Two representatives from Ethical Capital Partners (ECP), the firm that owns Pornhub, Youporn and many other pornographic websites, testified in front of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on December 7.
The private equity firm acquired Aylo (formerly known as Mindgeek) in March 2023.
Mindgeek, the parent company of Pornhub and the like, rebranded to Aylo amid a series of lawsuits from individuals alleging the company’s former owners profited off of revenge porn, rape, and child sex trafficking uploaded to the site without checks and balances.
Lawyer and rabbi Solomon Friedman, as well as law student and pornographer Kate Sinclaire, argued to the commission on behalf of Ethical Capital Partners that internet pornography platforms should be exempt from promoting and funding Canadian Content (CanCon) under the Online Streaming Act.
Sinclaire said she has worked as a producer and director in the adult industry in Canada for approximately 15 years.
“I have, in short, to put it in a straightforward way, been making adult CanCon for a fair portion of my life,” she said.
Friedman and Sinclaire argued that if adult sites are subject to regulation, then pornographers should be able to access government funding.
“If the adult industry is regulated and required to make contributions, it must be able to access the benefits,” said Friedman.
Under the Online Streaming Act, major streaming platforms will have an obligation to fund Canadian content and they will be required to promote government-approved Canadian content creators via algorithm adjustments.
Friedman and Sinclaire spent much of their testimony complaining that people working in the pornography industry allegedly have a hard time finding a bank that will work with them, as well as whitewashing the sex trade and arguing that decriminalizing the sex trade is more important than broadcasting regulations.
“Sex work is work,” Friedman said.
“Sex work is not an inherently unsafe industry,” Sinclaire stated.
The two representatives from ECP often evoked the language of diversity and inclusion when arguing for the widespread availability of unregulated internet pornography.
“Recent anti-LGBT movements make us more concerned about being able to represent sexuality authentically,” said Sinclaire.
Sinclaire alluded to a sexual community that has “practices that some people would find objectionable” but that are central to their “queer identities.”
“Right now in this world of basically targeting queer speech… it’s a difficult time right now for queer communities and it’s incredibly important to not continue that into [the pornography] space.”
Sinclaire argued that government broadcasting regulations would impose “cisheteronormative tropes” upon individuals from queer kink “communities.”
“I’m very disturbed by the fact that ECP concentrated only on the wellbeing of content producers of pornography and did not mention once the harms millions of children are experiencing by being exposed to hardcore, often violent pornography because porn platforms owned by ECP and others are not doing age verification of customers,” Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne told True North.
Earlier this year, Senator Miville-Dechêne tried introducing an amendment to the Online Streaming Act that would require pornography sites to implement age verification measures, but her amendment was rejected by then-heritage minister Pablo Rodriguez.
One Canadian study found that the average age of first exposure to online pornography was around 12 years, and one-third were exposed as young as age 10.
A recent undercover investigation revealed an Aylo producer talking candidly about how it is “helpful” for 12-year olds to view online pornography to figure out what sexuality they are, and said that more pornography featuring trans people can hopefully “convert” straight men.
So far, the CRTC has said “It would not be appropriate, for the time being, to exclude online undertakings that provide adult content from the application of the conditions of service.”
