XTube, a popular website dedicated to sharing adult-only video content has announced it will be closing down in September.
The company behind the website announced it’s demise in a statement saying they were proud of the community they had built since their launch in 2008 but it was time for them to move on to “greener pastures and greater things”.
The site was one the first that allowed people to upload their self-created pornographic content and was launched as the ‘adult version’ of popular video sharing site YouTube, although there is no connection between the two companies. Since it’s launch many similar adult video sharing sites have launched.
While the statement from XTube gives no indication of why why are closing down, the service has been accused of being a platform for revenge porn, footage of sexual assaults, and child sexual abuse. People have also complained that the company often fails to recognize copyright breaches from legitimate content owners.
Parent company MindGeek also operates a similar site PornHub.
In December 2020 Visa and Mastercard stopped payments to Pornhub following an expose from the New York Times into the lives of sexual assault victims who discovered that images of them being assaulted were posted to the site.
The company responded by only allowing verified accounts to upload content, and purged millions of videos that were already uploaded to it’s site from unverified accounts.
Laila Mickelwait, a leading campaigner against the sites welcomed the decision to close XTube. Mickelwait argues that the Pornhub site is also complicit in the sex trafficking and rape of women and children, and also needs to be closed.
“Exploiting real sex crime scene footage for profit has consequences.” Mickelwait said in a statement following the announcement.
OIP Staff
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