Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - January 11, 2024


Ep 932 ｜ The Shocking Truth About Pornhub ｜ Guest： Arden Young

Topics
pornhub exploitation investigation pornhub advertisers exploitation
Hosted by
Allie Beth Stuckey
Guests
Arden Young
Mentioned
Mike Farley Declan Rice Jordan Peterson Jeremy Volo Allie Exodus Cry Twitter X Blackberry Brazzers Men.com Ginger
Ep 931 ｜ Out： Trad Trend, In： Biblical Womanhood Ep 933 ｜ DEBATE： Should We Ban Surrogacy？ ｜ Guest： Clarkson Lawson

Episode Stats


Length

46 minutes

Words per minute

156.57

Word count

7,292

Sentence count

615

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Toxicity

28

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Pornhub has been caught admitting that they profit off of the sexual exploitation of minors and they do not care. Arden Young is an undercover journalist from Sound Investigations and she has released her latest report which shows employees at Pornhub saying not only do they know that porn is addictive, it s unhealthy, and bad for society, but also that there are minors not only accessing their site but also participating in the content that is uploaded on the site.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:01.000 Pornhub has been caught admitting that they profit off of the sexual exploitation of minors
00:00:07.660 and they do not care. Arden Young is an undercover journalist from Sound Investigations and she has
00:00:15.000 released her latest report which shows employees at Pornhub saying not only do they know that porn
00:00:23.300 is addictive, it's unhealthy, it's bad for the individual and bad for society, but also that
00:00:28.680 there are minors not only accessing their site, but also participating in the content that is
00:00:35.000 uploaded on the site. Absolutely shocking stuff. Arden is with us here today to talk to us about
00:00:42.180 this investigation. Wow, there is so much here that she has uncovered. This episode is brought
00:00:47.840 to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use code Allie at checkout.
00:00:51.660 That's GoodRanchers.com, code Allie.
00:00:58.680 Arden, thank you so much for taking the time to join us. For those who may not know,
00:01:07.560 can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?
00:01:10.040 Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. So I'm an investigative journalist and I most
00:01:17.120 recently went undercover to record various Pornhub employees, employees of Pornhub's parent company,
00:01:24.120 which is now called ALO, admitting to illicit, illegal, scandalous practices behind the scenes,
00:01:33.020 including, but not limited to, not properly verifying agent consent of the videos, of the
00:01:39.880 people in the videos going up on the sites. Okay, and why did you decide to watch this investigation?
00:01:47.040 Sexual exploitation has always had a close place in my heart. I grew up in Hollywood. I was put in
00:01:59.760 and witnessed a lot of very inappropriate situations. So I think that's what first
00:02:05.060 piqued my interest about trying to do something about sexual exploitation. But really, what got my
00:02:16.260 eyes on Pornhub specifically was there was a 2020 New York Times article called The Children of Pornhub.
00:02:23.060 You probably have read that. And it detailed victims' attempts to get their abuse videos removed from
00:02:31.240 Pornhub. Many of these victims were underage. And I thought this was really interesting. And Pornhub
00:02:40.160 claimed to change their ways after that article was released. They claimed to clean up their
00:02:46.220 processes internally. But I just had a hunch and my partner and I had a hunch that this just
00:02:54.920 wasn't the case. So we decided to investigate. And if we found evidence that they were still
00:03:01.580 not verifying agent consent, then we would publish it.
00:03:05.220 Okay, so these investigations were just published a few weeks ago. When did they start? How long did this
00:03:13.200 process go? Yeah, I was recording Employees Undercover, I think, from June through September
00:03:20.780 of 2023. Okay, gotcha. But the process started before that, trying to track down the right people
00:03:27.640 and making sure you're talking to the right people, right? Yeah, it started in February of 2023.
00:03:32.620 Okay, so we'll get into more of that because I'm so interested in how exactly you get these people to
00:03:40.000 sit down and talk with you and tell you the things that they did. A product manager at Pornhub,
00:03:45.200 Mike Farley, he said that the adult entertainment industry and the product it sells is actually
00:03:50.840 unhealthy, addictive, and unethical in the undercover videos that you obtained. And we'll play that in a
00:03:57.240 second. But I want to set it up for just some context for people because you hear porn advocates
00:04:03.940 say that there's no such thing as a porn addiction. Actually, I think the DSM-5 even affirms this idea
00:04:11.280 that you can't be addicted to porn. You might have some kind of sexual compulsion if you feel a need
00:04:18.260 to watch it all the time, but there's no rewiring of the brain that happens. It's just a hobby that you
00:04:24.120 can take on and it's not going to affect you mentally and emotionally. Of course, they're going to say
00:04:29.420 this because they want more people to watch. And yet, what you found is that the people at Pornhub,
00:04:36.120 they know exactly what porn is doing. So I want to get your comments on that, but I'll go ahead and
00:04:42.360 play the footage that you obtained.
00:04:44.900 Do you think porn is addictive?
00:04:48.900 I think so.
00:04:52.460 For sure.
00:04:55.460 I mean, 180 million unique visitors a day is a lot.
00:05:00.320 Even like Jordan Peterson, I know that he says like,
00:05:03.600 there's not many studies on it. There's not a lot of like, we don't really know the implications.
00:05:11.300 But I can't be normal. I can't be healthy. I can't be like, that must do something.
00:05:17.020 Because that's like significant.
00:05:18.120 Is this Pornhub worried about FF?
00:05:22.000 Not really.
00:05:29.500 I don't think it's worried about FF.
00:05:31.000 Is this Pornhub's website?
00:05:33.720 It's kind of the opposite of that.
00:05:35.280 Okay, so there he is admitting that an adult website, a porn website, is the opposite of ethical.
00:05:42.160 And interesting that he cites Jordan Peterson.
00:05:45.520 Yeah. 0.94
00:05:45.820 Yeah, saying that, okay, yeah, porn obviously is addictive.
00:05:49.260 So what do you think about that?
00:05:51.640 Well, I know that it is absolutely addictive.
00:05:55.340 And Mike Farley, who you just saw, he's worked at Pornhub at a senior level for 11 years now.
00:06:02.380 He was the number seven employee to ever be hired there.
00:06:06.480 And he absolutely knows what he's talking about.
00:06:09.880 He has a lot of seniority there.
00:06:11.700 He's the product manager.
00:06:13.580 He manages the product, which is the pornography.
00:06:16.840 So I believe him.
00:06:20.920 He talked a lot about Jordan Peterson and how he really mirrors his worldview on many topics, including pornography.
00:06:28.960 Really?
00:06:29.840 Mm-hmm.
00:06:30.680 That's interesting.
00:06:31.560 How do you live with that kind of incongruence, kind of pushing this product of sexual exploitation
00:06:37.040 while also saying that your own values are about, you know, personal responsibility
00:06:41.680 and making sure that you're not addicted to porn?
00:06:45.000 Yeah, that was my question.
00:06:46.840 He was very, he was kind of a confusing person to me.
00:06:51.800 He had a lot of arrogance about what he said about the porn industry as a whole.
00:06:59.480 You know, he still works there.
00:07:01.020 He's worked there for 11 years.
00:07:02.740 He had no plans of leaving.
00:07:04.000 He was comfortable at his job.
00:07:05.440 I'm sure they pay him very well.
00:07:07.340 I think he just views it as a product.
00:07:09.000 People are going to buy it.
00:07:10.340 There's a demand.
00:07:11.220 So we're creating it.
00:07:12.680 And that's that.
00:07:13.780 Yeah.
00:07:13.960 I think that's his view on it.
00:07:15.080 And he goes on to say, he said, liberating, question mark.
00:07:19.880 I don't know.
00:07:20.340 I think it's just the easy way out.
00:07:21.660 To me, it doesn't seem like something that would be good.
00:07:23.780 I don't think anybody watches porn and then feels good about themselves after.
00:07:27.820 It's like ecstasy to like, what the F am I doing?
00:07:30.580 I definitely think porn addiction is definitely a thing.
00:07:33.460 That's for sure.
00:07:34.200 I don't think it's a positive thing in general.
00:07:37.120 And then he goes on to cite what everyone just heard.
00:07:40.460 180 million.
00:07:42.160 180 million unique visitors in a day.
00:07:48.280 That is shocking.
00:07:49.760 It is.
00:07:51.000 I think Pornhub is still currently like the number eight most visited website in the world.
00:07:56.960 Wow.
00:07:57.940 Wow.
00:07:58.260 And we've heard for a while, as you just mentioned, there was that 2020 article that
00:08:02.460 there is not just sexual exploitation of adults happening on Pornhub.
00:08:07.440 And, you know, a lot of people bring up consent as if consent is enough to determine whether or
00:08:14.360 not something is virtuous.
00:08:15.900 Something can be consensual and still wrong.
00:08:18.860 It can still be immoral.
00:08:19.980 It can still be unhealthy.
00:08:21.160 And so even for the adults on the site and the people consuming it, it's unhealthy and
00:08:25.500 immoral all around.
00:08:27.200 But then you also have the child aspect, the minor aspect.
00:08:30.940 There's been a lot of criticism of Pornhub in recent years for not verifying the age of
00:08:38.060 the people in the videos that we're talking about children.
00:08:42.320 We're talking about teenagers.
00:08:43.760 In a lot of cases, we are talking about rape.
00:08:46.800 When you brought this up, did it seem like he cared about the existence of these kinds 0.99
00:08:52.760 of videos on Pornhub?
00:08:53.920 Him personally, no, it did not seem like he cared.
00:08:57.280 It was just a matter of fact.
00:08:59.380 Of course, it happens.
00:09:00.380 Of course.
00:09:00.940 He kept saying, of course.
00:09:02.340 Wow.
00:09:04.060 And it's just something he shrugged off, which is so strange.
00:09:08.360 And I talked to multiple employees who kind of seem to have a similar attitude.
00:09:14.360 I'm sure it's very normalized for them.
00:09:17.240 They've gotten very callous about pornography in general.
00:09:22.280 I think many of them have to watch it to even do their jobs many times.
00:09:30.560 So I can't imagine what that does to someone's mind.
00:09:34.000 And in addition, I also posed as an advertiser and called the customer support line for the
00:09:44.440 advertisers who advertise through Pornhub.
00:09:46.820 And they said that if I uploaded underage videos as an advertisement, they would not suspend
00:09:53.280 my account and they would not report it to law enforcement.
00:09:56.440 So that's just another aspect of how someone can be exploited.
00:09:59.840 A child can be exploited on a huge mainstream adult site like Pornhub.
00:10:05.980 So you asked them specifically, hey, I'm an advertiser. 0.75
00:10:09.480 If I want to upload content, you know, sponsored content that includes children being raped, 0.81
00:10:17.840 is that going to be a problem?
00:10:19.240 Is that basically what you asked?
00:10:20.740 The question I posed to them was, hey, I'm new at this.
00:10:24.320 I have a bunch of videos just plopped in my lap to upload, but these girls look super 0.97
00:10:30.360 young.
00:10:31.480 What's the process?
00:10:32.900 And they go, well, we'll deem what's underage.
00:10:35.520 We have our processes.
00:10:37.720 But if we do deem something underage, your account is not likely to be suspended.
00:10:42.500 And then we also asked, do you report to law enforcement?
00:10:46.420 And they said no.
00:10:47.440 OK, so basically what they told you is that if you uploaded a bunch of content of children
00:10:53.880 being raped that I'm guessing they didn't specify an age, any child could have been a
00:10:58.700 toddler, whatever, they're not going to report that to law enforcement.
00:11:03.040 From my understanding, they just said that is not part of our job.
00:11:07.240 We don't report to law enforcement.
00:11:08.980 They just want the money.
00:11:10.640 Wow.
00:11:11.040 That is insane.
00:11:12.840 Not surprising, of course.
00:11:14.120 It's not that I imagined that they would have some kind of moral limits, but just shocking
00:11:18.920 to hear.
00:11:19.480 Yeah, shocking.
00:11:31.980 So you asked someone else, Dylan Rice, senior script writer at ALO, about the age ID loophole,
00:11:41.680 because the advertising rep that she talked to, they said, OK, we've got our processes
00:11:45.240 for figuring out if the people in the video are underage.
00:11:49.600 But as you found out, they're not actually concerned about how old these participants
00:11:54.440 are.
00:11:54.820 So here's a video of Dylan Rice basically saying that.
00:11:58.640 It's hard because how do you get somebody to prove that they're above age because they
00:12:02.920 can get a fake ID?
00:12:03.600 You think there's like videos of underage still getting through?
00:12:08.000 Sure.
00:12:08.540 Sure.
00:12:10.460 Sure.
00:12:11.020 You don't know who that is.
00:12:13.000 We don't have consent of that person.
00:12:14.660 And we're running ads like as a business.
00:12:16.580 We're monetizing content that we don't know where this comes from.
00:12:20.300 We don't know who's on that video.
00:12:21.540 We don't know the age of the person on the video.
00:12:23.500 This used to happen all the time, but we would never just we would just say nothing about
00:12:26.800 it.
00:12:27.340 It's like something that you just shut up.
00:12:29.960 I just don't say nothing.
00:12:31.000 I just be quiet.
00:12:32.320 So they don't know.
00:12:33.300 They have no idea how old the people are in the videos.
00:12:36.680 Farley also talked about a 14 year old girl who had sent a naked video to an older boy
00:12:41.560 who then uploaded it to Pornhub without her permission.
00:12:44.460 The video got millions of views on Pornhub.
00:12:46.740 She had repeatedly reached out to Pornhub to take it down, but they didn't take it seriously,
00:12:51.200 according to Farley.
00:12:52.920 And this was included in the article that you referenced earlier, the children of the children
00:12:58.800 of Pornhub, but Dylan Rice said about that.
00:13:04.820 The problem was the way he uploaded it.
00:13:06.500 It looked like she was uploading it.
00:13:08.120 It took years for the content moderator to deal with it.
00:13:10.500 In the meantime, according to the New York Times piece that covered this, the girl had
00:13:15.420 been suicidal.
00:13:16.280 She'd been drug addicted.
00:13:17.320 She's now living in her car as a result of being traumatized by the video's effect on her
00:13:22.040 life.
00:13:22.360 And this is happening supposedly many, many times a day.
00:13:26.480 Young women, girls, sexual content of them either being raped or not is being uploaded 0.82
00:13:32.800 to Pornhub and it's ruining their lives. 0.99
00:13:35.220 Absolutely.
00:13:36.080 Yeah.
00:13:36.580 Yeah.
00:13:37.180 And the people that you talked to when you talked to them about this, they didn't really
00:13:41.400 seem concerned about that.
00:13:43.140 No, they shrugged it off.
00:13:44.660 It is what it is.
00:13:45.580 It was a bad time the company went through.
00:13:48.000 It was described as Dooms Month for Pornhub by Mike Farley.
00:13:52.340 It's just like a bad patchy period they went through, but now they're through it.
00:13:57.580 So bad PR showing that there was child sexual exploitation on the website.
00:14:04.540 They just had to kind of get through it and push past people's concern about it and just
00:14:11.500 keep going.
00:14:12.140 I mean, did they change any of their policies?
00:14:14.620 They did.
00:14:15.580 So they now require an ID if you want to upload to the site.
00:14:22.960 So as an uploader, you have to upload your ID.
00:14:26.020 This doesn't fix the loophole still that Mike Farley described just because if a face isn't
00:14:32.360 shown in a video, which is super, super common, how are you going to match a face on an ID
00:14:37.360 to someone's body, which is a really good point.
00:14:40.320 I believe that now they require, since actually, since we publish our investigation, they now
00:14:48.940 require each person in a video to have an ID uploaded by the main uploader.
00:14:56.820 I don't know how strictly that's being enforced.
00:15:00.160 That's something we don't know yet.
00:15:01.840 And Dylan Rice just said, if you have a fake ID, then they're not going and trying to verify
00:15:08.240 that.
00:15:08.660 Right.
00:15:08.860 And it still doesn't address the loophole.
00:15:11.560 If, you know, you just can't match a face to someone's, you know, body parts.
00:15:17.280 Yeah.
00:15:17.540 You could just upload anyone's IDs and it doesn't actually verify anything.
00:15:22.760 And here is Mike Farley saying that this is sought to.
00:15:25.480 How are you going to tell me, like, who's in that video of the girl's not showing her
00:15:29.740 face?
00:15:30.160 Like, that wouldn't hold in court.
00:15:31.420 That would be the loophole that I always, like, I look at that and I'm like, that's 0.99
00:15:34.700 stupid, but everybody is just kind of rolling with it. 0.99
00:15:39.540 Why don't they just roll with it? 1.00
00:15:40.880 Why don't they say something?
00:15:43.180 It costs money.
00:15:44.120 Who exploits the loophole?
00:15:45.440 A lot. 1.00
00:15:46.140 F*** everybody. 1.00
00:15:48.280 Everyone. 1.00
00:15:49.640 You make a lot of money.
00:15:50.860 Do rapists use it or?
00:15:52.980 Of course.
00:15:53.740 Of course.
00:15:54.000 We've brought it up to the CPO.
00:15:56.040 We brought it up to the CLO and they're both telling us it's all good. 0.98
00:15:58.880 And the CPO is especially telling us, like, f*** it's all good. 0.98
00:16:02.380 Like, stop. 0.99
00:16:02.920 So they know the risk. 1.00
00:16:03.900 Like, shut up. 1.00
00:16:06.240 Okay. 0.99
00:16:06.760 So they know the loophole is being used to include underage people in these videos.
00:16:14.100 And the people at the top are actively saying, stop talking about it because it costs money.
00:16:19.280 Like, what does he mean by that?
00:16:20.500 It costs money to enforce any kind of real age standard.
00:16:25.220 So another thing he says is that if we were to address this loophole, we would actually be spending money on making less money.
00:16:34.140 So that wouldn't make sense.
00:16:36.000 So it costs money to be compliant is what he's saying.
00:16:39.580 And he also says, as a business, you don't want to be more compliant than you absolutely have to be.
00:16:45.100 Okay, got it.
00:16:46.920 Gosh, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
00:16:52.260 Farley says this.
00:16:53.200 He says, if you think of, like, the average guy is able to see at any time that he wants thousands of the hottest women on earth naked at any point that they want.
00:17:01.780 He said, every time they watch pornography, you're going through, like, whatever, 10 videos, right?
00:17:06.400 That's like 10 girls per day. 1.00
00:17:07.900 At whatever time you're doing it, we go for years in your brain, your brain thinks that you've seen them in person.
00:17:12.880 Like, there's no difference.
00:17:14.540 There's no way that's normal.
00:17:15.920 That can't be normal.
00:17:17.260 That can't be healthy.
00:17:18.440 That must do something because that's significant.
00:17:21.440 And not only that, but they're seeing unrealistic depictions of women, unrealistic depictions of sex, and they're seeing underage girls that may be in their head or maybe they are being told that that girl's 25, really she's 15.
00:17:35.260 That completely warps someone's attractions, what turns them on, what they are going to try to pursue in real life, what they think about the average, you know, woman and mother.
00:17:46.840 My gosh, I can't even imagine how much that ruins your potential for having a healthy relationship, understanding of yourself and the people around you.
00:17:57.220 Absolutely.
00:17:57.700 And not to mention that one of the most popular categories on Pornhub and really any given porn site is the teen category.
00:18:07.740 And many of these porn sites have now come back and said, you know, we mean 18 and 19-year-olds.
00:18:13.740 But it goes without saying that there are so many people who have the desire to see a minor do something sexual, and that's absolutely disgusting.
00:18:28.520 And in one of the other videos, Dylan Rice, the senior script writer, does say that ads where guys look to be about 15 years old do the most conversion rates and make the most money.
00:18:39.920 What? Guys?
00:18:42.160 Yeah.
00:18:42.700 Wow.
00:18:43.100 So porn actors who are legal adults but look to be 15, and he showed me a photo of one.
00:18:49.840 He looks like he's about 12 or 13.
00:18:51.680 Oh, my gosh.
00:18:52.820 That he makes the most money, and his videos make the most money because it draws pedophiles and young teens.
00:19:01.020 So they are purposefully creating videos, cutting ads that appeal to pedophiles because, in his words, he says, you can turn pedophiles into whales, which means they're big spenders.
00:19:16.920 Oh, my gosh.
00:19:17.920 Oh, my gosh.
00:19:20.600 Oh, my gosh.
00:19:21.660 I mean, of course.
00:19:22.720 Of course.
00:19:23.600 Of course.
00:19:23.720 Of course they think this.
00:19:25.900 They want to monetize.
00:19:26.400 They want to monetize every kind of paraphilia, every kind of sexual perversion. 0.98
00:19:32.240 They do not care if it's rape. 1.00
00:19:34.500 They don't care if it's pedophilia. 1.00
00:19:36.540 They don't care what kind of scum is on their site as long as it is making them money. 0.99
00:19:43.160 And actually, they're so adamant about this that any effort toward age verification, they are going to protest. 0.98
00:19:52.760 There have been several states that have now tried to require IDs to access pornography sites.
00:20:00.540 So, for example, 2023, Louisiana, Utah, Mississippi, Arkansas, Virginia passed laws with overwhelming bipartisan support that require IDs to access pornography sites to prevent these sites from illegally serving their products to children.
00:20:14.180 By Pornhub's own admission, Pornhub's traffic dropped 80 percent in Louisiana after the new law enforced Pornhub to require ID verification for its users.
00:20:25.860 And in response to this law, Pornhub began lawfare against states that enacted similar laws and is protesting by blocking access to its sites altogether in many states.
00:20:39.240 So what they're trying to say is, no, we want young teenagers to be able to access our site.
00:20:46.900 And if you don't allow minors to access pornography through Pornhub, then we will sue you.
00:20:54.940 We will sue you, the state of Louisiana, the state of North Carolina, Montana, all of these other states in Texas doing the same things.
00:21:02.900 And we will make it so difficult for you to gain support because we will take porn away from all of the adult users that you have in that state where you feel pressure then to change the law, which is really, really just sick.
00:21:18.980 Yes. And they strike a chord with their users, their adult users, under the guise of free speech.
00:21:27.640 So they say that asking to verify age in a state to access pornography is actually a violation of your free speech.
00:21:37.380 And I'm a huge believer in free speech. I love free speech.
00:21:42.660 But I think that's a nerve that they really successfully hit with a lot of their viewers in these in these states.
00:21:49.760 But when it comes to protecting children from destructive content, children cannot consent to viewing that kind of content.
00:21:59.420 Yeah.
00:21:59.600 Um, that's that's where free speech ends.
00:22:03.620 Yeah. Well, there have always been limitations to free speech.
00:22:06.240 And while I am a big supporter of free speech in the First Amendment, too, you wouldn't be, you know, doing what you do.
00:22:12.680 I wouldn't be doing what I do without free speech.
00:22:15.240 And so I'm I'm very thankful for that.
00:22:17.040 It is my belief that pornography does not fall under the umbrella of free speech, that it is all obscene, but especially when you are talking about children.
00:22:25.260 And also, it does not limit free speech to restrict access from children to certain kinds of content, of course.
00:22:33.440 How did you get in touch with these people?
00:22:48.180 Like, tell us about the process, because absolutely.
00:22:51.160 How did you get Farley and the other guy to sit down with you?
00:22:56.720 It kind of looks like y'all were on a date.
00:22:58.680 So how does this work?
00:22:59.860 Yeah. So we use all publicly available information we found online to see who was working for ALO.
00:23:08.540 ALO has hundreds of different companies under it.
00:23:11.100 That includes Pornhub, of course, but there's other websites they own.
00:23:15.740 Popular ones are like Reality Kings, Brazzers, Men.com, things like that.
00:23:21.980 And some of them were dates, fake dates.
00:23:26.100 And some of them were professional meetings as well.
00:23:29.860 I got in touch with them on professional sites in a professional way.
00:23:34.900 Like through LinkedIn.
00:23:36.780 So did you tell in the professional meetings, did you tell them that you were a journalist?
00:23:41.560 No, no.
00:23:42.560 I was still undercover.
00:23:43.520 So, for example, one of the employees had his own business that he ran on the side, and he developed his own app.
00:23:52.600 And it was an app that was to help medical professionals schedule appointments and things like that.
00:24:01.660 And so I contacted him pretending to be in the medical field, and I wanted to talk to him about his app.
00:24:07.740 Okay, gotcha.
00:24:09.860 And you connected with some of them via dating apps.
00:24:13.840 Is that how you met Farley?
00:24:15.580 It is.
00:24:16.700 What's really strange is, you know, there's so many people on dating apps, and it's like a needle in a haystack.
00:24:24.360 Yeah.
00:24:24.720 The chances of you matching up with someone who actually works for the company that you are interested in is so slim.
00:24:32.660 Yeah.
00:24:32.940 He was one of the first people I saw on this app, and he didn't even have his company name listed on it.
00:24:43.640 Wow.
00:24:44.240 He just said, it just said tech.
00:24:48.020 Okay.
00:24:48.440 And I just had a gut, kind of a God moment, and I decided to swipe right and ask him where he worked.
00:24:56.240 Okay.
00:24:56.640 And the first message he sent me was, I'm the product manager for Pornhub.
00:25:01.140 Oh, my gosh.
00:25:02.220 Yeah.
00:25:02.780 Okay, so how many dates, quote unquote, did y'all go on?
00:25:07.120 Two.
00:25:07.780 Just two dates.
00:25:08.680 And he freely gave you all of this information without even really knowing you at all, right?
00:25:14.180 Right.
00:25:15.380 Were you nervous?
00:25:17.360 Were you nervous going on a date, a fake date with someone who worked at Pornhub?
00:25:23.580 No, and I think I could probably thank my past in Hollywood for that because there's all sorts of people I've dealt with on a daily basis who do things I disagree with for work.
00:25:41.000 And really, Mike Farley, as a person, person to person, having a regular conversation, he's just another regular guy.
00:25:49.600 He was nice to me.
00:25:51.340 He was respectful.
00:25:52.260 But he just did something for work that is immoral. 0.98
00:25:57.040 It's disgusting. 0.93
00:25:57.720 Yeah. 0.86
00:25:58.320 And immoral.
00:25:59.220 Wow.
00:25:59.860 Okay.
00:26:00.520 That is so interesting that you found him on the dating app just almost by happenstance.
00:26:07.220 And do you think that your background in acting, because people may not know, but you had a role in Modern Family at one point and you've done some other acting gigs, do you think it helped you in these situations to be able to call the advertising rep and to get in touch with these people and basically convince them that you're someone who just wants to go on a date with them or whatever?
00:26:30.140 Yeah, I do think it helped.
00:26:31.500 I think being an actor actually led me to do undercover work in the first place because I thought I could get away with building these characters and also just having the guts to stand up in front of someone and essentially just do like a live theater without them knowing.
00:26:52.140 Yeah.
00:26:53.480 So, yeah, it definitely contributed.
00:26:56.080 Yeah.
00:26:56.440 Oh, my goodness.
00:26:57.020 And have they tried to, now that the investigations have been published, have they tried to contact you?
00:27:03.780 Like, did Mike Farley reach out to you and say, oh, my gosh, I thought we were going on a date and you were recording me this whole time?
00:27:11.760 How dare you?
00:27:12.740 No, I'm sure that the lawyers there told them not to have any more contact with me or us.
00:27:18.700 Yeah.
00:27:18.960 But, yeah, they, we have gotten contact from Pornhub's lawyers, though, and they've issued us like four legal threats now.
00:27:28.920 Saying what?
00:27:30.340 They demand that we remove all of the videos that we've posted and they also demand that we save all of our records pending further legal action.
00:27:41.300 And it's really funny because they're, they accuse us of doing all these things.
00:27:48.060 They accuse us of, they accuse me of lying about myself, pretending to go on dates in order to get information.
00:27:56.720 And it's like, yeah, you're just describing undercover journalism.
00:28:00.400 Yeah.
00:28:00.520 Like, it's not a crime.
00:28:01.920 We operated legally.
00:28:03.740 These videos were all filmed in Canada.
00:28:06.000 We have Canadian legal counsel that approved everything we did.
00:28:09.340 Um, they really don't have anything to get us on.
00:28:13.480 It's not illegal to lie anyway.
00:28:16.000 Right.
00:28:16.300 And it's not the same thing because you are undercover and you're doing it for this purpose of journalism.
00:28:20.900 But did they say that they have any legal basis to come after you guys?
00:28:26.040 Yeah, they did accuse us just generally of operating illegally.
00:28:29.620 They didn't expand upon that.
00:28:32.900 Just illegal in general.
00:28:34.780 They also claim that this is disinformation, that things were taken out of context.
00:28:40.340 It's like, yeah, we left as much context in as possible without publishing like a two hour long recording of a random conversation.
00:28:49.880 I love when people say that and they never explain like what context was left out and how the context would change what was being said.
00:29:00.880 Like, okay, let's, let's hear it then.
00:29:03.200 Let's hear it.
00:29:03.700 It's interesting how they only care about ethics for other people and not for themselves.
00:29:08.040 All of a sudden, all of a sudden, when they're dealing with a journalist, they're very concerned with honesty and transparency and your real identification and who you actually are and the ethics that you are operating under.
00:29:19.740 But not when it comes to them making money off of the sex, sexual exploitation of minors.
00:29:24.580 And, you know, they use these exact words.
00:29:26.300 They said, you non-consensually recorded and uploaded videos of our employees.
00:29:33.480 And I don't know why the lawyers even thought it was a good idea to put that in there because it's just so ironic.
00:29:41.220 The irony.
00:29:41.900 Yes.
00:29:42.660 I don't think that they probably didn't even see it.
00:29:46.160 Yeah, they probably didn't even see the irony.
00:29:48.400 Yeah.
00:29:48.640 That's unbelievable.
00:29:49.260 I thought their lawyers would be better than that.
00:29:51.500 Yeah.
00:29:51.760 Yeah.
00:29:56.300 OK, tell me, what has the impact been?
00:30:06.680 Because we were talking before the cameras were rolling about a class action lawsuit that's now taking place in Alabama, right?
00:30:12.200 Yeah.
00:30:12.420 So there's been two class action lawsuits where victims of trafficking and rape that was monetized on Pornhub or like suing the companies.
00:30:22.880 So in one, we were cited as evidence.
00:30:26.220 Our videos were cited.
00:30:27.460 And then in this new one out of Alabama, these are child sex trafficking victims.
00:30:34.660 And Mike Farley and Dylan Rice, who you see on the videos, they were subpoenaed.
00:30:39.440 So they're going to have to testify as witnesses.
00:30:43.480 Wow.
00:30:43.920 And so what could the potential impact of that be?
00:30:46.200 Well, I hope Pornhub is held liable for and it's likely going to be a settlement situation.
00:30:55.480 Yeah.
00:30:55.680 But I hope they're held liable for a lot, a lot of money.
00:31:00.320 Yeah.
00:31:00.720 And they are going through a criminal case in the Eastern District of New York for profiting off of sex trafficking.
00:31:07.620 They admitted to profiting off of sex trafficking and they were put on a three year probationary period.
00:31:14.140 It's a slap on the wrist.
00:31:16.560 And if they're on their best behavior for three years, their criminal charges get dropped.
00:31:22.140 Wow.
00:31:23.220 Goodness.
00:31:24.040 My goodness.
00:31:25.840 This is according to Exodus Cry.
00:31:28.400 This is an organization that fights against trafficking and has talked a lot about how porn and sex trafficking really go hand in hand.
00:31:36.900 No matter if you claim that everyone is an adult and everyone consents, the fact of the matter is, as a consumer, you can't know that.
00:31:44.480 There's no way for you to know that.
00:31:46.080 Pornhub doesn't even know that itself.
00:31:48.280 According to a 2020 survey, the majority of children are exposed to porn by age 13, with some as young as seven.
00:31:55.360 Most of the time it's unintentional or unwanted.
00:31:57.480 In a study of 4,000 heterosexual porn scenes, 35 to 45 percent contained an act of physical aggression, mostly against women.
00:32:06.360 According to a meta-analysis of 22 studies from seven countries, porn use is associated with increases in physical aggression.
00:32:14.720 An analysis of 12,323 people found that exposure to porn may increase the risk for committing sexual offenses.
00:32:23.580 And I saw this in the Daily Mail just a couple days ago.
00:32:28.480 British children commit, according to this study, 18 rapes a day.
00:32:32.860 Shock official figures reveal 15,000 rapes and sex attacks by under-18s in 2022 with access to violent online porn blamed for normalizing criminal behavior.
00:32:45.820 I absolutely think that there is a causal relationship between the pervasiveness of sexual assault, especially when it comes to minors,
00:32:53.580 and pornography, when that just becomes normalized in your mind, of course you're going to be more likely to carry it out, don't you think?
00:32:59.480 Oh, absolutely.
00:33:01.900 I grew up in the digital age where internet porn was available.
00:33:06.400 And I definitely remember, unfortunately, learning way too much at a young age about certain sexual things because the boys at school would talk about them and treat the girls a certain way and even go as far as touching some girls a certain way.
00:33:23.420 And this was because they were at home and pornography was available to them online at the tip of their fingers.
00:33:30.460 I mean, the iPhone was out when I was in fifth grade, so this stuff was all available when I was super young.
00:33:38.240 Yeah.
00:33:38.800 Gosh, parents, I think, were so unequipped in a lot of ways when the iPhone came out just because it was so different than the Sidekick or the Blackberry or the Palm Pilot, which is probably before your time.
00:33:52.800 But access to the internet in the palm of our hands was really kind of new.
00:33:59.180 Of course, everyone had like a family computer that you could go to.
00:34:02.720 But when I was growing up, we didn't even have our own laptops.
00:34:06.240 And a lot of people didn't even have TVs in their room.
00:34:08.700 And then we go from not having our own personal devices to having the entire world wide web in the palm of our hands.
00:34:16.160 And it's only gotten worse.
00:34:17.740 I'm hoping that parents are more equipped than they were, you know, 10 to 15 years ago because we know the effect of this.
00:34:24.800 But, you know, as a mom myself of young kids, I worry not just about, you know, what they stumble upon.
00:34:33.780 And obviously, we are very protective.
00:34:35.720 But the kind of people that they are going to be around, I'm concerned about other parents.
00:34:42.920 It's like, are other parents, are you guys going to ensure that your kids are protected, that they're not watching pornography, that they're not accessing this stuff so that their behavior doesn't, you know, negatively affect the other people around them?
00:34:57.140 I'm worried about that.
00:34:58.340 I'm worried about both the boys and the girls that are going to be affected by the pervasiveness of pornography and how it rewires their brain and hurts their relationships.
00:35:06.240 It is a worry, and it's just inevitable now for young people.
00:35:13.080 They're going to be exposed to pornography in one way or another if they're sent to school, if they have access to devices, or if their friends have access, or their friend's older brothers have access to devices.
00:35:23.660 I think we're at a stage now where parents must start teaching their children in an age-appropriate way about porn and how to recognize it and know that if they're ever shown it or they ever see it, they should report it to their parent or trusted adult immediately.
00:35:42.600 It's sad, but this is where we are, and there's actually a wonderful children's book called Good Pictures, Bad Pictures, that parents can read aloud to their kids, and it teaches kids in an age-appropriate way how to recognize what pornography is and what they should do if they're exposed to it.
00:36:02.420 Yeah, I think that a lot of people think, especially for teen boys, that, oh, it's just normal.
00:36:08.440 Of course they want to see naked women. 1.00
00:36:10.860 Oh, this is just like the age of Playboy.
00:36:13.740 Well, first of all, that's always wrong, whether it's a Playboy magazine or pornography, but even what they're seeing online is not the same as a still picture.
00:36:21.400 They are being exposed to more and more violent content, more and more pedophilic content.
00:36:27.220 And by just normalizing that and just saying, oh, boys will be boys, you have no idea how you are ruining them for future healthy relationships and their own sexual health.
00:36:38.460 It's really scary.
00:36:39.860 Oh, I totally agree.
00:36:42.140 Yeah.
00:36:43.520 Gosh.
00:36:44.420 There's just such, I mean, it's such a widespread societal impact.
00:36:48.280 I mean, I am of the opinion that there should be a ban on pornography.
00:36:55.560 I don't see any benefit to society.
00:36:58.680 I don't think that it falls under the umbrella of free speech at all.
00:37:03.740 And you could argue, well, people are going to try to find it anyway, and then it's just going to go underground or whatever. 1.00
00:37:11.480 I mean, I think those are all very stupid arguments. 0.99
00:37:13.940 By that logic, nothing should be illegal. 0.99
00:37:16.860 We should just legalize everything because then it's less dangerous that way.
00:37:20.100 But I think that there need to be serious ramifications for the exploitation of bodies.
00:37:26.340 I simply do, especially when it comes to children.
00:37:29.520 I see no reason why anyone who perpetrates, consumes, or profits off of the trafficking of children should see the light of day.
00:37:41.100 I don't see any good reason for that.
00:37:42.400 I totally agree.
00:37:43.600 And I think a realistic ask, at least for us, for sound investigations and myself, is similar to how cigarettes, tobacco, went through a complete –
00:37:59.780 They had to have much improved transparency over the past several decades because they were branded as healthy, and doctors were endorsing smoking and things like that.
00:38:11.180 But there was a huge wake-up call that forced them to be more transparent about the effects of smoking.
00:38:18.920 And so I think similar with pornography, there needs to be some sort of warning on these sites saying,
00:38:25.920 these are the societal implications of pornography use, and these are the health implications of pornography use.
00:38:33.520 And if you want to proceed, then go ahead.
00:38:36.780 And the new Texas bill, actually, that verifies age of a user on a pornography site also requires a disclaimer like that now.
00:38:46.960 So I have yet to check if Pornhub has complied, but I've been meaning to check that.
00:38:53.180 Yeah.
00:38:54.040 And, I mean, at the very least, I want pornography to be so stigmatized, kind of like how cigarettes have gotten,
00:39:03.280 because of the PR push against cigarettes for so long, that, yes, of course, there are still people who smoke cigarettes,
00:39:11.300 but it is dramatically less than what it was 50 years ago.
00:39:16.260 I want porn to be so stigmatized to where people – I mean, you just don't use it.
00:39:23.360 And it's not something that's pervasive.
00:39:25.020 It's not something that's mainstream.
00:39:26.220 It's not something that people are proud of, that they would ever openly advocate for.
00:39:30.400 Um, it's not that I don't want people who struggle with porn addiction to be able to free – to be free to get help.
00:39:38.540 Of course, I think that that is good.
00:39:40.300 But things deserve stigma.
00:39:43.120 Stigmas exist for a reason. 1.00
00:39:45.620 And, um, pornography is one of those things.
00:39:49.700 The sexual exploitation of people should absolutely be stigmatized and pushed as much to the margins of society as possible.
00:39:56.040 So, thank you so much for playing a role in that and trying to hold them to account.
00:40:01.400 I'm sure that was just tough mentally and emotionally to have to listen to all of that.
00:40:06.500 It was.
00:40:07.720 Um, in the moment, it sounds really strange.
00:40:10.920 Yes, it was disturbing, but it was actually exciting for me to be able to actually get these admissions on camera
00:40:17.940 because they were my suspicions for such a long time.
00:40:21.160 So, just to have someone not stick to the normal PR adult industry response and really tell me what was really going on, that was exciting.
00:40:31.080 Yeah.
00:40:31.300 So, um, once that started coming out of Mike Farley and Dylan Rice's mouth, I really was like, oh.
00:40:38.520 You got it.
00:40:39.280 Yeah.
00:40:39.840 Yeah, yeah.
00:40:41.220 Tell me also just a little bit of background about who you are.
00:40:45.720 I know that you were raised in Hollywood, but I've heard you mention God in this interview.
00:40:50.900 Does your faith play a role in your desire to expose what's going on in the adult industry?
00:41:01.620 Yeah, my faith does play a role, actually.
00:41:05.380 So, I was saved in 2020.
00:41:09.040 I grew up going to church.
00:41:11.080 I grew up professing, uh, as a Christian, but really had a realization in 2020 where everything
00:41:19.020 seemed to be hitting the fan and there's so many disasters all around us, um, that I,
00:41:25.540 I wasn't saved.
00:41:26.820 And so, um.
00:41:29.100 Was there anything in particular that you heard or made you realize, okay, this faith that I've
00:41:36.180 been professing my whole life, it's not really real to me?
00:41:39.680 Yeah, actually, a really sweet friend of mine, we're still really good friends, um, we went
00:41:45.800 out to lunch together and at the time I thought he was one of those crazy Christians, but I 1.00
00:41:50.680 thought he was really nice, so we were friends.
00:41:52.520 Yeah.
00:41:53.220 And he asked me if I was Christian and I said yes.
00:41:57.780 And then he said, you know, you're telling me all these things about your life and your
00:42:02.620 personal life, but you tell me that you're a Christian and they just don't line up. 1.00
00:42:06.700 And he said it was so much love and concern for me, um, that.
00:42:11.520 What was your immediate reaction?
00:42:13.020 I cried.
00:42:13.660 You did?
00:42:14.260 Yeah.
00:42:14.820 I cried and, um, oh man, it took me a long time, but I, I didn't, I walked away from that
00:42:22.480 conversation so different.
00:42:24.000 It took me a while to completely surrender, um, but that conversation was a huge turning
00:42:33.440 point that I believe I led to my salvation.
00:42:37.160 Yeah.
00:42:37.600 Um, actually it's so funny.
00:42:39.480 You've had Ginger and Jeremy Volo on your show.
00:42:42.400 I attended their church and Jeremy actually, um, married my husband and I at our wedding.
00:42:48.460 Oh, how long have you been married?
00:42:50.520 Two years.
00:42:51.380 Okay.
00:42:52.120 Yeah.
00:42:52.320 Oh my gosh.
00:42:53.040 Well, so what has it been like since then?
00:43:07.660 Tell me just a little bit more about like your faith journey and I guess meeting your husband
00:43:14.160 and getting married and all of that since 2020.
00:43:17.600 So for the past four or so years, um, it's been a lot of up and down.
00:43:22.260 I, I think first being saved, it's so natural to be on fire for God and, oh, it was such a
00:43:29.360 great time for me.
00:43:31.160 Um, I've really had to practice a lot of discipline and I still need to be more disciplined about
00:43:39.080 being in my Bible and prayer and just not thinking like the world thinks because I was in that for
00:43:48.800 so long.
00:43:49.900 Um, so it's up and down, but God is good and has extended so much grace to me.
00:43:57.700 Yeah.
00:43:58.100 So, um, yeah.
00:44:00.220 And what does your husband think about all of this?
00:44:02.780 What you do?
00:44:03.380 Was he concerned at all when you were like going on fake dates with, with the porno guys?
00:44:09.720 He is concerned, but he's so supportive and what's so funny is he actually went on one
00:44:16.340 of these meetings with me and recorded from afar just to make sure everything was safe.
00:44:23.440 So he's been so good in so many ways and he's made sure that I'm safe in some of these situations.
00:44:31.340 That's good.
00:44:31.800 I was just telling a friend that like good, supportive, loving, amazing husbands are like
00:44:37.820 the cheat code to life.
00:44:39.280 I mean, it just makes everything better.
00:44:41.740 Yeah.
00:44:42.340 Yeah.
00:44:42.820 Really?
00:44:43.700 Um, well, thank you so much.
00:44:45.420 And also just for everyone listening and watching, you're a fellow related gal.
00:44:50.480 Yes.
00:44:51.180 So Arden is, is one of ours.
00:44:53.740 You were saying that you listened to the podcast, which makes me so happy.
00:44:56.720 Your podcast is like the only podcast I consistently listened to on my own time and have, I think
00:45:03.740 since 2020, just around when I was saved.
00:45:07.220 Um, so thank you so much.
00:45:09.000 It's helped me really stay, um, in the word and thinking like a Christian should think instead 1.00
00:45:18.000 of viewing things, uh, like others do.
00:45:21.360 And, um, I love your courage to speak truth.
00:45:25.220 So thank you so much.
00:45:26.480 Well, you too, you too.
00:45:28.120 I always say I have the best listeners and viewers ever.
00:45:31.360 And Arden is just a great example of that.
00:45:33.660 And your courage will inspire other people's courage too.
00:45:37.100 And so thank you so much.
00:45:38.800 I just pray that God continues to give you favor and to give you access into the places
00:45:44.560 and to the people that you need to go into and to shine a light in the darkness.
00:45:48.380 Uh, what is, what is the verse in Ephesians that take no part in the, is it the foolish
00:45:56.640 ways of darkness, but instead.
00:45:58.980 Unfruitful.
00:45:59.620 Yeah.
00:46:00.080 Unfruitful.
00:46:00.600 You're right.
00:46:01.040 Unfruitful ways of darkness, but instead expose them.
00:46:04.040 Expose them.
00:46:04.480 And that's what you're doing.
00:46:05.360 So thank you so much, Arden.
00:46:06.700 And how can people follow you and support you?
00:46:10.220 Yeah.
00:46:10.540 So I'm most active on Twitter X and my handles Arden underscore young underscore.
00:46:18.400 And there's also the sound investigations page.
00:46:20.920 We post updates too, as well.
00:46:23.140 Um, but really that's where I post everything.
00:46:25.440 And hopefully we'll have more good updates soon.
00:46:28.740 Okay.
00:46:29.080 And more videos.
00:46:30.460 Okay.
00:46:30.800 Well, thank you so much, Arden, for taking the time to come on.
00:46:33.540 Thank you, Allie.
00:46:34.320 Bye.