This is why all your tube videos were deleted

[alwaysready]

On 12/16/2020 at 8:17 AM, rawTOP said:

In case you were wondering why all the videos you uploaded to [insert big tube site here] were deleted, here's what happened…

The History Behind What's Going On

Going back a ways, there are groups who are dedicated to getting rid of porn on the Internet (or at least as getting rid of as much of the porn as possible). Exodus Cry is one of the main groups trying to get rid of porn. A couple years ago they did a campaign to get state legislatures to declare porn a "public health crisis". A few states signed on, but overall it wasn't terribly successful. So now they've changed strategies and they took aim at PornHub saying that PornHub was being used to traffic underage girls. There was an article here and there with those claims but it didn't get traction. Then they got Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof at the NY Times to write an article on it. Apparently they spoon fed him information and he didn't really check the general validity of the claims before publishing his article. (Read more about it here.) But once that article was out things started happening.

The other piece of background that you should know is that PornHub is owned by a company called MindGeek. Today MindGeek is an an enormous company, but it has a very shady past. It started as Manwin back when tube sites were just coming out as a thing. Manwin operated out of countries that had no extradition treaties and they encouraged/enabled people to upload videos they didn't have rights to. So their tube sites were filled with illegal content (illegal for copyright infringement mostly). Those tube sites decimated the porn industry. Suddenly people didn't have to pay. Lots of producers went out of business. People like me who sent traffic to sites run by producers went out of business. Anyway, their business was so illegal that the owners would get indicted and around that time the business would be sold to someone else. They they would get indicted and the business would be sold again. Some of the owners later went to prison, others are still on the run or out of reach of the law. Anyway, about the 3rd or 4th time that happened the company was sold and renamed MindGeek. The owners of MindGeek decided to clean up their image. So they hired an army of lawyers and stayed (just barely in some cases) on the right side of the law.

Anyway, Manwin had bought up a lot of the big tube sites that they didn't already own. And MindGeek continued buying. Last I knew they owned 5 of the 8 top tube sites. Then as the producers who were having problems and were going out of business because of all the illegal content on MindGeek's tube sites started going out of business, MindGeek started buying them up. The producers were in a constant battle to get illegal copies of their videos off the tube sites, but once the same content was owned by MindGeek all that illegal content magically disappeared giving MindGeek a huge advantage – they didn't have to fight the big tube sites, because they were the big tube sites. These days MindGeek owns most of straight porn, and some really big names in gay porn. Men.com, Sean Cody, Reality Dudes – they all belong to MindGeek (and many many more).

The other thing to know is that there's what's legal, and then there's what MasterCard and Visa (and their shareholders) want to be associated with. The Visa/MC standard is stricter than what's "legal". By having a "premium membership" for PornHub, MindGeek was agreeing to be held to the higher Visa/MC standard. The problem was that when customers bought a PornHub Premium membership it allowed them ad-free access to PornHub. PornHubPremium.com is a "clean" site – MindGeek has vetted every person and company that's uploaded to the premium site. And those people are contractually obligated to have signed model releases and age verification documentation on file. But none of that is the case for PornHub.com – MindGeek has no clue who's behind the random email address the person provided. Yes, their terms of service probably say the person has to own (or have a license for) the video and everyone has to be 18+, but given that they don't really know who the uploader is, there's no way to enforce any of that. Because the premium membership included benefits on the non-premium site, what was going on on PornHub.com became Visa and MasterCard's business. If that hadn't been the case then it might have all blown over since the premium site was clean.

What's Happened In The Past Couple Weeks

The shit started hitting the fan when Kristof's article appeared in the NY Times. That got MasterCard and Visa to start investigations. Within a few days MasterCard terminated their relationship with PornHub, and Visa followed suit later the same day. Because of those investigations MindGeek is in crisis mode – they need the money they get from credit cards. Visa and MasterCard are continuing their investigations and they're looking at more than PornHub – they're looking at everything MindGeek owns. If Visa/MC isn't happy MindGeek could lose credit card processing for all their sites – including their paysites (Men.com, Sean Cody, Reality Dudes, etc.)

MindGeek has been working hard the last few years to change their image. They're now so large and have so much legal content that they don't need the illegal content that made them into a huge company. And that illegal content is what got them in trouble with Visa/Mastercard. Unfortunately they can't tell the difference between your personal video (that's legal), and the illegal video that someone else uploaded, so they just deleted everything that wasn't uploaded by someone who they've vetted. And because they had put all their tube sites under the umbrella of the "PornHub Network", this is also affecting PornMD, RedTube, XTube and YouPorn. Oh, and GayTube got shut down completely! All in all they deleted just under 80% of the videos on their sites(!!) It was a massive purge.

Final Thoughts – Putting Things In Context

1) For starters this all started because some people said that there was Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) on PornHub. And yes, mixed in among the millions of videos they had on their sites, there was a little bit of it. BUT we need to put that into context. The Internet Watch Foundation has documented the following number of cases on the various big internet platforms…

• Facebook – 84.1 million cases of CSAM
• Instagram – 4.45 million cases of CSAM
• Twitter – 1.47 million cases of CSAM
• PornHub – 118 cases of CSAM

In other words, the "big tech" social media platforms have a MUCH MUCH bigger problem with child porn than PornHub. But Exodus Cry didn't go after those platforms, they went after PornHub, because none of this is actually about child porn. Child porn is just the pretext to go after porn in general. The problem was the publicity got Visa/MC to re-examine the other (non-CSAM) illegal content on PornHub's sites (e.g. pirated porn). Once they were under a microscope for one thing, everything had to be cleaned up.

2) Another takeaway is that this wasn't about you. It wasn't about PornHub not liking a particular fetish, or whatever. This is about the commercialization of formerly free tube sites by a large corporation and what happens when you start using Visa/MC to sell memberships (or products) on your site. This is about Visa and MasterCard's rules.

3) Another thing to remember is that, while this may be painful for a time, ultimately it's really good that PornHub deleted all those videos. The big tube sites decimated the porn business. Lots of producers went out of business, and most of the people like me who got commissions by promoting sales on legal porn sites just went out of business and disappeared completely. 10 years ago there were three gay webmaster forum sites that were all really active with discussion. Today there's one and it's lucky if it gets 1 or 2 people posting comments in a day. By deleting all those videos the playing field is considerably more level.

So it sucks that your videos are gone, but ultimately this means a better, healthier porn industry.

this is an excellent essay. i am not saying this is the same thing, but i recall in the mid 80's or go, the govt. moved against poppers (in england 'sniffs') they just disappeared. i remember being in a head shop b4 this happened and seeing rows of bottles. i did not think i needed to buy more.  anyhoo....i am not sure how long this lasted (anyone else supply that info?) but they are back;, though mainly outside the u.s  i suspect, as has been suggested, that other sites will pop up. my main gripe is that i saved a lot of stuff on plug ins, but if the vid disappears online, it does so on the plug in. i used to think there was a real transfer. so a couple of vids i loved are gone. there are still a ton. i started a list of the top 10 fave vid (scenes), and ended up with about 25. lol 

[rawTOP]

14 hours ago, gwmxyz said:

Thanks to RawTOP for that - interesting and helpful.  

I get the expectation of privacy point.  I'd be surprised though if anyone had too many age worries about me or 49 year old Thai friend (alas).

Age verification in the US is regulated by "2257" a law that's been pretty well gutted since it was first passed. There was a provision in it that allowed for the feds to just knock on your door and demand to see your records. That warrantless search was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court this year. So now the feds need a warrant and to get a warrant they need reasonable suspicion that you're not keeping records. Which means someone has to rat you out. But if you shot a lot of scenes with your boyfriend and then you have an acrimonious breakup – voilà, there's someone who might want to rat you out.

Anyway, 2257 is about record keeping. So if the model is 49 and you don't have proof he's 49, then you're guilty and go to prison. Doesn't matter what he looks like. In other words, the law isn't about whether the person is underage, but how well you did record keeping. It's rather fucked up. But I worry a lot of the "fans" (OF, JFF, RFC) models are not keeping proper records when they shoot scenes and post them as "independent producers" and that the situation will eventually blow up. I've also heard of a well-known European producer who doesn't so proper record keeping.

If you're shooting porn and want to upload it (anywhere, not just for commercial purposes), it's good for you to keep actual proof of the guys' ages. To do that properly I HIGHLY recommend the app "Quick 2257" (Google Play, Apple's App Store) it's free and it was developed by (or probably for) Larry Walters – one of the top porn industry lawyers. Do what that app tells you to do (it's not hard), and you're covered.

One of the quirks of 2257 is that non-US ID is legal for scenes shot outside the US, but not valid for scenes shot in the US. It's not a Department of Labor issue of foreigners working illegally in the country – because it applies to scenes with no pay. Put simply porn with a non-US resident cannot be legally shot in the US. Though one possible way around that is with local government IDs that don't verify immigration status, such as NYC ID, but you can only get those in certain places and you need to be a resident of that locality. That said VERY few people have been charged with 2257 violations, and that number will go down now that the feds have to have a warrant. But I can see them getting a warrant for one "fans" model, and in a plea deal that person gives them what they need to get the a bunch of other fans models and so on.

Oh, and I should mention 2257 documentation is only half of what you need. You also need the person to sign a model release that specifies what you're allowed to do with the video. Those are more complicated than age verification/documentation. So no recommendations there. One you get off the internet is better than nothing, but to do it right requires a lawyer.

[ErosWired]

2 hours ago, rawTOP said:

To do that properly I HIGHLY recommend the app "Quick 2257" (Google Play, Apple's App Store) it's free

As of looking at the iPhone App Store just now, it is not free. It costs $.99.

[rawTOP]

32 minutes ago, ErosWired said:

As of looking at the iPhone App Store just now, it is not free. It costs $.99.

A one-time fee of $1 is basically free 🙂 I was going off my memory rather than looking at the page. Since there are no recurring fees and it was so cheap I remembered it as free.

[ErosWired]

11 hours ago, rawTOP said:

A one-time fee of $1 is basically free 🙂 

You’re right, of course. I wonder whether there are even enough downloads of it to make it worthwhile to even charge for it, though. Looking at the screen shots it appears that a completed record is expected to include photos of participants’ IDs, as well as of them holding their IDs. It looks like it’s aldo expected that the title of the production will be included. It’s hard to imagine that much ad hoc amateur video would benefit from the system - I don’t see the average hookup agreeing to have his ID photographed, pose for a full-face photo holding his ID, and sign a waiver just so an iPhone video clip of him fucking could be posted to XTube. Late this afternoon a Top had me come to his place so his friend visiting from out of town could fuck me, and he filmed a lot of cock going in and out of my hole. Not sure what he plans to do with it, but he wasn’t looking at it in terms of creating a production - he was just capturing the event to enjoy again later. I suspect that a lot of the content that’s now disappeared was of this nature, and represents a spontaneity and true-to-life sense that we will greatly miss.

[null]

seriously hope MC and visa ban all porn from their networks and destroys the overproduced overacted corporate crap

[rawTOP]

14 hours ago, ErosWired said:

You’re right, of course. I wonder whether there are even enough downloads of it to make it worthwhile to even charge for it, though. Looking at the screen shots it appears that a completed record is expected to include photos of participants’ IDs, as well as of them holding their IDs. It looks like it’s aldo expected that the title of the production will be included. It’s hard to imagine that much ad hoc amateur video would benefit from the system - I don’t see the average hookup agreeing to have his ID photographed, pose for a full-face photo holding his ID, and sign a waiver just so an iPhone video clip of him fucking could be posted to XTube. Late this afternoon a Top had me come to his place so his friend visiting from out of town could fuck me, and he filmed a lot of cock going in and out of my hole. Not sure what he plans to do with it, but he wasn’t looking at it in terms of creating a production - he was just capturing the event to enjoy again later. I suspect that a lot of the content that’s now disappeared was of this nature, and represents a spontaneity and true-to-life sense that we will greatly miss.

The point is that if you don't go through those steps you video can't legally be uploaded anywhere. If anyone uploads a video of you without having gone through those steps you can sue them. And likewise, you can be sued if you do the upload.

[BootmanLA]

5 hours ago, null said:

seriously hope MC and visa ban all porn from their networks and destroys the overproduced overacted corporate crap

The opposite is likely to be the case. As RawTop noted, record keeping is onerous. Compliance with the law can be onerous. You have to know what's required, what's legal, and what's forbidden, and the average home producer of spontaneous porn is unlikely to know. Studios, who have lawyers who study the statutes and regulations and court cases, will know. Or at least, their trade association will know, and share with its members.

[BootmanLA]

18 hours ago, ErosWired said:

You’re right, of course. I wonder whether there are even enough downloads of it to make it worthwhile to even charge for it, though. Looking at the screen shots it appears that a completed record is expected to include photos of participants’ IDs, as well as of them holding their IDs. It looks like it’s aldo expected that the title of the production will be included. It’s hard to imagine that much ad hoc amateur video would benefit from the system - I don’t see the average hookup agreeing to have his ID photographed, pose for a full-face photo holding his ID, and sign a waiver just so an iPhone video clip of him fucking could be posted to XTube. Late this afternoon a Top had me come to his place so his friend visiting from out of town could fuck me, and he filmed a lot of cock going in and out of my hole. Not sure what he plans to do with it, but he wasn’t looking at it in terms of creating a production - he was just capturing the event to enjoy again later. I suspect that a lot of the content that’s now disappeared was of this nature, and represents a spontaneity and true-to-life sense that we will greatly miss.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I sense a sort of disconnect in this. 

Capturing the event to enjoy again later may technically be covered by the laws that govern record keeping - the act of filming is what triggers the requirements. But since the authorities have to have probable cause, now, to search your records, if the person who films the event keeps it for himself, it's unlikely probable cause could ever be found. (The one way might be if the person in the video went to the police and swore out a complaint that he was filmed and never asked to sign the paperwork or provide ID, but I'm not sure a bare allegation, without some sort of corroborating evidence, would be enough to trigger probable cause.)

On the other hand, you talk about content of this sort "that's now disappeared", suggesting that those videos were NOT just for private enjoyment - they were shared on a tube site or whatever. And that's a whole different ballgame. It's kind of hard to argue that a video clip was made for the video guy "just to enjoy again later" but somehow it ended up distributed on a tube site open to the internet. Someone had to make a conscious decision to share that video beyond the original stated context of "to enjoy again later".

[rawTOP]

14 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I sense a sort of disconnect in this. 

Capturing the event to enjoy again later may technically be covered by the laws that govern record keeping - the act of filming is what triggers the requirements. But since the authorities have to have probable cause, now, to search your records, if the person who films the event keeps it for himself, it's unlikely probable cause could ever be found. (The one way might be if the person in the video went to the police and swore out a complaint that he was filmed and never asked to sign the paperwork or provide ID, but I'm not sure a bare allegation, without some sort of corroborating evidence, would be enough to trigger probable cause.)

On the other hand, you talk about content of this sort "that's now disappeared", suggesting that those videos were NOT just for private enjoyment - they were shared on a tube site or whatever. And that's a whole different ballgame. It's kind of hard to argue that a video clip was made for the video guy "just to enjoy again later" but somehow it ended up distributed on a tube site open to the internet. Someone had to make a conscious decision to share that video beyond the original stated context of "to enjoy again later".

To be clear the laws I'm talking about don't apply to private videos you may have at home. AFAIK (I'm not a lawyer), you can film your fucks all you want with zero documentation and it's fine as long as the person is actually 18+. The problems I'm talking about start when you upload or share it with someone else.

Here in NY, it's legal to fuck someone who's 17. (I can now fuck someone 1/3rd my age!) But video taping that encounter is illegal. I would then be in possession of child porn. (Compare that to Holland where if the sex was legal, the video of it is also legal, which is hard to enforce, but much more sensible.) If you were to be prosecuted for simply being in possession of the video the prosecutor would need to prove that someone in the video was under 18. But the moment you upload the video to a website the documentation rules come into effect, and the prosecutor does not have to prove the person was over 18 – you do. The prosecutor only has to prove you didn't keep the required records. Even if you prove the person is over 18, they could still proceed with the prosecution based on the fact that you couldn't supply the records when requested (though I doubt the courts would be very kind to their case).

Driving the 17 year old from Jersey City, NJ to Manhattan, NY and then fucking him is a federal crime. That's "trafficking". If he takes the PATH train all on his own, then it's legal.

What's a little unclear is whether a (<18) teen can take a naked picture of himself. AFAIK, technically it's illegal (which seems stupid). When it gets really messed up is when the kid texts that pic to his boyfriend/girlfriend, the kid is now guilty of distributing child porn. He can be labeled at sex offenders for the rest of his lives – even though it was a pic of him which he took with no one else's involvement and sent to someone he were in an intimate relationship with (who's legally seen everything in the pic).

And with any (x-rated) video, if you upload it or share it (e.g. text it to someone else) without consent (or the person withdraws consent), then you could be tried under "revenge porn" laws. This is why it's important to get the person to sign a model agreement. But even with a model agreement the model can say they were coerced / drunk / high and it's as if no model agreement was signed. This is why professionals in the porn industry have a camera on models from the time they enter. That lets them show the entire engagement to prove there was no coercion and that the person did not seem to be drunk or high.

Just a few examples I encounter pretty routinely…

I get hit up on Twitter pretty frequently with people asking for me to share pics of them. I always say no and tell them I'll retweet pics, but won't upload them. With retweets if I have a good faith belief that the content is legal, then I'm fine. But the moment I upload the pic I'm subject to a whole bunch of other laws.

The other thing that happens with some regularity is a model contacting me demanding that I take down pictures of them. I tell them I have a license from my sponsor for the images/videos. And that the only way my sponsor would distribute them to me is if the producer had a signed model release. Which means they were fully aware they were shooting porn for a commercial website at the time, they were paid, and they signed a model release. They usually threaten me few more times. Each time I tell them to go talk to a lawyer. They always say they will (the great indignation), but I never hear from the lawyer.

[ErosWired]

14 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I sense a sort of disconnect in this. 

Not necessarily. My comment was merely to suggest that the requirements mandated by the new environment will likely mean that creation and uploading of pornographic video becomes the province only of the professional or quasi-professional pornographer, who is willing to invest the time and effort necessary for record-keeping. By the time someone has gone to the effort to establish and maintain a system of records (which must remain intact indefinitely), that already puts the activity out of the reach of the average fucker with an iPhone camera.

But I don’t think intent to publish is necessarily always present aforethought. I can easily see someone capturing some hot bedroom action on his phone camera with no intention other than fapping to it later, and then at some point further on getting the notion of putting his exploits out there for all to see.

Case in point: Me. The videos of myself that I posted to XTube were shot (way back in the day) before there was such a thing as XTube. I had no idea of showing them to anyone. I only decided to do so long after the fact.

[ErosWired]

18 minutes ago, rawTOP said:

Here in NY, it's legal to fuck someone who's 17. (I can now fuck someone 1/3rd my age!) But video taping that encounter is illegal. I would then be in possession of child porn.

So creating video documentation of a legal act is illegal. Now there’s a disconnect.

[BlackDude]

Oh how I despise choreographed, studio porn. I’m visualizing a lot of “model types” having robotic sex lacking any sort of chemistry on these paid sites. 
 

On the bright side, with less free porn available, maybe a lot of guys will actually be interested in actually up again. 

[Guest]

On 12/21/2020 at 7:39 AM, rawTOP said:

To be clear the laws...

rawTOP I know it’s a serious topic but I’m serious when I say...

Nothing hotter than a man with a brain! I’d carry your boys daily in me!

ErosWired you can carry my boys cause your thinking is also hot!!

[Shotsfired]

I have been using cash app to buy stock and crypto. Their is no safety net on purchases you make with it. 

I see this as a bigger picture than just porn. Amazon is in court trying to say the movie you buy online from them on Prime are not really yours? 

 

The Golden Age of the internet went out the door with net neutrality thanks to Trump. Are real civil liberties aren't being taken away by masks, but buy financial hamstringing and censorship.  

 

Remember the 80s and 90s porn. Bland overracted garbage. I hate the rim scenes from these movies.

 

Mom and Pop Studios are basically being screwed by corporate America.  Instead of Direct Porn Democracy  we have censorship.  A very underhanded blow to working class people, all porn and even normie apps are requiring monthly fees. 

I know I have hard choices ahead, and I am already registered officially with Xtube,  Tik Tok, and Only Fans. It's not that hard.