Instagram suspends Pornhub’s account, which had over 13 million followers

Instagram has suspended Pornhub’s account from their platform. Prior to its removal, Pornhub had over 13 million followers.

It’s unknown when Instagram removed the profile, however on Friday afternoon the founder and CEO of the nonprofit Justice Defense Fund, Laila Mickelwait, confirmed in a tweet that the account “was just taken down.”

“Instagram has made the right decision by cutting ties with Pornhub, and now joins Visa, Mastercard, Discover, PayPal, Grant Thornton, Heinz, Unilever, Roku and many other companies in rejecting to do business with Pornhub, a site infamous for monetizing the sex trafficking and criminal sexual abuse of countless victims including children,” Mickelwait said to the Daily News in an email on Saturday.

“It is worth remembering that it’s illegal in the United States according to the Trafficking Victim’s Protection Act to knowingly benefit from a sex trafficking venture. Now, it’s finally time for Google search, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Reflected Networks to follow suit,” Mickelwait added.

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation, who are a non-profit company whose focus is on “exposing the links between all forms of sexual abuse and exploitation,” applauded Instagram’s move, saying that the decision indicates that the platform “understands the mounting evidence of Pornhub’s criminality.”

“Instagram was right to remove Pornhub from its platform for violating its community standards given the increasing reports of Pornhub hosting child sexual abuse material, sex trafficking, filmed rape, and non-consensual videos and images. Instagram served as a distribution partner with this criminal enterprise, helping to push millions to their website, including children,” the group’s CEO, Dawn Hawkins, said in a statement.

“We are grateful that Instagram has heard the voices of sexual abuse survivors who have been personally harmed by Pornhub’s insatiable appetite for profit,” Hawkins went on to say.

Hawkins acknowledged that while Pornhub did not share any nudity on their profile, their account “directly promoted pornography, and featured videos like ‘Next Career Goal’ encouraging its audience to become a pornography performer.”

“Instagram is courageously choosing to stop partnering with Pornhub and it is time for all corporate entities to follow its example,” Hawkins concluded.

In July, both Visa and Mastercard announced that they were suspending payment privileges of TrafficJunky, which is the advertising sector of Pornhub’s parent company MindGeek, Variety confirmed.