1143: Laila Mickelwait | Exposing Pornhub's Dark Trafficking Empire
The Jordan Harbinger Show
Jordan Harbinger
4.8 • 12.1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 April 2025
⏱️ 98 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Big porn sites enabled trafficking for profit. Here, Takedown author Laila Mickelwait shares how her fight against Pornhub led to industry-wide reform.
Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1143
What We Discuss with Laila Mickelwait:
- For over a decade, internet porn content provider Pornhub knowingly profited from illegal content with minimal moderation (10 staff per shift reviewing 700+ videos each) while requiring 15+ flags before review and tracking profits from questionable categories.
- Sex trafficking includes deception/coercion in monetized sexual acts. For minors, any commercial sexual exploitation automatically constitutes trafficking regardless of consent.
- Financial pressure proved most effective in Laila Mickelwait's crusade against Porhub's shady practices — credit card companies cutting ties forced the company to remove 80% of content overnight, demonstrating how targeting enablers can be as effective as targeting perpetrators.
- Third-party age and consent verification for everyone in every video would prevent most exploitation while protecting privacy.
- Strategic activism works — Laila succeeded by gathering evidence, building coalitions with victims and experts, and applying targeted pressure despite threats and harassment. Her example shows that determined individuals can challenge harmful systems by identifying pressure points and maintaining focus on accountability.
- And much more...
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Transcript
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| 0:49.6 | Jordan here. |
| 0:50.3 | This episode contains adult themes. |
| 0:52.3 | No kids in the car for this one. |
| 0:55.5 | Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger show. People are uncomfortable. They're afraid to talk about it. It's one of those |
| 1:01.1 | things that it's affecting everybody in some way. We're all in contact with this free user-generated |
| 1:07.6 | porn industry, but nobody wants to talk about it. |
| 1:18.2 | Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into |
| 1:22.2 | practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to |
| 1:26.7 | help you become a better informed, more critical thinker, |
| 1:29.1 | through long-form conversations with the variety of amazing folks, |
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