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this guy talk about how he got clean

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and sober at the mission. So. I

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and I knew I was getting better

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today. My number one goal is to

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gray, he's when

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the. To

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hear more. Volunteer or donate

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Visit yougm.org. You

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0:55

Eleven. Very welcome back to High

0:58

Randall! Unfiltered the podcast that lift

1:00

the veil shrouding the mystery behind

1:02

the adult industry. and today I

1:04

have a really special guest to

1:07

talk about. A lot of mystery

1:09

and a lot of conjecture around

1:11

one of the adult industry's biggest

1:14

brands of all time. She is

1:16

the new face and first female

1:18

forward facing executive of a brand

1:21

that you all know and love.

1:23

I hope. Porn. Hub Lease.

1:25

You definitely know it, that's for sure.

1:27

Last year she became the first female

1:30

executive of Porn have she was tap

1:32

to the head of community and brand.

1:34

She's behind tons of great work that

1:36

point Have is doing right now and

1:39

all. As always she is leading the

1:41

fight against all forms of discrimination that

1:43

sex workers face. Welcome Alex Cassie thank

1:45

you so much! Think you please tell

1:48

me I said your last name credit.

1:50

Yeah I nailed it. Yeah.

1:53

Sometimes know I ain't trips up everybody. I

1:55

don't know why people want to always put

1:57

like an extra k. Yeah, they want to

1:59

do kickass. which is very cute,

2:01

but James, you did a

2:03

great job. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I appreciate

2:05

that. I actually, my actual last

2:07

name, because Randall's technically my middle name, there's

2:10

also a K in there that's silent, and boy,

2:13

oh boy, did that throw people off. Well, I

2:15

mean, it's a Hungarian, if we want to get

2:17

into it, it's a Hungarian last name, and it's

2:19

technically Kekashi, but I'm not going

2:21

to put that on anyone. I

2:25

said it once, I got it right. Kekesi is

2:27

great. I can say

2:29

Alex. That I can get. All

2:33

right, so Alex, let's start off

2:35

by you explaining to us what your role is

2:37

as the head of community and brand at Pornhub.

2:39

Sure. So head of community

2:41

and brand, it's a new position in

2:43

the chemical, I guess a year now, was

2:46

a new position when I took it on. I'm the

2:48

first person to fill the role. Basically,

2:52

we saw a real need to develop a

2:54

bridge in a meaningful and visible

2:57

way between the corporate side of

3:00

the porn world and the community.

3:02

So that is me and

3:04

my team. Obviously, as Pornhub being a

3:08

creator-driven platform, this

3:13

is a relationship that's existed

3:15

in many different

3:18

iterations behind the scenes for a very long time. Obviously,

3:21

we've had people directly communicating with creators for years

3:23

and years at this point.

3:26

But I think from a public-facing side, that's never something

3:28

that Alo or Pornhub certainly has

3:30

ever had. So what that looks like in

3:33

practice or in application is

3:36

mostly doing stuff like this, which I love to

3:38

do, helping people better understand

3:40

sort of what the brand is, what

3:45

the site is. A lot of people actually don't understand

3:47

what Pornhub is or how it works. They know the

3:49

brand name, but we still get questions all the time

3:52

like, oh, when are you guys doing a casting? And it's

3:54

like, we don't make content. It's

3:56

a user-generated content platform. platform.

4:01

And then also trying now, especially

4:04

more than ever, trying to help people really

4:06

understand what we're about from a trust and

4:08

safety perspective. So just really helping people understand

4:11

how safe Pornhub is, all the different measures

4:13

that we have in place to really keep

4:15

the platform safe, both from the

4:18

viewer side so that people can feel confident

4:20

that when they're going on Pornhub and they're

4:23

watching content, that that's all content that's been

4:25

vetted by

4:27

our moderation process. And then from a creator

4:29

side that like they can feel good about

4:32

putting content on a site similarly that has a lot

4:34

of these safety checkpoints in

4:36

place. I've also

4:39

really been enjoying going to the

4:41

different industry events. So XBiz,

4:43

AVN, that kind of stuff, we've been doing workshops there.

4:45

And those have

4:48

been really interesting. I really wasn't sure what to

4:50

expect, even though I've been with the company for

4:53

almost 11 years at this point.

4:56

So I've obviously, you know, interfaced

4:58

with tons of people sort of behind the scenes,

5:00

but in this different way, kind of going in

5:02

and doing workshops with creators

5:05

and really being like, okay, we're kind

5:07

of just here, and we

5:09

want to just communicate with you and hear

5:11

what it is that you're experiencing on the

5:13

site, how can we be doing things better?

5:16

What are some of the pain points, but then also trying

5:18

to help people understand, you know,

5:20

some of the stuff that we have to offer that they might

5:22

not be familiar with. So it's very much focused on helping

5:26

creators succeed as much as possible and make

5:28

the most money possible using Pornhub. Awesome.

5:30

Yeah. So what are these things that you

5:33

offer that people may not be aware of?

5:35

Like tell us about the different iterations of

5:37

Pornhub besides like just the free porn. Yeah.

5:40

So that's, I think there's like a

5:42

big misconception that free

5:44

porn makes means no one's making money. I

5:48

get that question all the time. So do

5:50

I, how do you make money? How does

5:52

anyone make money when all porn is online

5:55

for free? So it's ad revenue. Pornhub

5:57

obviously has a lot of advertising.

6:00

space on the site. So

6:02

the way that we're able to pay creators when

6:04

they're uploading content to the site is they get

6:06

a portion of the ad revenue. So

6:09

that obviously is impacted by views,

6:11

engagement, that kind of thing. But

6:14

we do have a team in place that's led by my

6:16

colleague, Santa, who's with me at a bunch of the different

6:18

events. And

6:20

we work with people to help them optimize, basically.

6:23

So sometimes that means getting on a

6:25

call with someone, really doing like an

6:27

almost like forensic kind of

6:29

evaluation of their content and just pointing

6:31

out things that might seem,

6:33

you know, like very easy to miss or

6:35

that people aren't necessarily thinking of when they're

6:38

titling their work or when they're

6:40

labeling certain things with tags or the

6:43

way that they're categorizing stuff.

6:45

There's little things that you can do

6:48

really strategically that make a huge difference and that

6:50

can work to your favor just to help get

6:52

stuff in front of more people, which then obviously

6:55

stands to positively impact the

6:57

way that you get paid. Right. Which is

6:59

exactly how YouTube works for the most part.

7:02

Exactly. That's it. Yeah. Facebook too. And

7:04

Instagram as well. Yep. All

7:06

the platforms. So part

7:09

of this role is being the first

7:11

public facing executive in Pornhub's history. Were

7:14

you apprehensive about being the face of a company

7:16

that the public has such strong opinions

7:18

of? That's an

7:21

interesting question. Yeah. So

7:24

obviously I put a lot of

7:26

thought into it before jumping

7:28

in. But

7:30

without sounding too corny, I hope.

7:33

Like I really, I really do

7:35

love what I do and I love this industry so

7:37

much. And

7:40

I think it's, you know, one

7:43

of the things that I know we're going to get to this a little bit later when

7:45

we talk about the new ownership

7:47

and what's kind of changed since they

7:51

acquired the company a year ago. But part of

7:53

that commitment,

7:55

I guess, that they took on as part of the

7:57

new ownership was this real commitment to transparency. And

8:00

so with that came this level of

8:02

accessibility and visibility that I'm part

8:04

of. So my role was announced at the same

8:06

time as the acquisition. And

8:10

that was one of the things that I was personally really

8:12

excited about when I first met with them

8:14

a couple of months before everything was made

8:17

public. Because

8:19

the other part of my role is

8:21

that I'm very involved in the communications

8:24

of the company, right? Anything sort

8:26

of public facing that

8:28

looks like any time that we

8:31

respond to media inquiries depend on a

8:33

wide variety of subjects, but also on

8:36

a creative level. So anything that has to do with

8:38

the brand. That's all stuff

8:40

that I get to work on with my team. And

8:43

there's certain things about the way that we

8:45

operate as a company or the way that

8:47

we operate as a brand that I think

8:50

we really needed someone to sort of be seeing on

8:54

the record to have

8:57

it really land in a way that was meaningful.

8:59

So there's certain things that

9:01

we've been trying to sort of impart to press

9:03

for years or even to the wider community about

9:05

the way that we, especially

9:07

on the trust and safety staff, so

9:10

the moderation practices, the vetting practices that

9:12

we have with content. We've

9:14

been trying to kind of explain this to people for a

9:16

really long time. And

9:18

I think now that we have people

9:21

that can explain it, and in many cases

9:23

what we've been doing with certain

9:25

reporters lately is actually like physically walking

9:27

them through the whole process. It's like

9:30

a 40 minute presentation that shows exactly

9:32

like the journey that someone has to

9:34

go through to upload content to the

9:36

site. So that begins with like verification

9:38

and then all the different processes

9:41

from a verification and moderation standpoint.

9:44

So it's quite extensive. And

9:46

I think now it's finally starting to land, which

9:48

is really exciting. Like in a way it's kind of bittersweet.

9:50

I was talking about that with someone on my team this

9:52

morning where, you know, a lot

9:54

of the stuff we've been messaging for years, but I

9:56

think it just takes that next step in

9:58

that kind of like personal. walk

10:01

through to get it really like

10:03

cemented, if that makes sense. But

10:06

yeah, I mean, it's been

10:09

a journey. It's one that I've

10:12

been actually really pleasantly surprised in a

10:14

lot of ways at

10:17

the way that I've been received in the role. So

10:19

yeah, I'm ultimately, if I'm looking back from a year

10:21

ago, I think I made the right choice for sure.

10:25

Awesome. What are your biggest goals that you'd like

10:27

to accomplish in this role? Um,

10:30

I think I touched

10:32

on it a little bit earlier. So it's I think, as

10:35

much as possible, trying to continue bridging

10:37

that gap between the sort of like

10:39

two sides of the industry, which I

10:41

think is going to be ongoing. And

10:44

I think that sort of like, the

10:46

KPIs or whatever, like the metrics of success

10:48

for what that looks like are going to

10:50

shift as the industry and as technology continues

10:52

to evolve. But

10:55

I think for the most part right

10:57

now, it's really just

10:59

trying to help people understand that Pornhub

11:02

is a safe place to share content. It's

11:04

a safe place to experience,

11:07

you know, a wide variety of different kinds

11:09

of content from a user perspective. It's a

11:11

safe place to explore your sexuality. And

11:14

I think just as much

11:16

as possible trying to help demystify,

11:20

you know, the porn industry, I think there's a

11:22

lot that is still really,

11:24

there's a lot that's still really

11:27

misunderstood. And I think you know,

11:29

that's probably better than anyone. Yeah,

11:31

about, you know, the way that this

11:33

industry works, who the people are that are working in

11:36

it. And

11:38

also like, this, you

11:41

know, we we really do care about each other,

11:43

like it's a really great community. And I

11:46

think that yeah, I just think there's a lot

11:48

that needs to get sort of set straight on that

11:51

front. Yeah, I can agree with you more. So

11:54

tell me about your history with Pornhub. Like how did

11:56

you first get your foot in that door? I

12:01

applied pretty much. Out of

12:03

school. I

12:05

did a gender and sexuality. Studies.

12:10

Degree. In university so that was

12:12

kind of where my like feminist awakening

12:14

kind of happened. And.

12:18

A lot actually of the subject matter

12:20

that I studied when I was in

12:22

school had to do with sex work

12:24

and pornography. That was like the stuff

12:26

that I really particularly gravitated towards, and

12:28

I found the most interesting. Ah, where.

12:30

Did that is I think just. Plates.

12:35

I think To me I think pornography.

12:37

And sex work are. It's

12:40

so interesting like to me I think it's and

12:42

you know people have different views on this but

12:44

I think that it's. Almost.

12:47

Like. The. Most radical thing that

12:49

you can do. And it's like to

12:51

me I find that just like very exciting

12:53

and I think that I'm. It's.

12:55

Almost like this. True.

12:58

Reflection of. Like.

13:00

Just true agency and freedom. Almost.

13:03

Because to me it's like if. If.

13:05

You can do that late. I.

13:08

Think it's just like with again like a don't be

13:10

like oh they're so brave but to me it's just

13:12

like I really think it's a good so powerful and.

13:14

So beautiful to express

13:16

yourself. And. Have that

13:18

level of late. Beauty and

13:21

vulnerability and creativity. You

13:23

know that you're able and willing to share that

13:25

with the world and also. To monetize

13:27

hits I think his dislike. An. Incredibly

13:30

powerful and feminist act. Anything

13:33

You know? That certainly not the experience of

13:35

everybody. I know that I think for some

13:37

people it's it's it's a job and that's

13:39

totally cool. But

13:41

that's been the expression of it

13:44

said. I've personally. Had shared with

13:46

me by a lot of my friends

13:48

in the industry. I'm so yeah. I

13:50

think it's just like it's fascinating. I'm

13:52

so interesting. I mean to the I

13:54

mean obviously likes Agree with. Everything that

13:57

you said another as a vice.

13:59

You. Know. There's you I mean you talk about

14:01

how it's like the most freeing you

14:04

know and Industry and having

14:07

a lot of agency and

14:09

there's so many people who believe it's the opposite right

14:12

that every single woman is being

14:14

pushed into it because She's

14:17

forced there by a boyfriend or

14:19

a pimp or she has no other

14:21

alternatives in her life What

14:23

do you say to people who push that view

14:26

of porn and women in it? Look,

14:28

I think that there's no singular experience

14:31

of sex work and I think anyone

14:33

that's trying to sort of You

14:37

know say that it's completely one or completely the other

14:39

I think that there is danger in both of those

14:41

Right, like I think if you're saying like oh, it's

14:43

all flowers and roses and like everything's

14:45

perfect And there's nothing ever bad that happens.

14:48

I think that's denying the experience and lived

14:50

reality of a lot of people and there is definitely

14:54

A fight that needs to be fought on that front, which is

14:56

why we work with a lot of different anti-trafficking

14:59

groups and a lot of Sex

15:02

worker led advocacy groups so that we

15:04

can tackle those appropriately, right? I

15:07

will give a shout out to the cupcake

15:10

girls here They're one of our most recent

15:12

partners and we're working specifically on resources with

15:14

them That we can disseminate

15:16

in our community to show people like okay If

15:18

you're getting into the industry and you're starting to

15:20

create content at home Like these are things that

15:22

you want to do or not do to keep

15:24

yourself safe, right? Can you briefly explain what

15:26

the cupcakes are? Yeah girls are to people who

15:28

may not know they are a Las Vegas based

15:31

Sex work advocacy group. They have an emphasis on anti-trafficking

15:34

so they work really directly within the community

15:37

and it's a lot of It's

15:40

very Like one of the things I really

15:42

like about them is that there are sex workers that

15:44

are on their board So like Charlotte Stokely is

15:47

their their chairwoman and I think

15:49

that that is really representative So it's like

15:52

chef kiss perfect Like and I think that

15:54

that is what's so important right because I think

15:56

you know A lot of the groups that you're talking

15:58

about are not necessarily platforming or

16:00

involving voices from within the industry. Be it,

16:02

you know, if they had a great time

16:04

while they were in the industry or a

16:06

horrible time, I think it's really important that

16:08

we're actually, you know, taking the accounts of

16:10

people that have lived it and understand like

16:13

where the actual pain points are and where

16:15

the vulnerabilities are so we can go and

16:17

support there in a real and meaningful way.

16:21

One of the things that's really phenomenal about

16:23

the way that the Cupcake Girls work

16:26

is that they have a, we'll meet

16:28

you where you're at kind of

16:31

level of engagement with their clients. So there's never

16:33

anything that's like, we're going to try and really

16:35

push you to do this if you're not ready

16:38

or trying to, you know, necessarily,

16:42

like there's no like forcing people to do

16:44

anything or there's no agenda. Exactly. And there's

16:47

no like, oh, we're only going to help

16:49

you if you agreed to do XYZ because they

16:51

appreciate and understand that people, especially

16:53

that are in more vulnerable situations,

16:56

like support for people looks really

16:58

different on an even individual

17:00

level, but also on a given day.

17:04

So they come in, meet people where they're at

17:06

and help them directly with what it is that

17:09

they need. So how would the Cupcake

17:11

Girls be different from like someone like Nikosi? Who

17:15

is another anti trafficking

17:18

program? Well,

17:22

I don't think Nikosi have any sex

17:24

workers on their board. And if

17:27

they do, they're probably people who've

17:29

had a bad experience. They're, they're,

17:32

they're, they're funded by

17:34

like a religious right background,

17:37

right? Yeah, they used to be

17:39

called morality in media. Familiar

17:42

term for my parents day. It

17:45

was a, I will give them props. Whoever

17:47

did that rebranding is top notch.

17:50

But yeah, they used to be called morality in media. They're the

17:53

reason why I, as far as I

17:55

know, I think we don't have like Cosmo magazine

17:57

and like the checkout at like

17:59

Walmart. or something like that.

18:02

They've, you know,

18:04

it's a lot of just like anti-sex. And I

18:06

think that that is really like what

18:08

the agenda is there ultimately with a lot

18:10

of alleged

18:12

anti-trafficking groups is that it's a

18:15

really convenient sort of veil or

18:17

facade for groups that are just

18:19

really actually trying to eradicate all

18:22

kinds of sex work, like legal or otherwise.

18:25

So I think that would be the

18:28

big difference. And this is

18:30

something that I come across in people who

18:32

are not in the adult industry or who

18:34

are not like well educated in that sector.

18:36

They're like, oh, but they're anti-trafficking. And

18:39

I'm like, that is like the sexy

18:41

facade that they put up. Because like, look,

18:44

like no one's for trafficking. No,

18:47

certainly not. Especially like if you throw a child

18:49

in there, like that's an easy

18:51

thing on the surface to get behind. Like

18:53

we don't wanna force anyone into sex work,

18:55

but then it really kind of

18:57

becomes this situation where

18:59

they believe that everybody in sex

19:02

work was trafficked. Like there's

19:04

so many people that think that there's

19:06

not a single woman especially because women

19:08

can't make up their own minds and

19:10

they're not actually inherently sexual people or

19:12

exhibitionists. They're like, they must be there

19:14

because someone made them. And

19:17

it's that whole idea that like everybody

19:19

in this industry is broken and forced

19:21

in there by circumstances that are

19:24

out of their control and we must save

19:26

them all. Whereas it sounds like, well,

19:29

as I know, the cupcake girls, it's more of like,

19:31

yes, there are people that have been pushed

19:33

into situations that

19:37

is not favorable for them specifically. How

19:39

can we like help you mitigate

19:41

your circumstances, you

19:44

know, get you out, get you in

19:46

a better situation? Like

19:48

treating each person as the

19:51

individual that they are with

19:53

the individual needs that they have rather than

19:55

blanketing everybody as a victim. I think

19:57

that's actually a great way to put it because if we, want

20:00

to just say like what's the main difference, I would say that

20:03

their approach is one of harm reduction first

20:05

and foremost, right? Whereas the other it's like,

20:08

it's not what they want to do

20:10

is push dangerous laws that are making

20:12

sex work more

20:14

dangerous for everybody. Like we all saw, well,

20:16

we all saw, I think the industry saw

20:19

very directly what the sort of results

20:22

of FOSTA-SESTA was. And I think we're

20:24

unfortunately facing a lot of that again

20:26

right now with the age verification laws

20:28

that are coming into effect. There's

20:31

new states every day that are signing bills

20:33

that are very ill-conceived.

20:37

So yeah, I think that that's

20:40

what's really frustrating about it is that people

20:42

I think are very well intentioned when

20:44

it comes to engaging in anti-trafficking

20:47

discourse. And like you said,

20:49

there's no one in the, especially in

20:51

the porn industry, more than anybody I

20:53

think wants

20:55

to see trafficking eradicated. Like it's

20:58

so dangerous for our

21:01

industry, especially for that exact reason,

21:04

because it's used as this

21:06

like almost like stand-in term for

21:08

sex work, right? There's a huge conflation.

21:11

But I think when people better understand and are

21:14

able to like really separate the two things

21:16

where there's trafficking on one side and sex

21:18

work on the other, like there is no like Venn

21:20

diagram where these things overlap in

21:23

terms of like consensual sex work. And

21:27

yeah, that's like one thing also in my role that

21:29

I would really like to try and help people better

21:32

understand. Yeah. And I think that the

21:34

most frustrating thing about it is, you

21:36

know, the mainstream media is always going

21:38

to latch onto the,

21:41

you know, anti-sex trafficking,

21:44

you know, agenda that is like all sex

21:46

work is trafficking work because it feeds into

21:49

that narrative that, you know, we've been

21:51

raised with, you know, porn is bad and, you

21:54

know, loose women are

21:57

bad, women who enjoy sexuality are bad.

22:00

of women who, you

22:02

know, monetize sexuality or bad.

22:05

And so that's an easy message

22:07

to get across. It is easily

22:09

digestible by the

22:11

general public. The harder message to get across

22:13

is like, actually wait, like, are

22:16

women who enjoy sex and who really like

22:18

this job? And it's been

22:20

the career path that was the

22:22

most suited for them. And they've had the

22:25

most amount of success and the most freedom.

22:27

And, you know, even women, I mean,

22:30

I've had women on, I remember Adria

22:32

Ray was a really great interviewer where

22:34

she talked about, like, she'd had traumatic

22:36

experiences with sex and she was able to

22:38

come into the porn industry and like reimagine

22:41

those experiences. And

22:44

porn was like therapy for her. Yeah. You

22:46

know, she was able to like explore situations

22:49

in a controlled environment where she felt safe and

22:51

she felt like she was with people that she

22:53

trusted. And there was accountability

22:55

and there was other people there. And it was

22:57

really helpful for her to sort through

23:00

those previously traumatic sexual experiences. And

23:02

that was such an interesting because I had never

23:04

I mean, for me myself,

23:06

I've never I've been so privileged to

23:09

never have experienced any kind of like sexual

23:11

trauma or abuse or physical abuse or anything. I

23:14

had like a very like, like

23:16

lovely childhood raised by pornographers. Imagine that.

23:19

So it was really interesting for me to hear that directly from

23:21

the mouths of a mouth of

23:24

a sex worker and how porn can be so

23:26

different for different people. I've heard that from a

23:28

number of different creators actually where it's and it

23:30

makes perfect sense, right? Because it's like everything

23:33

is I mean, if you're if

23:35

you're operating a

23:37

solid studio, right, or you're doing if

23:40

you're creating porn ethically, which

23:42

is another term that I think it's misused quite

23:44

a bit. You

23:47

know, I think that. People

23:49

are negotiating all this stuff like before you actually

23:51

start, right? Like this is these are all conversations

23:54

that are happening directly

23:56

like with the people that you're going to be working

23:58

with, but also with the crew. So

24:00

that people know like okay, this is what we're getting into these are

24:02

the acts that we will or will not be doing These are things

24:04

that are and are not okay And it's just

24:07

like imagine if we actually all did

24:09

that like in our day-to-day lives Yeah,

24:11

wow if we actually communicated about

24:13

our yeses and no's and had boundary

24:15

checklist. I know imagine He

24:18

would think that like people could actually learn from The

24:21

porn industry. Yes I

24:23

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24:26

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nee.com, but only if you use So

24:49

Alex I want to talk about kind of at

24:51

the article I guess that sort of started

24:53

this all this whole media storm And

24:56

that would be the New York Times article the

24:58

children of them I think it was called written

25:00

by Nicholas Kristoff a lot of people don't

25:02

know about this and they don't know about like this Backstory, it's

25:05

kind of like led you guys to the

25:07

place that you are today. Can you just tell us a little

25:09

bit about it? Sure, so There

25:13

were a lot of Changes

25:15

that we were already actively working on or

25:17

a lot of updates that we were making to

25:20

our compliance practices That were in the

25:22

works well before that article got

25:24

published I

25:26

think that It's

25:30

a it's a tricky one to talk about I

25:34

think that like there are a Number

25:37

so yeah, there's a number of things that I want to address

25:40

I guess with respect to that article I

25:42

think the biggest one is that I would really

25:44

encourage people to look at people at the way

25:46

that pornhub is operating today And

25:49

sort of what that evolution has looked like

25:51

as well We

25:54

have this extremely robust Trust

25:57

and safety protocol now where it is impossible

25:59

to upload content to the site unless you're

26:01

verified. So that means you have to go through a

26:03

whole process where you have to show your government ID,

26:05

you have to do a likeness scan to make sure

26:07

that you are actually the person that is on the

26:09

ID before you can even

26:12

create an account on Pornhub to upload content.

26:14

And then when you want to upload content, there's

26:16

again like this very extensive process that you have to

26:18

go through where the piece

26:20

of content itself gets scanned by

26:22

a number of different databases where it's

26:24

looking for things like is this known

26:27

copyrighted content, is this known CSAM, is

26:29

this known other types of illegal

26:31

content, like you name it, it's scanned against

26:33

those databases, and then it undergoes a final

26:35

step of human revision. So like an actual

26:37

human being has to look at the content

26:39

and approve it before it goes online. So

26:41

I think that we've done a really good

26:43

job in terms of getting to a place

26:46

today where that system is really, really

26:48

good. I think it's the best that it could be

26:50

today. Does that mean it's going to be the same

26:52

in five years? Like absolutely not, like we're going to

26:54

continue to evolve it as

26:57

better products get made available or

26:59

as new concerns, you

27:01

know, inevitably arise. So yeah,

27:04

I think that today I'm

27:06

really, really proud of where we're at and

27:08

the sort of state of

27:10

things on that level. Yeah, yeah.

27:12

I've personally seen like such a

27:15

massive change happen at what is

27:17

now. So it's A-Lo. A-Loo. Because

27:19

some people were like A-Loo. A-Lo.

27:22

A-Lo. It was my geek.

27:25

Now it's A-Lo. Yeah, so

27:27

I've personally, you know, been

27:29

with the brand for like

27:32

12 years, whatever they bought

27:34

out twisties. And,

27:37

you know, I've seen like massive changes

27:39

in the way that that brand operates.

27:41

And it's been overwhelmingly positive. And

27:43

I've had a lot of girls come on

27:45

here who are like browser contract girls and

27:47

be like, they're the best. They treat me

27:49

the best. It's a contract that everybody wants

27:51

to have. And so, you know, I

27:53

just want to say that like I commend

27:56

you guys immensely on those changes. And

27:58

it's been really. The amazing

28:00

thing to see in In Out. Proud.

28:03

To be like associated with a grant like that

28:05

you are so nice to hear for real Because

28:07

like. That's you know.

28:09

I guess I'm. One. Of

28:11

the things I get the most in my in my role just from

28:13

like. You. Know people from outside the industry

28:15

as they they'll send me an article that they

28:18

see were tickled is easier but distinct around level

28:20

for assault. Yes, I am the head of

28:22

Brand think I did hear of this article. Thank

28:24

you so much for sharing intimate and since I'm

28:26

buy it at this point legs. Yeah,

28:29

for me, it's kind of. It's so easy

28:31

to explain just like we are. I.

28:33

Think you know in the process of if not

28:35

having. Already set. What is the gold

28:37

standard when it comes to trust and

28:39

safety? Not just for an adult content,

28:41

but I think like use rate, user

28:43

generated content in general, I'm. Like.

28:45

I don't know of a single other platform that.

28:48

Or at least a free platform. Certainly that does things

28:50

the way that we do. Yeah, yep.

28:52

I would say like probably one of

28:54

the most damaging accusations that have seen

28:56

out there is that you know porn

28:59

Hub has profited off of like. See.

29:02

Sam and I would say in

29:04

you know and I always try

29:06

to counter with like wow that

29:08

the model. For Hub like

29:10

all other platforms like the. One. That

29:13

you're watching on right now you

29:15

tube is literally like a profit

29:17

mile in terms of like you

29:19

profit off and continent loaded but

29:21

it so I think important to

29:23

stress that it's a contents a

29:25

user upload say yep so like

29:27

thats. The automatic way that the site

29:29

work but it it was. Never

29:31

like an intentional. Move.

29:34

But this is why we have the systems in

29:36

place, right? And I specifically. Prevent that like

29:38

we do not want that content on

29:41

her site Lakes It is absolutely prohibited

29:43

l of. Our terms of surf like are

29:45

you know whichever one of our guidelines terms of

29:47

use that you want to look at it as

29:49

like a complete know I'm. We.

29:53

You. know we we have partnerships with dyffryn

29:55

i'm child protection groups to that end as

29:57

well as we actually did this

30:00

really great one that I'm really, really proud of that

30:02

came out. Or it's been, I guess,

30:04

in a pilot project for

30:07

about a year now, but it's been in

30:09

the works long before then with the IWF

30:11

and the Lucy faithful foundation, where

30:13

we, so those are two groups that are

30:15

based in the UK. IWF

30:18

is the internet watch foundation. Sorry. Um, I

30:20

shouldn't just use acronyms. I mean, everyone

30:22

knows. We tend to fall into that. I know.

30:24

I'm vernacular. We're like, everybody knows what we're talking

30:26

about. And it's like, no, I should explain what

30:28

that is. But they're an incredibly important group,

30:30

um, that essentially

30:33

does, um, you know, they, they work specifically

30:35

on keeping children safe online. And it's, you

30:37

know, it's, it's not just about the pornography

30:39

industry. Like this is like internet

30:42

wide. Um, and we

30:44

did a partnership with them, which

30:46

is a deterrence based, um,

30:49

initiative essentially. So if someone in the

30:52

UK tries to search for a number

30:54

of different terms that are associated with

30:56

CSAM, they would get this, um,

30:58

which, which we called a chat bot

31:01

that would pop up, um,

31:03

and it would, sorry,

31:05

I'm going to take a sip of water. While you do

31:08

that, I'm going to explain to people cause CSAM another acronym

31:10

that we're throwing out, it's a

31:12

child sexual abuse material

31:14

abuse material. Right. I forgot the A.

31:16

Mm-hmm. So, you know, okay. Um,

31:20

so basically, yeah, we worked with,

31:22

um, these two groups and

31:24

created an extensive list

31:26

of different words that we would

31:28

anticipate that someone would try and use to

31:30

look for that content, which is not found on Pornhub.

31:33

Um, but obviously we can't control what

31:35

people are physically typing in, right? When

31:37

they're searching for it. So what happened

31:40

is if they're searching for this content, they

31:42

put in one of those terms, um,

31:44

they would get, first of all, our

31:47

standard deterrence messaging, which lets the user

31:49

know, like there's much better

31:52

language. I don't know it off the top of my

31:54

head, but basically it's like your, you know, just so

31:56

you know that you're looking for content that is incredibly

31:58

dangerous. It's incredibly illegal. Here's

32:00

support. So this is where the

32:02

chatbot came in which is where it would actually

32:06

Link to the Lucy faithful foundation and just be

32:09

like, hey We saw that you

32:11

were looking for this kind of content like, you

32:13

know, there's help that's available by way of the

32:15

Lucy faithful foundation that actually

32:17

does offer support to folks on

32:19

that level and The

32:22

report actually got published recently and showed that

32:24

there were like as a result of this

32:26

initiative like people that actually came in and got

32:28

treatment For that which I

32:30

think is pretty incredible. So these are people who

32:32

are looking for CSAM, right? Which they're not finding on

32:34

pornhub to be extremely. Yes Yeah,

32:37

we're looking for it And so we're using that

32:39

is like so rather than so rather than coming

32:42

back and saying like you're a disgusting person and

32:44

you should die. Yeah, here are resources to help

32:46

you with what is a condition

32:49

that is like obviously

32:52

very Bad.

32:55

Yeah, very kind of like a like a better way

32:57

to yeah, it has serious potential like I don't want

32:59

to gloss over it like yes, there's serious potential for

33:02

People kids to get harmed as a result

33:04

of yeah these compulsions. Yeah, sure, which

33:06

is why you know We're

33:09

trying to support on that level to prevent

33:11

it's again. It's harm prevention harm reduction Yeah,

33:13

how can we do that and

33:16

we saw great success with that? So it's

33:18

really awesome When we're able to

33:20

partner with groups like that that see that

33:23

there is potential in us working together as

33:25

opposed to being like on completely opposite sides

33:29

Of the spectrum like people like I think

33:31

sometimes get really surprised when they hear that

33:33

we work with different Child protection groups, but

33:35

for us that's no it's a no-brainer like

33:37

that is like so top of mind to

33:39

us. Yeah You know,

33:41

we don't want that content on our site

33:44

from like certainly a moral perspective But there's

33:46

also like it's very damaging and dangerous for

33:48

us like even from you know A financial

33:50

perspective like there is no win in

33:52

having that kind of content on our site So

33:54

like we we work really really hard To

33:58

prevent it not just from our site, but just like

34:00

in general, like it should not exist in the world

34:02

at all period. Yeah. And that's really interesting

34:04

that you point them towards a place

34:06

where, and that there is a foundation

34:08

that exists that looks to help people

34:10

with these kinds of dangerous compulsions rather

34:12

than just labeling them, you know,

34:14

a certain thing, and then like not addressing the problem

34:17

at all. Because we all know like with the human

34:19

condition, if you don't try

34:21

to address the issue and help

34:24

people work through it, get

34:26

past it, whatever may be, like

34:29

it doesn't just go away

34:31

by like you pretending it doesn't

34:33

exist and like turning your head

34:36

away from it. Like people actively

34:38

need help to deal with.

34:41

And I've read some interest. I read an

34:43

interesting story about how there's

34:46

been studies around that, like

34:48

even being like a somewhat

34:51

genetic situation, like

34:53

a genetic compulsion. Like anyways,

34:56

it's something I'm not going to go into here,

34:58

but really interesting that looking at it

35:00

in a way of like, how can we address

35:03

this issue in a way that like helps

35:05

to eliminate it by helping the people who are

35:07

dealing with it? Exactly. Like what is like, instead

35:10

of just demonizing and pathologizing and, you

35:12

know, hand wringing and getting really mad

35:14

about it, like what is an actual

35:17

tangible way that we can work

35:19

on tackling this problem in a way

35:21

that's going to show meaningful results

35:23

and impact? Right. Rather than like

35:25

pushing these people away fringes of

35:28

society and saying like, you're, we

35:30

don't want to help you. We don't want to talk to you. We

35:32

don't want to deal with it. And then, you

35:34

know, they find other ways,

35:37

more damaging ways to address

35:39

these compulsions. That's

35:42

really admirable. Thank you. So,

35:45

let's talk about the

35:47

new legislation that's come up. Point

35:51

have is now blocked access to the site

35:53

in seven states, including Utah, Mississippi and Texas.

35:55

Can you explain a little bit about that?

35:57

Yes. So age verify.

36:00

I think that simplification is a

36:02

spicy topic right now. I

36:05

was at XBiz in LA earlier this year,

36:07

and I went to a bunch of different

36:09

panels. And even if the panel

36:11

had like less than nothing

36:13

to do with this subject, it inevitably

36:16

made its way in, I think, to

36:18

like all 10 that I attended. It's

36:20

extremely top of mind for everybody. So

36:22

basically what's happening all

36:25

over the world, but especially in the

36:27

US right now, in the US it's a little

36:29

bit different because it's happening on a state by

36:31

state level. There

36:34

are basically copycat

36:36

versions of the same really

36:39

bad law that are being

36:42

introduced in different states. And in some cases have

36:44

already gone into effect, like in those states that

36:46

you just mentioned where we've blocked. So

36:49

the reason why we decided to block in

36:51

those states is still in compliance with the

36:53

law. So I just want to be really

36:55

clear with that, that when we're stopping service

36:57

in those states, we're still complying because literally

36:59

no one can access the

37:01

site if they age verify or not. But

37:04

basically the way

37:06

that these laws are currently designed is they're

37:08

asking people to do age

37:11

verification through a third party. So

37:14

essentially what you would have to do if you want to

37:17

go on a porn site is

37:19

provide your ID and

37:22

get that ID approved. In some cases

37:24

you don't know what is happening with that

37:26

data. And only once you do

37:29

that can you get into the site. So

37:31

on the surface level, a lot of people

37:33

think like, oh, this is great. Like they're

37:35

trying to, like these laws make total sense

37:37

because they're trying to protect kids, right? But

37:40

what we're seeing actually, there's a number of

37:42

flaws in the way that these laws have

37:45

been crafted. So for one, what

37:49

we've seen in Louisiana, for instance, Louisiana

37:51

was the first state a

37:54

little over a year ago that we saw this

37:56

type of legislation go into effect. So

37:58

we decided there. like, okay, we're

38:01

gonna comply in the way that

38:03

the law is written. It was a little bit

38:05

different there too, because they have

38:07

a product that's called LA Wallet, which,

38:11

as far as we understand, is kind of like widely used in

38:13

the state already. Like it already has a lot of people using

38:16

it, like I think you can use it to like show ID to

38:18

get into a bar or to whatever, like that kind of thing. So

38:21

we were thinking like, okay, this could be, maybe

38:24

this could work, because a lot of people already have it. But

38:27

interestingly, we saw, in fact, when the

38:30

law went into effect, and once we

38:32

introduced age verification

38:35

there, is we saw our traffic actually dipped by 80%.

38:38

So we know that that huge number of people,

38:40

that 80% of people did not

38:42

just stop watching porn overnight. What

38:45

it's doing is they're going to other sites. And

38:48

what's really dangerous about that is

38:51

that there's not

38:53

really enforcement that's happening, right? So

38:55

there's huge risks, there's huge, not

38:59

risks, but like, you're liable for potentially

39:01

hundreds of thousands of dollars, if you're

39:03

not complying with these laws, and it

39:05

racks up very quickly, you're at risk

39:07

of getting sued, essentially, if you're not

39:09

introducing the age gating. And,

39:11

but most sites are

39:13

just not complying, because there's no one that's going

39:15

after them. So we're,

39:18

you know, there, we introduced it, but we

39:20

saw that the vast majority of sites are

39:22

not. And unfortunately, most

39:24

sites, or many other sites,

39:26

I shouldn't say most sites, but a

39:28

lot of other porn sites that are out there, and that's

39:31

hundreds of thousands, right, I don't think people understand like how

39:33

vast that number is, do

39:36

not have, you know, anywhere near

39:38

sort of like the safety, or

39:40

the trust and safety sort of stuff set up in the

39:42

same way that we do. So they're not moderating content. There's

39:46

no like band stuff, like there's like, it's kind

39:48

of, you know, Wild West on a lot of

39:50

these sites. So essentially, what's happening

39:52

is traffic is getting

39:55

rerouted to sketchy

39:57

sites. It's putting everything in the

39:59

same way. everyone at risk. And

40:02

there's also like really serious privacy

40:05

concerns, I think, there, where there's,

40:10

you know, these products that we as

40:13

providers are not necessarily

40:15

at liberty to choose, like which ones we do and

40:17

don't do business with, like the way that it works

40:20

is states will kind of

40:22

mandate which ones they're deeming as acceptable or

40:24

in some cases completely vague. And

40:26

we have no idea which ones we could or

40:28

couldn't use. And it's kind of just like this

40:31

mysterious guessing game, which is really fun.

40:35

And there's huge potential for data

40:37

breaches, right? Let

40:39

alone just like the thought of someone going

40:41

to like, I super understand like why someone

40:43

going to a porn site is not like

40:46

here, take my passport, here, take my

40:48

driver's license here, take my, you

40:50

know, government issue ID. And

40:52

you don't really know where

40:55

that data is going. And, you

40:57

know, we also

40:59

don't want really to encourage that practice

41:01

of people just handing over sensitive

41:04

information, not even just to an adult site, but just

41:07

like anywhere online, like that's just like not generally a

41:09

good thing to get into the habit of doing. So

41:12

crazy, because I'm just gonna show Yeah, yeah,

41:14

totally. Because I'm thinking about the 20 to

41:17

757 law. And when that

41:19

was enacted many years ago, like back

41:21

in my early days, important. And people

41:23

were like, so this was the this

41:25

is like an age verification process. But

41:28

it was where the law

41:30

insisted that producers take the

41:32

personal age verification and sensitive

41:35

information from performers

41:37

and keep it on file, like

41:39

for all time in case the FBI decided

41:42

to like, raid your offices and look for

41:44

it, which, of course,

41:46

we comply with them. We still do to this

41:48

day. And I remember my father specifically being very

41:50

concerned about this, because he was like, now

41:53

these people have to give us their

41:55

private information that we have to keep on

41:57

record. And they have to trust that we're

41:59

not to keep it in a secure place and

42:02

that like other people are not going to be able to access it. And

42:05

you're talking about like every porn performer,

42:07

I mean every porn producer company

42:09

in the world and

42:12

what we've seen is tons of

42:14

data breaches. I mean performers addresses getting

42:16

out there, performers, I mean I know

42:19

I remember one friend of mine specifically

42:21

like so one of the things that

42:24

we have to do are the bunny ears,

42:26

right? But the performer holds the IDs up

42:28

to their face and they take a photo.

42:31

Well there was this one company, very sloppy

42:33

obviously, took that picture at the

42:35

end of like a roll of film that they

42:37

shot on them for the website, didn't

42:40

edit the roll of film and

42:42

published every

42:45

picture including her with her IDs.

42:47

Oh my God. And

42:49

shit like that has happened many

42:51

times over. That's terrifying. You know and I

42:54

mean you can't rely, look there's like sloppy

42:56

producers that have stuff

42:59

in unsecured and performers have to come

43:01

into the industry now. I mean this is a lot

43:03

like there's no way around it now, there's nothing we

43:05

can do about it and they have to give

43:07

over sensitive private information to

43:09

all kinds of people. And

43:13

they have no control over what happens with that in

43:15

the end. So

43:18

yeah and it's just like I mean

43:20

this is different because it would be I

43:23

know that with 2257s a lot of it

43:25

or now I guess it's more digitized but

43:27

yeah it's like it definitely poses a really

43:31

big concern I think on just like a

43:34

privacy level for sure. I think it's worse

43:36

for users though, right? Because it's like these

43:38

are people that are not necessarily putting their

43:40

face out there and entering

43:43

the porn industry, right? Performers like understand they

43:45

take a certain risk like their name, their

43:47

face is on there and stuff. Well

43:49

we saw what happened with Ashley Madison, right? Yeah. Perfect

43:52

example of like why that would

43:54

be a very understandable concern,

43:57

right? So

43:59

yeah that's it. something that we're

44:02

very concerned about, obviously. And the

44:05

reason why we blocked is just because, you

44:07

know, we cannot in good

44:09

faith participate

44:12

in that way. So we're still

44:14

complying, like I said, where by

44:16

just not having access at all, there's

44:20

compliance to the law. So we're not at

44:22

risk on that front, but we just cannot

44:24

encourage people. They

44:26

hand over their sensitive information and embedded

44:28

third parties. And we're absolutely

44:31

in favor of the concept of age verification.

44:33

Like I said, like we do think that

44:35

like our platforms are, we,

44:37

you know, we've gone to great lengths, I

44:39

think, to make sure that our platforms are

44:41

really accessible only to people over the age

44:43

of 18. We are RTA compliant. It's

44:46

really effective when parental controls are

44:49

enacted properly on devices. And that

44:51

will bring me to my next

44:53

point, which

44:55

is that we really do think there

44:57

is an effective solution that exists at

44:59

the device level. And that's a concept

45:01

that we're more and more trying to socialize within the

45:03

industry and help people understand that

45:06

this is kind of, you know, a way that we could

45:08

be addressing the issue

45:11

of making sure that kids are not

45:13

accessing all kinds of age inappropriate

45:15

content, right? That's not just limited to adult,

45:17

that's also dating sites. It's

45:20

anything to do with alcohol consumption,

45:22

like violent content, gaming.

45:24

There's a whole number of things that

45:27

really are reserved for adult

45:29

audiences only. So

45:31

at the device level, basically the really like simplified

45:33

version of it is that

45:36

it would be like, if you have your Apple

45:39

ID, right? If you have an iPhone, there would

45:41

be a step that would get introduced where

45:43

you would go through the process of

45:46

verifying your identity just once,

45:48

right? You would do it. It would be part of kind

45:50

of like your user ID as

45:52

someone that is operating that device. And

45:56

then that way it's done one time and

45:58

if it's a device. that's being handed to

46:00

a kid, there would be no age verification

46:03

that happens, right? So basically

46:06

it would remain, it would be

46:08

kind of like the way that we talk about it

46:10

is that it's like the opt in or opt out

46:12

depending on how you're looking at it. So when

46:14

you have the device, automatically it's,

46:16

there's no age verification that's done,

46:19

right? So only

46:21

when an adult takes it and it's like, okay, yeah, I

46:23

do want to, you know, download a dating

46:25

platform or like a dating site, or I

46:27

do want to access adult content, or I do

46:29

want to go on gaming platforms, then you would say,

46:31

okay, I'm going to go and verify myself as

46:33

being an adult. And then it just kind of, it's

46:36

very similar, I guess, the way that you would

46:38

experience, you know,

46:40

being online on your device today, it would just

46:42

kind of ungate everything. But for a kid, it

46:44

would be the opposite, where all these things would

46:47

similarly be restricted. So it's like

46:49

a much more effective solution because you're only doing it

46:51

once. And it's, you

46:53

know, it's already kind

46:55

of part of human nature. Like, I don't know about

46:57

you, but like my Apple ID has like all my

46:59

credit cards linked to it. It's

47:01

got like my insurance information for my car,

47:04

like we're used to that. And

47:08

we can trust, you know, obviously no

47:10

system is 1000 million percent perfect. But

47:12

for the most part, like we can trust

47:15

that those operating systems are frequently doing security

47:17

updates, they're anticipating these things. They're built for

47:19

that in a way that like random

47:22

kind of third party providers that are in

47:24

many cases just emerging now on the market

47:26

because they're seeing the opportunity, they're

47:28

just not built in the same way. So I

47:30

don't think that personally we could hold them necessarily

47:33

to the same standards in

47:35

terms of keeping that information safe. Do

47:37

you think Apple would be open to that? I

47:39

hope so. I

47:41

will also point you guys

47:44

towards a PSA video that I did

47:46

about how to take your

47:48

device and use it to prevent children

47:50

from accessing porn on it. So check

47:53

it out. It's I think it's literally the title

47:56

is like how to stop your children from accessing

47:58

porn or something. But it's at. PSA that I did and

48:01

it's on my channel and it's like

48:03

actually Shockingly easy to do

48:06

and something that I didn't even

48:08

know I mean, I'm a mom but she's also

48:10

three so like, you know, she's

48:12

not going on The

48:15

on my phone without me there. Yeah, for

48:17

sure. I'm shockingly Good

48:20

it operating that Device

48:23

yikes But

48:25

yeah, so there there are ways there are

48:27

things in place now that you can do to protect

48:29

your kids from Accessing porn

48:31

on any device that you give them but it does

48:34

require you to be productive as a parent So it's

48:36

not hard to do so look into it. I

48:39

will share that to you. I'm gonna get that from you After

48:42

we're done this because yeah, like that's also

48:45

part of it also is just like Like

48:49

just talking about it I think which sounds

48:51

like so simple almost but I think that

48:53

the more That

48:56

we're kind of socializing this concept

48:58

and just like making it okay to talk

49:00

about the fact that like yeah sometimes, you

49:03

know, like the internet is like a vast

49:05

place and Technology

49:08

is Constantly sort

49:10

of evolving in ways that like obviously, you

49:12

know, especially as parents you can't anticipate So

49:15

it is important to talk about like, okay,

49:17

like yeah, if I'm gonna give my kid

49:19

an iPhone I have to understand that There

49:22

might be things out there that I don't want them

49:24

to see but there are tools that are available to

49:26

prevent them Knowing it. Yeah. Yeah. I

49:28

just feel is that there's a shocking lack of

49:32

Information out there for parents. I agree. Yeah,

49:34

you know, like we just We

49:37

don't talk about it. Like, you know, it's

49:39

more common to rail against the companies rail

49:41

against porn in general rather

49:44

than like seek out solutions

49:46

to You know taking

49:49

responsibility for what your kids are Yeah,

49:52

cuz I mean I understand right like the

49:55

the appeal of wanting

49:57

your kid to have a phone so that you can be

50:01

able to reach them like at any time and

50:03

so that they can reach you if there's an

50:05

emergency. But I think it's just like, okay, what

50:07

are the other implications of that? And how can

50:09

we do this in a way that's keeping everybody

50:11

safe? I think there's also like what they don't

50:14

know what they're called, my husband calls them dumb

50:16

phones. But I think there are phones that you

50:18

can get for kids that are literally like so

50:20

limited. They can only like place calls, receive

50:23

calls, place text messages, receive

50:25

messages, maybe access

50:27

limited apps or

50:29

something like that. But like it's basically, you

50:32

know, like you can't literally just jump online

50:34

on your phone. Okay. You know, another thing, of

50:36

course, is like kids are smart, first of all,

50:38

they're gonna find they're gonna find ways, right? And

50:40

also like you can't control like what your kids

50:44

friends have. So I kind

50:46

of wish I saw more of those, you

50:49

know, like totally phones. I

50:51

don't know. This is fortunately an issue I don't need to

50:53

deal with yet. But once I

50:55

get to that point, fine, we'll just

50:57

all have computer chips implanted into our brains. Yeah,

50:59

exactly. It won't be you know, it'll be different.

51:02

So it's been one year

51:04

since my geek was purchased

51:06

by ethical capital partners. Yep.

51:09

What changes have been made to Pornhub that

51:11

impact both performers and fans? That's

51:13

a good one. Um, I think the

51:15

big one is is transparency for sure.

51:18

I think that that one really

51:21

goes a long way. Like I,

51:23

I have colleagues on the

51:25

ECP team, ethical capital partners, sorry, I should

51:27

not again with the acronyms, that

51:29

also are public facing. And we often actually do

51:32

interviews together, which I really like because I think

51:34

that we're able to bring

51:37

kind of experience and visibility from both sides

51:40

of the comfort that respective companies,

51:42

I guess, I'm more direct

51:45

facing with with

51:48

the industry itself, I guess, like with performers.

51:52

So that's more like my

51:54

area of expertise, I guess, but that

51:56

I think is really, really important

51:59

is that there's people that are able

52:01

and willing to show their faces,

52:03

give their names, and represent

52:06

the industry from our side

52:08

of it, but also to advocate

52:10

for certain things and to help

52:12

hopefully make certain things better. That's

52:15

a big part of what we're trying to do

52:17

right now with the age verification laws. It's not

52:19

just a business

52:21

thing for us, obviously. We do really

52:24

see that there are very big implications

52:26

here for performers as well, because we

52:28

understand that when,

52:31

for instance, when we're blocking traffic in

52:33

certain states, obviously, yes, there's

52:36

implications for us on a business level, but that's

52:38

also, unfortunately,

52:40

also impacting the way that

52:42

content is visible for performers as well.

52:45

Like I mentioned that it's

52:48

view-based, right? So if someone, for instance,

52:50

Texas, or a recently blocked, if your

52:52

huge following is there, that is impacting people's

52:54

bottom line. It is not a decision that we

52:56

took lightly. It is not the decision that we

52:58

wanted to make. But

53:01

that's why we really do see it as our responsibility,

53:03

both from the ALO and ECP sides, to

53:05

be kind of leading in

53:08

this way. How

53:11

has the modal program strengthened the relationship

53:13

between poor and having creators? I

53:16

think right now we have a really great team

53:18

in place. Santa, who I

53:20

work with really closely on that

53:23

front, has been really incredible

53:25

at directly

53:28

interfacing, I think, with a lot of

53:30

creators, and then also her team as well. So

53:33

it's, sure, it's sometimes doing

53:35

more tech-focused solves

53:38

for people. But also one

53:42

of the things that I think really sets us apart

53:44

compared to other creator platforms

53:46

is that we do have an accessible

53:49

human team that people

53:51

can reach out to when they have issues. Like

53:53

I've heard... Oh, unlike fucking YouTube or

53:55

fucking Instagram or Facebook, who's

53:57

still holding onto my bonuses.

54:00

From a year ago. Oh, no They

54:04

owe me like $2,500 like we can

54:06

not get that is insane It's a

54:08

date I can't go fresh today a

54:11

real person. So if anybody is listening

54:13

this who works at Facebook y'all owe

54:15

me 2,300

54:18

Oh 3,300

54:22

even more Wow. Yeah, fuck you guys Awful

54:25

call me Cuz like I'm

54:27

a body like I get it right like

54:30

I understand that with volume like

54:33

Sure, AI is a great tool sometimes when

54:35

you're just trying to like move people through

54:37

and Acts that like answer

54:39

like how do I change my password blah blah fine? but

54:42

like when you're talking about

54:44

people's livelihoods and and somebody who's like

54:46

Yeah, like we get a lot of

54:48

fucking views like yeah up there and

54:51

I have Email we've

54:53

been like everything. I mean Masha's been like

54:55

on top of this like I think I

54:57

don't know No, it's crazy. It's really awesome Like

55:00

really there's not one person who can talk to me

55:02

like I'm like I send you

55:05

like I bring in a lot of fucking

55:07

traffic Yeah, I bet exactly so like and

55:09

we take that really seriously

55:11

and you know, sometimes like

55:13

we deal with higher Levels

55:15

of volume then then we'd like

55:18

and so there is like backlog for a couple of

55:20

days But which I understand is also super

55:22

frustrating like two fucking years. No, no And

55:25

that's the thing is it like we will there

55:27

are human beings that are answering these things and sometimes

55:29

that even means like getting On a zoom call getting on

55:31

a phone call Like that is something that

55:33

I'm so proud of with that team. Is it like there is

55:36

that level of access? That

55:39

I really wish that other platforms

55:41

also did. Mm-hmm. Yeah So

55:43

actually a question for you on that front So I get a

55:45

lot of people who reach out to me about like how do

55:47

I get into the porn industry? How do I

55:49

dip my toe in a lot of it is

55:52

how do I start an only fans or whatever? And

55:54

I often refer back to pornhub just because you guys

55:56

have so much fucking traffic It's a

55:58

great place for a creator to starts to start

56:01

uploading videos and start to get that fan

56:03

base. So could you give us like maybe

56:05

a good, it

56:08

doesn't have to be super specific, but for someone

56:10

who's a guy or I'm a girl, I

56:12

don't know, I want to get into the porn industry. Pornhub

56:15

might be a good place for me to start. Can you tell me

56:17

how I would do that? I would say check

56:19

out our blog. The Pornhub

56:21

blog is a great resource. It's really

56:24

crafted with the creator in mind. Most

56:26

of the stuff that's there is really

56:28

more like industry facing than kind of

56:30

like civilian facing, I guess. So

56:34

there are a lot of really great pointers there

56:36

on how to make content that is going

56:38

to be more successful. But there's also stuff

56:40

like make sure that you're really

56:42

thinking about this. Yeah, make sure that

56:44

you're ready for this.

56:46

I have not unwillingly, but

56:49

I have talked people out of it. Yeah, but

56:51

I think that that's important to do. Right. Like,

56:53

and I know that that goes against like what

56:55

I think a lot of people think that the

56:57

nature of the industry is right. Where it's like,

56:59

oh, we're just trying to like blur as many

57:01

people in as possible. And it's like, no, like

57:03

this, I really do think that people need to

57:05

understand. And that's like one of the things that

57:08

I find so frustrating, like, that we

57:10

saw, especially I think coming out of the pandemic, where people

57:12

are like, Oh, whatever, like, I don't feel like

57:14

doing this job anymore. So like, I'm just going

57:16

to do an OnlyFans because it's so easy.

57:18

And it's just like, no, it is actually

57:20

really hard work to

57:23

succeed and to do well in this industry, because

57:25

it's not just like, okay, I'm going to take

57:27

my clothes off and like put it online and

57:29

just hope for the best. It's like, there's so

57:31

much I mean, you know, this, like goes

57:33

into it, like, you have to, in

57:36

many cases, like you have to be

57:38

like your own like marketing executive, your

57:40

own editor, your own lighting specialist, your

57:43

own stylist. There's a number of

57:45

different things you need to keep. Yeah.

57:47

I mean, like the list is

57:49

extensive. I mean, porn is really

57:51

full of entrepreneurs. Yeah,

57:54

very smart people, businesses

57:56

is, yeah, it

57:58

is not like a job, you know, You

58:00

don't get to show up to work, clock

58:03

in, clock out, and then everything's taken care

58:05

of for you. Like you literally like you

58:08

want to run your own business, like it's a job. It

58:11

is but it also there's a great community

58:13

that can be found. Yeah, a lot of

58:15

help. Yes. Like so many like sex

58:17

workers who are so happy to help you

58:20

sex workers. I mean myself like included, you

58:22

know, especially when women reach out to me

58:24

as you know, they tend

58:26

to fall into the bad

58:29

hands the most frequently. I'm always like

58:31

willing to give advice and suggestions and ideas

58:33

because I just don't want people to like

58:35

if you really want to do this, if

58:37

you've thought about it, you recognize that everybody's

58:39

going to find out what you do for

58:41

a living. And

58:44

you know, it's something that you want to do and you don't

58:46

mind following you around for the rest

58:48

of your life and you're not thinking about

58:50

running for president later. No, then again, I

58:52

mean, hey, who knows? Apparently anybody can be

58:54

president these days. But

58:57

then, you know, I want

59:00

to like help people find the

59:02

right resources and dip their

59:04

toe in slowly. Start somewhere where

59:06

you're creating your own content that you have

59:08

control over and see

59:10

how you feel about it before you

59:12

like sign over your likeness

59:14

and your rights to a company,

59:16

honestly. Yeah, for sure. I think there's

59:18

some great resources on the blog. There's also

59:21

the Sexual Wellness Center on Pornhub that

59:23

has some stuff on that

59:25

level as well. So that's like

59:28

a completely separate resource. It lives

59:30

on Pornhub. So it's at pornhub.com/sex.

59:33

And that's basically a

59:35

whole myriad of articles on

59:38

everything to do with sexual wellness, which

59:40

we include, you know, performing as part

59:42

of that. There's resources

59:44

there that we did in partnership with

59:46

Pineapple Support. So we have a bunch

59:48

of their stuff from different summits that

59:50

they've done. For those of you who

59:52

don't know, Pineapple Support is an organization

59:55

created for the mental health support

59:57

for adult performers. Yes, and

59:59

they're great. And we also have resources

1:00:01

that were in the process of creating

1:00:04

with them. It's very similar to what

1:00:06

we're doing with Cupcake Girls, but like you said, through

1:00:08

a mental health lens. So

1:00:11

yeah, I think that those are two really good places

1:00:13

to start. But I think, like

1:00:16

you said, Pornhub is a great place for

1:00:18

creators to build their brand. So

1:00:20

we never pretend that we are kind

1:00:22

of like the be all end all for anyone as far

1:00:25

as where they're making money in

1:00:27

porn. I think that for most creators,

1:00:30

there's like very different and

1:00:32

various revenue streams. But

1:00:34

Pornhub is a great one because you

1:00:37

can get the views, you can get

1:00:39

like the revenue share from the views.

1:00:41

But then also we let you link

1:00:45

out to your other platforms. So it's kind of like

1:00:47

a great, it's like a real hub. Oh wow, there's

1:00:49

a lot of platforms that won't let you do that.

1:00:51

Oh boy, oh boy. We're not one of them. We're

1:00:54

trying to mention another brand.

1:00:56

I actually posted something on

1:00:58

loyal fans and browsers

1:01:01

had sent me a bunch of stuff and it was like just a

1:01:03

try on haul, the same thing that I put

1:01:05

on YouTube, totally safe for

1:01:08

work. And they fucking start

1:01:10

out browsers. And I

1:01:12

was like, really? No. No.

1:01:16

Yeah, we can plug. I mean, obviously it has to

1:01:18

be a compliant site.

1:01:21

It can't just be like anything, but you can link

1:01:24

out. Yeah, you can link to any of your fan sites.

1:01:26

You can link out to your own website. You can put your

1:01:28

link tree, like your, I think you can even

1:01:30

put your Amazon wish list on there. Like

1:01:32

there was like a whole, I think it's

1:01:34

really smart for that reason. And it's like a great place

1:01:36

to just like engage with fans too. Yeah.

1:01:39

Yeah. So let's talk about something

1:01:41

fun for a moment. Yeah. The

1:01:44

porn and boards are coming up there on Thursday. I

1:01:47

am going, the theme is leather and

1:01:49

lace. Yeah. I'm going to

1:01:51

rent myself a leather dress. Let's hope it fits.

1:01:53

Ooh, I'm excited to see. Yeah, me too. Yeah.

1:01:56

That's like the rough guideline for the

1:01:58

look inspo. or have lace though, I

1:02:01

don't know what I'm gonna do about that. You don't,

1:02:03

it's kind of just like we're doing it at the whiskey go-go. Right.

1:02:06

So we're trying to like encourage people to lean

1:02:08

in. Yeah. To see

1:02:10

the theme. So this is very different. It's funny because

1:02:12

every year you guys have had a completely different iteration

1:02:14

of the Born of Awards. 100% the truth, yeah. Last

1:02:17

year it was at that

1:02:19

one house that like everybody shoots at. The Jimmy

1:02:22

Goldstein residence. Yeah, and I remember when like Ryan

1:02:24

sent me the info, it was like, there's no

1:02:26

parking, take a ride share. I was like, yeah.

1:02:28

Oh, and it starts at 11 p.m. or something.

1:02:30

I was like, I

1:02:33

know. I can't do that. Like I'm so old,

1:02:35

I go to bed at nine. This

1:02:37

one starts at 9.30, so I feel like I can make it. So,

1:02:41

and then there was like, you guys like

1:02:43

announced the winners online, but this year they're

1:02:46

going up on stage? It's hybrid, it's hybrid.

1:02:48

Okay. So we are still

1:02:50

gonna do the

1:02:52

announcement video, which is gonna have all

1:02:55

the winners from

1:02:57

the different categories that are gonna be announced in that one.

1:02:59

We're gonna air at the awards.

1:03:01

We're gonna do a couple on stage, but

1:03:04

we're trying to like, yeah, to

1:03:07

your point, like we kind of like keep it

1:03:09

exciting and don't ever follow the same exact

1:03:11

formula year after year. Are you guys like looking

1:03:13

for a formula that works for you guys? You

1:03:16

guys just like, we're gonna try something different. Okay.

1:03:19

Like I think that the first

1:03:21

two were kind of more traditional

1:03:23

awards shows and they

1:03:25

were fun, but they were really long. They

1:03:27

were like three and a half hours each

1:03:29

time. And the red carpet

1:03:31

is shit show because the red carpet's always

1:03:33

a shit show. On a free single award

1:03:35

ceremony. I don't even remember because the

1:03:38

first one was in 2018. That was like the

1:03:40

famous Kanye one. Right?

1:03:44

Like, come on, like literally like three days

1:03:46

before. It was 10, but yes. Yes,

1:03:49

it was a very radical change

1:03:51

in direction, but it was

1:03:53

very exciting. And

1:03:56

then the year after we had, that was the

1:03:59

year after. you're like Bad Bunny

1:04:01

performed and Kali Yuji's and

1:04:03

I forget who else. It

1:04:06

was like, yeah, so those two were like the more

1:04:08

I guess like conventional type of word

1:04:10

shows. But what we saw is that like a lot of

1:04:12

the time people are kind of just like at the bar

1:04:14

hanging out like they weren't sitting there and so we're like,

1:04:16

okay, it's really fun to

1:04:19

sort of get everybody together. I think

1:04:21

it's really important to celebrate the achievements

1:04:24

of the community because we were

1:04:26

different from other award shows. It's all data-driven, right?

1:04:29

So like people that are winning in their respective

1:04:31

categories, like it's because they're the ones that are

1:04:33

getting like viewed the most or engaged with

1:04:35

the most like there's it's not just

1:04:37

like a group of people that just like

1:04:40

decide like she's top female or this

1:04:42

is top trans performer or whatever. Right. It's

1:04:44

not a company that you have to pay

1:04:46

off to get your awards. No,

1:04:48

you can't if you tried. You could not.

1:04:51

Pornhub awards cannot be bought. So,

1:04:56

you know, we don't want to undermine

1:04:58

that but we yeah, so we're

1:05:01

trying we're going to try it out this year. See how

1:05:03

people like this format. I think it's a

1:05:05

great in between

1:05:07

where we will have like those moments

1:05:09

of recognition on stage. I have

1:05:11

to give a speech which I'm like slightly

1:05:13

terrified to do but gonna do

1:05:16

it. We're going

1:05:18

to be announcing a new Pornhub brand

1:05:20

ambassador. Spoiler alert. Yeah, I won't

1:05:23

say who but I'm

1:05:25

really excited about that. So that's going to happen on

1:05:27

stage as well. But for the most part like we

1:05:29

just saw the people want to party like they want

1:05:31

it like it's so nice just to get everybody together

1:05:33

and they get all dressed up and it's like we

1:05:36

wanted to feel celebratory but not just like

1:05:38

okay, you're sitting through a several

1:05:42

hours long show. Some really

1:05:44

terrible writing bad

1:05:47

comedy. I've seen I've seen some bad

1:05:49

stuff. But I also

1:05:51

I appreciate that it's not an easy thing to do.

1:05:53

Expos by the way. Expos

1:05:55

is always excluded from all of my criticism.

1:05:58

I love Expos. But

1:06:02

it's hard to write a script for an

1:06:04

award show. I mean, I say

1:06:06

this as somebody who's a terrible fucking writer. I'm trying

1:06:08

to write my own foreign scripts and I am not

1:06:10

good. Let's just be clear. Well,

1:06:12

it's because we've worked on it. I

1:06:15

can't because people also just want to give

1:06:17

the easy digs. You

1:06:20

know what I mean? And it's just like, no, I

1:06:22

know to you this is so funny, but this is

1:06:24

actually really serious and these are big

1:06:27

achievements and these are huge accomplishments in our industry.

1:06:29

And we are trying to make people feel celebrated

1:06:31

as such. So can we not just like

1:06:34

make a bunch of like stupid cum jokes? Like there's a

1:06:36

time and a place for those, but like

1:06:38

it is not with this. So I

1:06:40

mean, especially in a world where like people

1:06:42

are just are constantly being put down for

1:06:45

what they do for a living. Exactly. Yes.

1:06:49

Yeah, totally. I love that. Well, I'm

1:06:51

excited to see how it goes. Yeah. Is there

1:06:54

anything else that you want to let people know about Pornhub

1:06:56

and the direction that they're going in that we haven't

1:06:58

covered? I would like

1:07:00

to shamelessly plug my own podcast if I may.

1:07:04

Which you've been a guest on and we'll be coming out in the next

1:07:06

season. Oh my God. It will

1:07:08

be the best episode of your season. No, honestly,

1:07:10

I loved the interview that we did. Like

1:07:12

when we were all... I totally don't remember

1:07:15

it. No, it was so good. It

1:07:17

was with you and your mom and it

1:07:19

was like, we covered a lot of ground. I

1:07:22

still have to, we did it months ago. I have to actually listen

1:07:24

to the latest edit. Yeah,

1:07:27

it's called Terms of Service. If

1:07:30

you're subscribing already to the Pornhub podcast, you can

1:07:32

get it there, but it's available

1:07:34

on all of the places

1:07:36

that you listen to podcasts. Can you please

1:07:38

tell everybody where they can find you online?

1:07:40

I know obviously Terms of Service,

1:07:42

out on all podcast platforms, but

1:07:44

any other socials? Twitter

1:07:48

is just at Pornhub and then I

1:07:50

have my own Instagram, which is my

1:07:52

name. It's Alex, K-Kessie. So A-L-E-X-K-E-K-E-S-I. Perfect.

1:07:55

Yep. And

1:07:57

you guys can find me at Holly Randall. Instagram

1:08:01

and on Twitter. I also have

1:08:03

a Pornhub account too by

1:08:05

the way where I post some of my content

1:08:07

and actually some of my podcasts as well so

1:08:10

you can find me on Pornhub as well and

1:08:14

of course go to patreon.com/Holly Randall

1:08:16

unfiltered to get access to these

1:08:18

live streams and other bonus content.

1:08:21

Thank you guys so much for watching and I will

1:08:23

see you next week. Thank you

1:08:25

so much for listening. Your support means the

1:08:27

world to me. A great way to

1:08:30

show your love is to rate and

1:08:32

review my show and an easy way

1:08:34

to do that is to go to

1:08:36

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1:08:38

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1:08:40

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1:08:44

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1:08:46

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1:08:48

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1:08:50

Holly Randall unfiltered. This

1:08:52

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1:08:55

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1:08:57

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1:08:59

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1:09:02

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1:09:04

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1:09:06

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1:09:08

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1:09:10

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1:09:13

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1:09:15

Holly Randall unfiltered. Join

1:09:17

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1:09:19

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1:09:21

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1:09:23

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1:09:25

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1:09:28

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1:09:30

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1:09:32

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1:09:41

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1:09:43

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