I respect what Rabbi Shmueli says, in terms of the power of sexuality and human connection, I do. But when you say, sex only fits in, in my view of the world, anywhere else it must be degrading women, what you've done there is you've taken agency away from people, and women in this case, in his example, to make free choices about their bodies. So I don't think that it contributes to loneliness. In fact, many people find connection and meaning in sexual experiences and porn.

Couples watch porn. People get inspired, but it's in a situation understanding the difference between fantasy and reality. No, I think, you know, and I'd love to, we have Alex here, a female executive of, you know, the largest, one of the largest adult companies, love to hear her take. I mean, I agree. I think that there's a big misconception that pornography exists only for the male gaze. I think that's also another-

Male gaze? Yeah. Really, that's what people say? G-A-Z-E. Yes, G-A-Z ga zed II. Sorry like the the gaze from your eyes perception The male the male gaze. Am I the only one that thought she said that, Rob? No, I heard male gaze. I'm like, wait, male gaze?

Get your mind out of the gutter. Only viewers are male gaze. Very offensive, but. But no, that it's made only for men, right? I think there's this concept that it is- Gaze, viewership. Viewership, yes. The visualization-

Or that it's made through the lens, the male lens. So more and more, and I wanted to touch on this because I saw in some of the questions that you sent us beforehand, you talk about this notion of ethical pornography, right? And what that means and what that looks like. Full disclosure, I don't know what questions I sent you, whoever sent you the questions,

it wasn't me that sent you the questions, but I'm glad they sent you some questions to know what we're gonna be talking about. And so more and more, you know, we're seeing that there isn't just a singular concept of what pornography is or what it looks like. In the same way that we don't have a singular sense of who watches it, right? It's extremely diverse. And that is one of the things that I think is really great about a platform like PornHub is that it doesn't look like just one thing. It's not just one single kind of person consuming it. And people do feel represented.

And I know that people are going to say that that's corny and whatever when we're talking about things like diversity and inclusivity. But it's true, like sexuality and sex is something that impacts all of us. It's part of all of our lives. And it's important that I think people are able to see themselves represented in that medium. And I'll come back, by the way, to Ravish Mooli's point, because I And it's important that I think people are able to see themselves represented in that medium. And I'll come back, by the way, to Ravish Mooli's point, because I think it's worthy of discussion.

Like, this is an important social topic to discuss. I think there was a time in the porn industry where there was the vision of a porn star, right? She looked a certain way, she had a certain hair color, certain proportions, and you know, you don't want to have a society where everybody thinks that's the sort of pinnacle of beauty, of sexuality, et cetera. What actually happens now with the content creator world

is that porn looks like everybody. Yep. Older, younger, bigger, smaller, different skin colors, different identities. Everyone is represented. So people actually find a lot more of themselves in what they see more than that professional studio content, which I think is actually a social benefit to let people be represented. So people actually find a lot more of themselves in what they see more than that professional studio content, which I think is actually a social benefit

to let people be represented in what they see. So you actually, it's actually, I think that's a very outdated idea of what porn is and what it represents. Well, first of all, I mean, if there's anybody that you could have taken a complete different angle with Rabbi Shmuley, do you know what his daughter does? Do you know what him and his daughter do?

Rob, you wanna pull that up? They have a kosher sex store in Tel Aviv. Ran what his daughter does? Do you know what him and his daughter do? Rob, you want to pull that up? They have a kosher sex store in Tel Aviv. Okay. Ran by his daughter. Mazel Tov. And sells spice for marriages. So they're about selling toys to couples, but he's not for porn.

And Rabbi Shmuley, the last 12 months, has had a rough 12 months. He's been all over the place. It would be going viral, but it's been a rough 12 months for him. But can you pull up the Guardian article? This is kind of where I was going with it, to see a fifth of teenagers watch pornography. Frequently some are addicted and UK study finds, right? If you go to the bottom, Rob, there's a quote in there that's the part where the correlation between sexual abuse and watching porn is

very high. The majority of what they see is violent, not the majority of what they see is violent. And I know you'll say, well, for us, you know, we don't let the man slap physical abuse, you know, he's slapping her in the butt, maybe we'll approve it because our people will approve it, but not if it's this and I don't know what kind of stuff that you guys are going to put up there or not. To me if if I was a kid that grew up very poor and we sold drugs some of our friends sold drugs the goal was to stop and get away from it and it's temporary right because

there's more honorable ways of making money. Okay, but at certain times when you're in a place and you're doing what you're doing, it's really not your number one job. Like if you look at the correlation between somebody who becomes a porn star and they're upbringing with their parents, loving mom and dad, it's a lot of messy stories with up,

I'm not saying everybody, I know you're gonna go tell me there's this pastor that's now an incredible porn star and all this other stuff, and I even saw that Ron Jeremy one time called this triple X pastor and he prayed for him, and right after he prayed for him, he went back and Ron Jeremy's doctor said, if you can climb up the stairs twice, you can do porn. He says, doc, I climbed up the stairs four times, so that means I can do two times a day and all this. I've seen all this stuff because Ron Jeremy, I used to go and the stairs four times, so that means I can do two times a day and all this. I've seen all this stuff because Ron Jeremy, I used to go and we would have dinner, he

would be sitting right next to me. Whatever place he lived, we lived around because he would go to the same El Torito years ago, right? But to me, people don't grow up with their dreams of saying, I want to be a porn star, unless if they watch porn to aspire to become a porn star. It's interesting. It's a, let me finish this up and I'll finish it, turn it over to you. People do it purely, I've been around porn stars.

I had people who got into the business and the breakdown of math and if you're agreeing to do this, gay porn will pay you this much more money than you do this and there was a dollar a month. Just pay this much, that pays this much, just pay this much, just pay this much. So a person's like, wait a minute, if I do this, you're going to pay me this much? One day we're sitting and I'm not going to mention the person's name because the person ended up being a vice president with our company, previous company I was a part of making a quarter million dollar your income. One day at the office, these guys are playing late HBO soft porn.

Remember HBO when they had soft porn back in the days? I don't, well I'm sure you consumed it, but back in the days that HBO had soft porn and guys are like, is that who I think it is? I'm not even kidding with you. They're like, no it's not. Dude, I think it is. Like there's no way in the world.

Can you pause it? So then we went to the event and a couple of the guys approached them. They said, was this you? And you should see the look on his face. The look on the face was like, yeah, back in the days when I needed money, I had to do something to make money.

And even bodybuilders, a lot of them do stuff purely out of desperation on needing money. This is not necessarily an industry where I would say more than 5% of people do it because they aspire to grow up and be porn stars. It is an industry because you don't,

people who become drug dealers, their dream wasn't to be a drug dealer. And I know this is an uncomfortable conversation. Drug dealers are criminals, there's a difference. Drug dealers are criminals. Yeah, I get that. But even those who did certain kind of porn that is edgy almost anybody that gets into porn and then they want to make the bigger dollars they participate in

certain things that pays more. That's why I said, what is the dream? Is the dream to help them get off of producing this kind of stuff? Or is the dream to, you know, this is their way to do something and then get away and have a regular day job and whatever they're doing? Because I don't see the dream or the aspirations for us to get other people growing up to say, hey, what do you want to do when you grow up? I want to be a porn star. Well, I think that this is informed a lot because I agree with you, there are a lot of these narratives that are out there that are these kind of doom and gloom stories, right? Because that is reinforcing a very problematic, long-standing stereotype that that's what it means to be a porn star, right?

That that's what it means to be a content creator, is that it necessarily means that you came up through undue hardship, or you, you know, your parents were absent or your parents were drug addicts. That's not the reality of a lot of people. I don't want to say that there's like a singular definition of how these people grew up or where they came from, but there is certainly a very dominant idea in the media of what that looks like. And that's because we're very, as a society, very comfortable with that idea. And I think there's a very, there's a very- Who's around them? This is not about what TV I saw. So am I. That's my job. These are not about what TV I saw. So am I.

That's my job. These are my friends and these are my family and I can tell you that these are people that that's not their reality. But let me ask you a question. How does somebody aspire to become a porn star? So hang on. I want to hear this. What is the healthy way that somebody grows up to want to be a porn star?

Give me a healthy way. I think that there's people who are very comfortable with their sexuality and they see a way to monetize that in a way that is completely illegal. I get that. But think about the question though. The question is, how does one, like for example, how does one aspire to become a basketball player?

They watched somebody play basketball when they were younger. How does somebody aspire to become a baseball player? They watched somebody play baseball when they were younger. How does somebody aspire to become a politician president? They saw a debate, they saw somebody command presence from stage, I want to grow up to be. How does somebody aspire to be a comedian? How does somebody, but how does somebody aspire to become a porn star?

Well, how does somebody aspire to work at Starbucks or how does somebody aspire to want to be an accountant? No, that's not an aspiration. That's called a job. That's an inner room and then you hope to move up within the company if you decide to stay but most people that work at Starbucks don't stay there for 20 years. It's a step up of a job is what I'm trying to say. I didn't work at Valley's because I was going to be the CEO of the company. I didn't go in the military because I wanted to be the general of the army. I went in the army

because I didn't have an option. I went in the army because I had a one point AGP in high school and life was tough. It wasn't easy. So all I'm saying is an element of this is to get away from the industry because the app if somebody inspired to become a porn star at a young age then that's called child pornography. That's that's exactly part of the problem. When did you know you wanted to be a lawyer? 29 years old? When did you know you wanted to be a lawyer? 29 years old? When did you know you wanted to be a lawyer? Probably young age. Sure.

Who inspired you? Law and order? Of course. And how old were you when you first watched it? But you're validating my point. No, no, the point is there are adult jobs, right? There are adult jobs that are for adults. I get what you're saying.

I'm not telling you there's not. And I'm not even going with the the idea of we must ban all porn. No, that's the option and the choice of people above 18 This is America. You're not comfortable with it. Don't watch it But if somebody else that wants to do your thing, but you have to realize how did one a spy in spy? Well, how were they inspired to be a porn star? They probably. But there's a whole bunch of assumptions in that, that people are inspired.

No, no, I'm talking about the assumptions. It's been interviewed, you want me to roll up how many documentaries of former porn stars' background? That people are inspired or aspire, right? People like Alex, who works with creators every single day, and not anecdotally, like talking about working with them, helping them through their business issues, helping them with trust and safety, helping them with trust and safety,

helping them with all of these things, getting to know them. They have stories that are as varied as you can imagine. In fact, before I got into this- Probably less than 5% of them. No, no, before I got into this, I had never met anybody in the adult industry, at least admitted to me they were in the adult industry, never.

And I had all kinds of these preconceived notions, what their background looked like, what their education looks like. All of a sudden, I'm meeting people who are, and this is a very loaded word, normal. Normal. Who are parents and spouses, who have advanced degrees, who come from strong, stable families. You're making the exception. So, Solomon, how good of a boxer are you? How good of a boxer are you? Come on, I'm a Jewish guy named Solomon with these glasses. That's my point. Why though, why?

Why are you not a boxer? Why are you not a jujitsu fighter? How many jujitsu, can you type in how many jujitsu fighters that are Jewish? I think they're good judo, we got judo guys. I know you do, but type in, how many professional jujitsu fighters that are Jewish? Okay, can you type that up?

I'm a Christian guy, okay, so there isn't much information about how many Jewish fighters there are. You know why? You know what's the profile of a fighter? Fighting is not illegal. What's the profile of a fighter? What is the profile of somebody that became a fighter? Because they lived in a place that was probably not the best option and they wished they could have become an accountant or a lawyer or something else. They didn't have another choice. I was a one-pointed GPA kid in high school. I didn't have a lot of choice.

I went to the Army and then later on I got lucky to get into the financial services industry. I grew up with people that were in this space. The number one G dealer in the caps, I was the guy. My guy was a friend of mine that had to drop them off in the UK. Anyways, the number one pot sales guy, the number one ecstasy guy that went to jail for nine years, these are all my buddies. Okay, so the point I'm trying to make to you

is the part of it that if somebody is in this space, it's to say if somebody got into this space, they had a rough upbringing, no one grows up to be a porn star at 12 years old. There's a lot of truth in what you're saying by that. And I think it actually brings us to agreement more than disagreement. they had a rough upbringing, no one grows up to be a porn star at 12 years old. There's a lot of truth in what you're saying by that. And I think it actually brings us to agreement more than disagreement.

The creator community, whether it's porn star, call them what you want, they are vulnerable, right? They are a vulnerable community. So you can have no question about it, which is why they need a platform that keeps them safe to the absolute nth degree. Maybe for three to six months, they do this to get off of it

and go to something else. Which is their personal choice. We live in America or Canada, land of personal choice and self-determination. But when you have a population that is vulnerable, by the way, for a number of reasons. What's this? They need to have a platform that is absolutely safe.

I earn millions from doing porn, but my adult firm couldn't ruin my life. X-ray to stars, a bitter reality of the job, revealing she's shamed over it every day and even lost her whole family because of her yeah by the way this is just one this is the daily mail and this is a story about Riley Reid who is a multi-millionaire and who owns her own agency do you know how many stories we can start your own agency of what kind of content management agency she's happily married with a kid Alexandra

what I'm trying to say to you I can give you Hundreds of stories like this you cannot tell me somebody who grows up to be a porn star They grew up to become a porn star because since they were a kid that had a dream and if that was the case They watched porn illegally and these people groomed them at a young age That's a problem and you can't sit there and say, that's not a problem. If a person became a porn star at 18, they were consuming porn and they were inspired by these guys. This is not a healthy industry to be a part of. There are certain things that we do that you get out. You're trying to get out of it. I was a bodyguard at one point for a Colombian guy. What do you think I was doing for this Colombian guy?

Selling sugar? What do you think I was doing for this guy in Santa Monica, California? No, but there was a time I'm like, hey, what's gonna happen with this? I don't know if I wanna do this, and then boom, I'm out. Certain things in life that happens, all I'm saying is when I think about

investing in certain industries at any cost of rate of return money to be made. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. One of my very, very good friends back in the days, God bless his soul, was a criminal defense attorney in LA.

And he would talk like this, hey, Patrick, how you doing, buddy? And he was an abhorrent himself in his late 50s early 60s and he was a lawyer to a bunch of these criminal guys until eventually he started doing cocaine and then he went to jail and he... You have a really fascinating cast of characters around you. That's all I can say. We're the most boring people you've ever met. Actually no, you would be amazed. You have to know I enjoy good conversations and I'm enjoying this conversation because you're giving me your perspective and I'm gonna tell the because you're giving me your perspective

and I'm going to tell the story to say their point of view was dot dot dot and they seem like reasonable nice respectful people. I'm not walking away saying this was a bad experience, you were disrespectful, not at all. I'm going to walk away saying I actually really enjoyed their conversation. I'm just questioning if you know like I think America right now has the wrong people as heroes and they're confusing a lot of kids. I wanna make sure kids, you know,

hero making machine is a problem in America and their kids are confused today in a big way. And I'm just, you know, I just wanna make sure that, you know, that mindset of growing up saying, when I grow up, I wanna be this, doesn't happen. That's because life was hard. Patrick, we started a discussion about young people accessing the platform by saying,

we wanna be blocked by Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Like let that one sink in. That is the ownership group of Pornhub saying, we want our platform to be blocked by Apple, Google, and Microsoft. And we're currently blocked in how many states actively right now where people can't? 13, 14. 13 states where we made the conscious decision to block our service outright.

That's the reasoning for. Yeah, because we will not take the ID of individual visitors. We will not take people's private information. Oh, those states require you to take the ID. Which states are these? Texas, Mississippi, Virginia. So wait a minute, the Texas person you talked about,

that you said was a Reagan person, which argument was that for? So we challenged the law, we won the trial. He overturned the law and found it unconstitutional. The state appealed. Two out of three of the judges agreed with Texas. We went to the Supreme Court of the United States and they have granted us, it's called certiorari.

They've agreed to hear the case, and the case will be heard in December, which by the way has been joined by the ACLU representing the First Amendment interests. Solomon, is this at Utah, Texas, Louisiana? So those are states where regardless of anything, you cannot access PornHub. Yeah, so the difference by the way between PornHub-

Because they have to give the ID. Right, so other platforms are- It's for them. Yeah, other platforms are just operating there, not obeying the law. We have withdrawn service. Because we want this to be done. Which goes to show that these laws do not work.

Right, of course they don't work. Because there has been, I think, zero exactly. Yeah, no enforcement. Other websites that have, there's no enforcement that's happening. So all these other porn sites are still accessible in these states where people can go. These are websites that have minimal, if no compliance, trust and safety.

They're not moderating their content. So people can still access all of those, except they can't go on ours, which is a safe site that does moderate content. So it's not working. A device-based solution on all the devices that we already use today would actually stop young people from accessing porn.

By the way, these people that are your hundreds of moderators that all they do is watch porn all day. When they get home, are they like, babe, I'm so tired, I'm not in a mood, babe. I've watched so much crazy shit that I'm like, I would be curious to know how long they last at their job. Do some people stay doing that for like years or is it like six months at a time?

Or like I'm burned out. Or even more, how long it takes to train them to be able to do that. You have to train them, physically show them like what things. Absolutely, it's them what things are. Absolutely, it's a months long protocol. Physically show them different positions, what's going to prove or not. All sorts of acts that we allow or don't allow.

Are you joking right now? No. It's a three month training period. So you guys will be like, hey Mary, do me a favor, put that leg up. John, can you go stand? No, no, no. We will not approve this. We're looking at videos.

Content. Oh, I thought you guys were... Like Patrick, you've got a fascinating idea what's happening in the office. No, we're talking about making sure that the content is adhering to community guidelines. I probably just got you a thousand employees. Watch your amount of resumes.

But to answer your question, no, there are a lot of folks that have been at the company for a very long time. People really enjoy working for us. Listen, you sound happy. I'm very happy. You sound happy. Your tone sounds very happy, So that's good for you.

Anyways, it's been a very interesting conversation. I had no idea what direction we're going to go, but it was actually great. And you know, normally, I'm laughing, Rob, because I think the only person that will understand why I'm laughing. Normally we would say to learn more about their business, go visit, but we're not doing that today, because we don't need to. It's gonna be, if they wanna do it,

they're gonna do their thing if they're above 18 years old. All right. They can go to our trust and safety center though, if they wanna learn more. Which one is that? The Pornhub Trust and Safety Center that outlines all of our policies and the ways that we keep the plug.

Who would go to a website that long? Pornhub Trust and Safety Center. Oh no, sorry. That's not the URL. No, no, no, that's not the URL. We can give you the URL to plug after, but. Anyways, we will do that. There we go, you've got it up on the screen, boom.

That's it. Yeah, there you go. Okay guys, well we appreciate you for coming out. It was a pleasure. Thank you very much for having us. Yes, take care. Take care everybody, bye bye, bye bye.