In addition to anonymous information about Google searches, he has “downloaded all of Wikipedia, pored through Facebook profiles,” and even received the complete (though anonymous) search and video view data from the popular porn site PornHub. Stephens-Davidowitz, a former data scientist at Google, has spent the last four years poring over Internet search data.
Internet search data might be the Holy Grail when it comes to understanding the true nature of humanity. Even men curious about the aging process have one question first and foremost in mind: “Will my penis get smaller?”
“Men conduct more searches for how to make their penises bigger than how to tune a guitar, make an omelette or change a tire,” he writes. “Men Google more questions about their sexual organ than any other body part: more than about their lungs, liver, feet, ears, nose, throat and brain combined,” writes Seth Stephens-Davidowitz in his new book, “Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Re- ally Are” (Dey St.).
Pornhub, which claims 130 million visitors a day, has denied allegations of trafficking and announced a series of measures to combat illegal content.On the whole, American men like to project sexual confidence, but an analysis of Internet searches tells another story entirely - that they are gravely concerned about the size of their penises. Montreal-based MindGeek described the suit's accusation that it is running a "criminal enterprise" as "utterly absurd, completely reckless and categorically false," according to US media. They are also suing Visa Inc – one of the world's largest payments processing companies – for "knowingly" profiting from trafficking in providing merchant services to MindGeek.īoth Visa and Mastercard suspended processing payments for Pornhub in December, after a New York Times article accused the site of hosting illegal content, including child pornography and rape videos.Īccording to the suit, MindGeek owns more than 100 pornographic sites, including Pornhub, RedTube, Tube8 and YouPorn, and sees some 3.5 billion visits each month. The plaintiffs' lawyers accuse MindGeek of operating a "gaslighting campaign" online in a bid to discredit the victims, as well as making "threats of physical violence and death" against them. Yet the video was not taken down for several weeks, the lawsuit said, and during that time it was downloaded and reuploaded by several different users, with each video requiring a fresh request to remove it. The video remained online until the teen, posing as her mother, asked Pornhub to remove it.
Serena Fleites, the only plaintiff to be named, said that in 2014 she learned that "a nude, sexually explicit video" that her boyfriend had coerced her to make when she was only 13 years old had been uploaded to Pornhub without her consent. Michael Bowe, a lawyer representing the women, told CBS News the court could order MindGeek to pay hundreds of millions to his clients. "This is a case about rape, not pornography," the complaint said, describing the website as "likely the largest non-regulatory repository of child pornography in North America and well beyond."Īll but one of the plaintiffs, who reside both in the United States and abroad, wished to remain anonymous.įourteen said they were minors when they were filmed and should be considered "a victim of child sex trafficking". They accuse MindGeek, the controversial adult entertainment empire that runs Pornhub, of being a "classic criminal enterprise" with a business model based on exploiting non-consensual sexual content. Lawyers representing the 34 plaintiffs accuse the online giant – one of the world's largest adult video websites – of creating a teeming marketplace for child pornography and "every other form" of nonconsensual sexual content, and want the company to pay damages. Nearly three dozen women have filed a lawsuit in California against adult video website Pornhub, accusing it and its parent company of knowingly profiting from footage depicting rape and sexual exploitation, including of minors.