Pornhub’s Cheerful ‘Year In Review’ Report Hides A Dark Secret
Image via DANIEL CONSTANTE / Shutterstock.com
At the end of each year, Pornhub unleashes a report revealing the most popular searches from visitors that year.
In 2019, the adult content platform shared that “celebrity porn” ranked among its hottest genres, with names like Belle Delphine, Kim Kardashian, Cardi B, Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift and Gal Gadot leading the list.
As you might have noticed, many of these stars never dabbled in the industry—so why are their names so high up the ranking? An investigation by Motherboard reveals that when several of these celebrities’ names are entered in Pornhub’s search field, viewers will immediately be shown deepfakes depicting the women.
While Pornhub has imposed a ban on deepfakes, which it says falls under “non-consensual pornography,” its prohibition only covers the search enquiry for “deepfakes” and a handful of channels dedicated to the genre.
As the website clearly knows celebrity names are dominating its searches, it’s awareness of the kind of content tagged to these keywords is likely.
According to Motherboard, looking up “Ariana Grande,” which was searched for over nine million times in 2019, and “Selena Gomez,” which received 7.3 million enquiries that year, prompted deepfake content in the first search results.
Pornhub also profits from these views, the publication adds, since the footage is hosted against ads.
The emergence of deepfake technology has struck fear, as internet users are concerned it can be used to manipulate footage for political conquests or even for revenge porn.
The adult content platform has yet to comment on this finding.
Image via Pornhub
[via Motherboard, images via various sources]
Also check out these recent news
