MindGeek

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Around the world, the hundred-billion-dollar per year porn industry has more viewers than Amazon, Netflix and Twitter combined.

American estimates say:

• 12% of all websites are pornographic
• 70% of men aged 18–24 watch porn at least once a month
• 93% of boys and 62% of girls in college saw porn during adolescence
• The average age of first exposure is 11 years old 
• 1 in 10 kids under 10 years old has seen porn  

With children, not only does the porn industry target young minds, getting them hooked at a young age, but it targets young bodies to use as content as well. 

Between 2005 and 2009, the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) reported that "child pornography was hosted on servers located in all 50 united states." 

A year later, in 2010, Pope Benedict at the time, stated: "There is a market in child pornography that seems in some way to be considered more and more normal by society." 

Porn Linked to Human Trafficking

One aspect of child pornography often overlooked is its connection to human trafficking, which according to Homeland Security, is the "use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act." 

With porn in general, its equality to prostitution is often overlooked. Both porn and prostitution always consist of sexual acts for money — that is the essence of the industry.

Every single time porn produced by the industry is viewed, it is at the very least prostitution. In the United States, if the child is under 18 years old or if somebody is forced or coerced into the porn, this is sex trafficking; and it's impossible for the viewer to know if this is the case.

Despite professional porn being either the crime of sex trafficking or prostitution, 36% — almost 4 out of every 10 Americans — believe it is morally acceptable.

The Hidden Ringleader

The online porn industry is predominantly run by the company MindGeek. Headquartered in Quebec, Canada, it owns dozens of porn companies — Pornhub and Brazzers, just to name a few.

MindGeek, which generates well over 115 million visits per day, originates with a man named Fabian Thylmann.

In the late 1990s, Thylmann created NATS (Next Generation Affiliate Tracking Software). His software tracked user clicks and allowed companies to customize and run their affiliate programs exactly how they choose. This was one of the first pieces of software that made it possible for website owners to profit from advertisements hosted on their sites.

Porn companies picked up on this and started working with Thylmann so they could implement NATS for their websites.

In 2005, YouTube was invented, allowing anybody to upload their own videos and content for free. Thylmann, who by that time already owned many subscription-based porn companies, quickly caught on to YouTube's idea and free porn took over the internet about two years later. People no longer needed to pay for porn.

Earlier this year, MindGeek was sued for $80 million for sex trafficking. Forty women said the PornHub (owned by MindGeek) partnered and profited from sex trafficking operations.

Victims Cite Trafficking-Porn Link

Sex trafficking and the porn industry go hand in hand.

A study conducted in nine countries reveals that nearly a full half of sexually exploited women said porn was made of them while they were being sold for sex.

On top of this, there is overwhelming research showing the relationship between porn and violence — one in particular looked at the content of popular pornographic videos, and found: "of the 304 scenes analyzed, 88.2% contained physical aggression."

Click here and go Premium to watch this week's Mic'd Up featuring Austin Ruse, author of Under Siege: No Finer Time to be a Faithful Catholic. 

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