Inside a Christian Woman’s Crusade to Shut Down Pornhub

Serena was only 14 and had never kissed a boy when a boy she had a crush on convinced her to send him nude photos and videos of herself, which he then shared with her classmates.

She became depressed and attempted suicide several times after the content was viewed on Pornhub and re-uploaded to the site.

When she was 19, Serena got in touch with Laila Mickelwait, a former attorney, after seeing the girl’s abuse video online. Mickelwait posted a warning video with the girl’s face, leading the two to connect for help removing the content from Pornhub.

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“(Serena’s story) could be anyone’s child’s story, and just realizing that was a terrifying thought, but it fueled my struggle even more,” Mickelwait told The Christian Post in an interview about her latest memoir. Takedown: Inside the Fight to Shut Down Pornhub for Child Abuse, Rape, and Sex Trafficking.

Serena’s story is one of many cases Mickelwait cites in Pornhub’s book involving the dissemination and monetization of child sexual abuse and rape.

Mickelwait lets readers follow her as she fights to hold Pornhub’s parent company Aylo (formerly Mind Geek) accountable for distributing videos depicting sexual abuse.

From exposing abuse videos to pressuring credit card companies to cut ties with Pornhub, the founder of the Traffickinghub movement shares her strategies for taking on the multibillion-dollar porn site Pornhub.

Another case cited in the book is that of a 15-year-old girl who had been missing for over a year until a Pornhub user told the girl’s mother that he recognized the woman’s daughter on the site.

The mother discovered more than 50 videos uploaded to Pornhub by a user named “Daddy’s_Slut” showing her daughter being raped. As Mickelwait recounted in the book, the minor’s attacks were monetized with advertising, and more than 100 million users were able to pay to download the content.

Mickelwait is an advocate who has been fighting against issues like human trafficking for more than 15 years and has always had a heart for children, she says.

“To make sure people care about this issue, I thought it was important that they take this journey with me,” Mickelwait told CP.

“The journey of discovery, of meeting the victims, of meeting the whistleblowers, of understanding how this business operates and the devastating trauma that it causes victims,” ​​she added. “Hopefully by the end of it, they’re as passionate about ending this as I am, and we can mobilize an army of activists to take this to the next level.”

Her efforts to mobilize the public against sex crimes have resulted in a movement that includes a diverse group of people, including those who work in the porn industry. Mickelwait said she regularly communicates with porn producers and performers, people who she credits with helping her expose abuse in the industry.

The changes she’s calling for, such as age and consent verification on every user-generated porn site, are regulations supported by people in the porn industry, she said. She makes it clear in her book that she wants to end sex trafficking and online sex crime, not the legal porn industry.

“When we’re going to take on such large abusive and criminal organizations, it’s important that people come together and put aside their differences, whether it’s their religion or lack of religion, or their political ideology,” Mickelwait said. “Because this is a human rights issue. It’s not a left or right issue; it’s not a Christian-only issue.”

Throughout the book, Mickelwait highlights her roles as an advocate and a mother. In one section, she describes rocking her young son in the darkness of her bedroom one night as her thoughts drifted to a story she read days after her son’s birth about a missing Florida girl.

Mickelwait stressed that anyone who cares about children can take action in this area. She also noted that becoming a mother seemed to increase her empathy for the abused children she heard about through her work.

“I think it really changed the story when I thought that these children who were exploited could be my children in a few years. The things that happened to them could happen to any child in the digital age,” she said.

However, taking over a large company is not without emotional consequences.

Mickelwait is transparent with readers about the stress of dealing with doxing, or having her face superimposed on graphic images. But during moments of emotional turmoil, the advocate thought of the Pornhub victims and also turned to God.

“I have a strong faith and belief in God,” she said. “My spiritual side has played a major role in keeping me grounded and helping me just keep going.”

Another source of inspiration for Mickelwait who lifted her up in times of need was her late father, to whom she refers frequently in the book. Her father was a general and vascular surgeon who died in 2014 after a heart attack.

Mickelwait says she stood at her father’s grave after the funeral and vowed to bring justice to victims of abuse.

“He was just a great father and the reason I do this work,” Mickelwait said.