Porn’s dark empire is collapsing — here’s how the fight is being won

Pornography is having a moment — and not in the way purveyors of pornography would like.

As a matter of fact, the foundations of the commercial sex industry are starting to disintegrate. Exhibit A: In a historic decision last month, the Supreme Court upheld the Texas age verification law protecting children from easily accessing harmful pornography online.

Pornography sites built their empires, in no small part, by allowing, encouraging, and profiting from the distribution of image-based sexual abuse material on their platforms.

It’s proof the tide is finally turning against the pornography industry.

States are pushing back against the sexual abuse and exploitation found on pornography sites like Pornhub, XVideos, and others by passing legislative solutions like age verification, device filter legislation, and the App Store Accountability Act to curb children’s access to content that is harmful to them. Surely, with the Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of age verification, more states are likely to follow.

A Kansas mother recently filed lawsuits against four pornography sites for allegedly failing to implement age verification on their websites as required by Kansas law.

The European Union, meanwhile, is investigating Pornhub, XVideos, XNXX, and Stripchat for allegedly failing to protect children from accessing their sites in violation of the Digital Services Act.

People are waking up to the reality of pornography’s acute harm — especially to children who have had way-too-easy access to online pornography. It’s encouraging to see that government officials are taking a stand to protect children.

Online pornography is a powerful stimulus that is disruptive to children’s development and contributes to numerous harms including vulnerability to sexual victimization, child-on-child harmful sexual behaviors, high-risk sexual behaviors, and compulsive sexual behaviors. It disrupts the natural formation of children’s sexual arousal templates.

RELATED: Children win: Supreme Court slaps down Big Porn — putting kids before profit

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And despite claims to the contrary, pornography is also harmful to adults.

A recent report from the Guardian revealed that pornography website algorithms take users to more extreme material, desensitizing them and spurring their escalation to child sexual abuse material and acting out what they see on real children.

The report illustrates some of the reasons pornography is harmful.

In England and Wales, 850 men a month are arrested for online child abuse offenses. They come from every walk of life: teachers, police officers, bus drivers, doctors. Those on the front line are warning of another alarming trend: a significant shift towards younger offenders among those picked up for watching illegal material. Now, police, charities, lawyers and child protection experts are asking what is driving this tidal wave of offending and finding one common thread: the explosion over the past 10 to 20 years of free-to-view and easily accessible online pornography. Material so violent it would have been considered highly extreme a generation ago is now readily available on iPads, desktops and the phones in teenagers’ pockets. A growing body of research is beginning to warn of how problematic porn habits can be a pathway into viewing images of children being abused.

Contrast this with the pornography industry’s claims that porn isn’t harmful, and it becomes ominously apparent whose side the truth is on.

Mainstream pornography sites like Pornhub have hosted child sexual abuse material, sexual assault, rape, image-based sexual abuse, nonconsensual content, and content with violent and racist themes.

Pornography sites built their empires, in no small part, by allowing, encouraging, and profiting from the distribution of image-based sexual abuse material on their platforms, according to a new report released by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.

One woman was shocked to find out that videos of her were non-consensually uploaded to Pornhub by a former boyfriend. One of the videos had her name attached to it and garnered millions of views.

By encouraging users to upload “free” pornography, these sites get enormous traffic to their platforms that remains the basis of the industry’s profitability and incentivizes them to ignore blatant image-based sexual abuse and child sexual abuse material on their platforms.

Legislative solutions like the Take It Down Act, recently signed into law, will help those who have been victimized by the uploading of image-based sexual abuse, mandating its removal within 48 hours.

The pornography industry is on defense, as it should be. Cracks in its exploitative foundation are widening, and it’s time for the whole system of exploitation to finally crumble.