The Irony! Pornhub Gets Acquired By Canadian Firm 'Ethical Capital Partners' After Netflix Doc Scandal

After the Netflix documentary ¡®Money Shot: The Pornhub Story¡¯ by Suzanne Hillinger came out on March 15, a dark cloud shrouded the adult film site.

Pornhub Gets Taken Over By Canadian 'Ethical' Firm

Netflix

While back in 2007, when the website was launched, it changed the adult entertainment industry forever, an opinion piece by the New York Times in 2020 put a question mark on the site, which was accused of sex trafficking, child pornography, and rape videos.

The parent company of Pornhub, MindGeek, took a major hit after the NYT piece. The site that previously had one of the largest viewerships of over 130 million adults had hit a speed bump. Visa and Mastercard suspended their credit card services for the platform, which led to millions of accounts being disabled.

Seeing as the world¡¯s largest porn site hit a hitch in the road, a Canadian private equity firm called Ethical Capital Partners (ECP) stepped in to acquire the platform for an undisclosed amount.

ECP Aims To Ensure The Platform's 'Commitment To Trust And Safety' After Their Acquisition

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ECP was launched in 2022 in Montreal, Canada. The main USP of the firm is dealing with companies in a crunch that are seeking tech-focused invention and advisory assistance "in industries that require principled ethical leadership¡­have legal and regulatory complexity and that put a value on transparency and accountability."

ECP said in a statement yesterday, per Deadline, that "With core values of consent, freedom of sexual expression, authenticity, originality, and diversity at the heart of Pornhub¡¯s mission, the platform is a safe space for verified content creators and the entire adult entertainment community."

The statement continued, "We are confident that the MindGeek team and all MindGeek platforms operate with trust and safety at the forefront of everything they do. We will be engaging with stakeholders, including content creators, governments, and industry, to address the misalignment between how MindGeek operates and what the public perceives about this industry and these platforms."

The firm is looking to work with MindGeek to "ensure their commitment to trust and safety," explained one of ECP¡¯s founding partners, Sarah Bain.

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