Senators announced a bipartisan-supported proposal Wednesday to ensure legal recourse for people unwillingly appearing on pornography websites.
Passage of the bill, the Survivors of Human Trafficking Fight Back Act, as written would criminalize the knowing distribution of visual depictions of forced or coerced sex acts, as well as the nonconsensual sharing of so-called “revenge porn.”
The bill also requires porn sites to create procedures to ensure victims seen in such videos or images can have them quickly removed from the web, and it allows victims to sue if that route fails.
Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, previously said he would offer the bill following the publication of an article last week about the role porn sites play in the proliferation of rape videos.
He followed through within days alongside three co-sponsors, including Republican Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, as well as Sen. Maggie Hassan, New Hampshire Democrat.
“The harm that these companies cause is extraordinary, lasts a lifetime and should be unthinkable,” Ms. Hassan said. “This bipartisan bill helps give more power to those whose privacy and dignity have been violated by making it easier to take down images that have been non-consensually shared and providing recourse for individuals to hold companies accountable for their wrongdoing.”
Mr. Hawley had said his proposal was prompted by an article mainly about the website Pornhub, which New York Times columnist Nick Kristof referred to as being “infested with rape videos.”
Among concerns raised by Mr. Kristof, a Pulitzer Prize winner, was that Pornhub users can easily download illegal videos that have been posted to the site by other random, unvetted account holders.
Pornhub, one of the world’s most visited websites, subsequently announced this week that it had banned the ability for users to download videos effective immediately, among other policy changes.
“We are constantly improving our trust and safety policy to better flag, remove, review and report illegal material,” Pornhub said in announcing the policy change Tuesday.
“While leading non-profit and advocacy groups recognize that our efforts have been effective, we know there is more to do,” the site said.
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