Netflix's Pornhub doc sheds light on the adult industry

In the last decade, Pornhub has exploded in terms of both brand recognition and controversy. The issues surrounding the site are complex, engendering conversations around the porn industry, sex work, and free speech. 

Netflix takes on these topics in its new documentary, Money Shot: The Pornhub Story, dropping Wednesday, March 15. In addition to giving a concise history of internet porn and the tube giant itself, Money Shot — directed by Suzanne Hillinger — details the anti-porn and anti-sex work movement that use Pornhub as a catch-all for the whole adult industry. 

With interviewees from those inside the porn industry and those who want to destroy it, Money Shot gives a fair yet clear look into the growing censorship battle fought online, and how porn performers are on the frontlines. 

"If the attack on porn continues on the path that it's currently on," said performer Siri Dahl in the documentary, "It's not just an attack on porn. It's an attack on women's sexuality, it's an attack on queer sexuality, it's an attack on people being able to express themselves openly, especially online."

What is Money Shot about?

Money Shot explains the rise of tube sites like Pornhub in the early 2000s, and how these sites were built on pirated content. Pornhub, which was founded in 2007, changed the industry by forcing studios and creators to change how they made and distributed content. As director Bree Mills said, porn production became much more of a volume game. Eventually, studios began partnering with Pornhub, and Pornhub's parent company MindGeek started acquiring studios and other tubes as well. 

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Pornhub became a household name because of its search engine optimization strategy (meaning, they claimed top spots on Google searches) and savvy decisions to advertise in Times Square and publicize yearly traffic insights.

Prior to 2020, a Pornhub user needed to be verified to make money from content, but any unverified users were able to upload content. This led to bad actors posting illegal content (like CSAM, child sex abuse material) onto Pornhub, as unfortunately happens on other social platforms like Facebook. 

Exodus Cry, a conservative Christian-right group, led the Traffickinghub campaign calling for a complete shutdown of Pornhub. The stories of actual sex trafficking that the campaign highlighted "have nothing to do with us as an industry," said performer Asa Akira in Money Shot. 

Nonetheless, Traffickinghub caught the attention of New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who published an op-ed in December 2020 called "The Children of Pornhub." The piece went viral, as did calls to shut down the site.

"It's a nightmare for us because when you present two unrelated things as being closely related in a paper everyone's going to believe, what happens? Well, exactly what you think would happen," said performer Cherie DeVille in the documentary. "The public sees it and they are outraged because it is outrageous and it is horrible and it is something nobody wants and then they say, 'That is trash and we need to eliminate it.'"

"They neglect to see that sex work and sex trafficking are two completely different things," said Akira. Sex work, by definition, is done with consent. If it's non-consensual, it's rape. 

After the op-ed, Pornhub deleted millions of unverified videos and changed their policies so only verified accounts can upload content; performers and employees called for the latter for years. After pressure from Exodus Cry and another anti-porn group National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), formerly known as Morality in Media, Visa and Mastercard stopped processing payments on Pornhub, which meant that performers lost income.

Money Shot also discusses the bills FOSTA-SESTA, which passed in 2018. The bills amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Section 230 basically states that online platforms aren't liable for illegal content people publish there; FOSTA-SESTA amends this so platforms are responsible for "sexual solicitation" content posted. 

But FOSTA-SESTA didn't help the problem; it actually made it more difficult to find traffickers. The bills also led to social platforms deplatforming and silencing sex workers, hurting their livelihoods, and potentially subjecting them to unsafer forms of work. 

The brunt of the aftermath of FOSTA-SESTA and the viral New York Times piece was and is felt by sex workers. Criticisms of the porn industry — and, these days, Pornhub is used as shorthand for the porn industry — end up hurting performers the most, said porn historian and former MindGeek employee Noelle Perdue.

Why you should watch Money Shot

Money Shot amplifies the voices of sex workers and porn industry advocates. They explain that sex work and sex trafficking are different, and how conflating the two will hurt sex workers and anyone online who wants to express their sexuality. They're also not afraid to say the quiet part out loud: NCOSE and groups like it want to eradicate porn and sex work on the whole. 

"Those people don't care about the victims," performer Gwen Adora claimed in Money Shot, "They just care about getting the porn industry to be as small as possible." The failure of FOSTA-SESTA is an example of this. 

The documentary isn't one-sided, however. Money Shot also features senior legal counsel for NCOSE Dani Pinter, who claims that Pornhub made performers dependent on it, and apparently sees performers as victims.

The film also hints at ramifications here beyond the adult industry. Sex workers are the "canaries in the coal mine" for censorship. If the recent Section 230 hearings and anti-LGBTQ legislation is any indication, free speech for non-sex workers is also at stake. 

One criticism of Money Shot comes at the end of the documentary. Then-VP and general counsel (she's now chief legal officer) for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) Yiota Souras seems to imply that Section 230 should change, that platforms should be held liable for content hosted there. There's no response, however, about how that would fundamentally change the internet. 

As Mashable's Elizabeth de Luna explained, amending Section 230 further could make you, the user, liable for anything you say on a platform should someone be upset enough about it to take legal action. It could also cause platforms to implement strict rules, thus acting as de facto censorship.

Overall, however, Money Shot handles Pornhub and the adult industry with nuance and care. Let's hope the rest of the internet takes notes.