Pornhub has appointed a female executive in an attempt to turn the embattled company's image around following child sexual abuse and sex-trafficking scandals.
The move comes eight months after the site's parent company, MindGeek, was acquired by Canadian private equity firm, Ethical Capital Partners.
Longtime employee Alexzandra Kekesi has been named the head of community and brand, the NY Post reports, noting that the role will not only oversee the site's creative direction, but will also help craft Pornhub's public policies on various issues.
Those include Instagram’s permanent ban of the company’s account last fall over allegations it had violated rules against sexual solicitation on the Meta-owned social network. In response, Pornhub accused Instagram of hypocritically “censoring” the porn industry even as it allowed Kim Kardashian and other celebrities to post racy nude pics.
Now, Pornhub’s new overlords are hoping to take a more conciliatory approach by re-establishing dialogue with critics. -NY Post
In a statement to the Post, Kekesi says she's focused on "helping people to really understand what Pornhub is as a brand, what we stand for, what we represent," which includes a "gold standard when it comes to moderation."
"As soon as there’s someone that’s a little bit more visible in terms of being able to be the one to engage with and it’s not just a faceless company or corporation, it makes it a little more inviting," she said.
The move comes several months after a lawsuit was filed against Pornhub parent company, MindGeek, over sexually explicit videos of minors found on its 'tube' sites, the Financial Times reports.
Luxembourg-registered MindGeek has towered over the adult industry since the advent of video streaming. Its most recently published figures show revenues in 2018 reached $460mn while profit margins have at times neared 50 per cent, according to people familiar with the matter.
The identity of MindGeek’s former majority owner Bernd Bergmair — an ex-Goldman Sachs banker who also uses the name Bernard Bergemar — was first revealed by an FT investigation.
Pornhub's multiple scandals has led to the departure of its top management team, and restricted access to payment platforms Visa and Mastercard - which almost led to the site's collapse in late 2020 following investigations that identified illegal content on the platform.
The Post also notes that we don't know much about Ethical Capital Partners - such as, where it got the money to buy Pornhub, how much the transaction was for, and who's actually running MindGeek.
Sarah Bain, an ECP partner and the firm's VP of public engagement, says their approach is the same as any other privately held firm.
"I don’t think we’re being vague; I think we’re being really clear – we’re a private company," she said.
It won’t be easy for Ethical Capital to shift the public’s view on a company that already boasts a daily audience of 130 million users across its sites – despite being plagued by years of allegations ranging from sex-trafficking and revenge porn to child sex abuse.
MindGeek teetered on the verge of collapse after a damning New York Times report in 2020 shed light on the spread of illegal video content that spread via Pornhub and the crisis’ effect on impacted victims.
In recent years, Pornhub has been permanently banned on YouTube and Instagram, while the state of Utah blocked access to the site over an age verification law. The site voluntarily exited Virginia in protest of a similar law. The company's CEO and COO, Feras Antoon and David Tassillo also resigned last summer. They have yet to be replaced according to Bain, who added that MikdGeek has been ECP's one and only acquisition so far.
"We’re not interested in companies that have it all figured out," she said, adding "We want to work with companies that have either lost social license, have pretty important regulatory requirements coming up, or have, in this case, a history of difficult social license."
