Tillis-backed bill would enable victims to sue porn sites for hosting their images
North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is one of four senators that backed legislation Wednesday aimed at enabling victims of revenge porn, trafficking and sexual coercion to sue websites posting images and videos without their consent.
The bill comes in response to a recent article by New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof scrutinizing Pornhub, a Canadian-based porn site that functions like the equivalent of YouTube for porn and receives 3.5 billion visits a month.
In his column, Kristof documented multiple cases of underage girls, who were victims of sexual assaults, whose images were posted to the site.
Kristof wrote that the girls’ abusers were arrested for the assaults, but that the website escaped legal responsibility for sharing the images that were posted by the sites’ users.
Pornhub responded to the column by announcing a series of changes Tuesday, including allowing only verified users to post content and ending most downloads.
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley is the bill’s lead sponsor.
“Pornographic websites routinely post videos of women who are the victims of abuse or exploitation, and it is past time these companies are held accountable for posting this disgusting content,” Tillis said in a news release.
“I am proud to co-introduce this legislation with Senator Hawley that would allow the victims of these videos to sue pornographic websites for distributing and profiting from videos that are posted without consent.”
The bill would criminalize the knowing distribution of forced or coerced sex acts, require websites to create takedown procedures to ensure victims can promptly have their images removed and empower victims to sue websites for knowingly hosting privacy-invading images and videos.
Tillis, who won re-election in November, is chairman of the Senate’s subcommittee on intellectual property and has been pushing reforms of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which deals with online copyright infringement.
Hawley, a former Missouri attorney general, has been an outspoken critic of the tech industry since joining the Senate two years ago.
“Sites like Pornhub routinely escape responsibility for facilitating abuse, trafficking, and exploitation, making millions for themselves in the process,” Hawley said in a news release.
“Meanwhile, the victims of this abuse have little recourse against these powerful companies, who thrive on spreading depraved content. Serious criminal penalties are needed to crack down on these tech executives who think they are above the law.”
Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst and New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan are also co-sponsors of the legislation.
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This story was originally published December 9, 2020 at 3:49 PM with the headline "Tillis-backed bill would enable victims to sue porn sites for hosting their images."
