PornHub boss says India's ban is leading people to risky sites with illegal content

At the beginning of the month, we wrote about the Indian government's move to ban over 800 websites serving up porn. Telcos and porn sites were up in arms. Consumers resorted to tips all over the internet on how to get around the ban. In the meantime, PornHub, the largest pornography site in the world, says it is pursuing options and potential solutions within the legal framework.

According to Corey Price, Vice-President at PornHub, the ban could lead to people visiting risky porn sites that contain illegal content. In an interview published by The Indian Express, he once again called the ban a "disservice to the people of India" and said that the company was “willing to work alongside the government to address any concerns they have and help rectify the situation”.

Incidentally, the mirror site that it created right after the ban remains available and is unaffected by the ban.

[Also read: India attempts to curb porn – is it working and what it means for Reliance Jio and other telcos]

A Russian solution?

In another interview with HuffPost India, Price cited the instance of Russia where it found a solution to the problem of determining that viewers were over the age of 18 by having them sign in with their social media accounts. "We are hopeful that we'll be able to come to a similar solution for our users in India," he told the website, while adding that PornHub was willing to work with the Indian government to ensure that the site was "compliant with access laws".

In both interviews, he pointed out that the government had not banned all adult entertainment sites and had left smaller sites - many of which contain illegal content - untouched.

Earlier this month he had stated, “There are no laws against pornography in India and watching adult content privately… For the government to ban sites like ours that have compliant parental controls, a non-consensual take down page, and strict terms of service, is a disservice to the people of India, who have become one of the largest connoisseurs of adult content.”

Price has also stressed that PornHub did not produce pornographic content but was only an aggregator. All content uploaded on the site had all the required consents and paperwork needed.

[Also read: India’s ban on porn sites is (not) working]

Look who's watching!

The VP was also armed with data about India's porn habits. As published on YourStory, India accounts for the world’s third-largest consumer base at PornHub (only the US and the UK, both mature internet markets, are ahead of us). In fact, between 2013 and 2017, India’s porn traffic recorded the highest growth globally. At 121 percent, we were ahead of Japan, Canada, the US, and UK, according to PornHub data.

In the subsequent interviews, Price said that the number of women watching porn had increased exponentially. Citing their 2017 Year in Review, he pointed out that 'Porn for Women' was the top trending search for the year, increasing by more than 1,400 percent year over year.

Since the ban, he admitted that overall traffic had fallen but added that it was too early to gauge the full impact of the ban. Which means that all the workarounds floating around online - apps, VPNs, anonymity browsers, etc. - may not be working as well as providers had hoped. In the meantime, several brands continue to offer such clips on Twitter.