The New Yorker wrote a story that said, in part, “Pornhub is one of the most visited Web sites in the world. Critics say it has been rampant with nonconsensual content—and that there was little recourse for those featured in it.”

I won’t bother telling you more of the flat-out lies and bullshit that was included in the article, but I do want to share with you the response that Allie Eve Knox, someone who is intimately familiar with the filming of adult content had to say. It’s a little long but I promise you it’s well worth the read. And be sure and follow Allie Eve Knox on Twitter at @allieeveknox.

“I spoke with the NYer about censorship of SWs, the media giving the grifting evangelicals a platform, and the harm both of these things do. So instead, they cherry-picked my quotes, censored my entire narrative, and used my info to promote the grift (what the actual fuck.)”

In the irony of all ironies, The New Yorker writes a story about violating women, and in doing so actually violates women. Here is Allie Eve Knox’s full statement.

My Open Letter to The New Yorker,

I recently spoke with your journalist Sheelah about many issues involving sex work, including PornHub/MindGeek. She mentioned that she was writing an article on PH and wanted to speak to me about some tweets that I had written years ago. She read the tweets to me and the gist was Fuck PornHub, a sentiment I personally stand behind, so I confirmed my feelings about the tweets and we spoke a bit about my history with PH.

I have been a very outspoken critic against MindGeek. As I explained to Sheelah, my business is directly hurt by the PH business model. Many verified creators, fully legally compliant I might add, have made an excellent living through their MG and I am quite thankful that MG has been able to support so many.
I spoke about how I feel that PH should have had to comply with all the same rules as other content sites such as having to confirm that you indeed own the copyright, have signed model releases, 2257 paperwork, etc for the upload. I also spoke about how ALL sites that host pornography or sensitive content should have to do this. I explained how this isn’t just an ‘anti-PH agenda’ I am pushing but instead a ‘let’s keep harmful content off the internet agenda.’

And to this point, I referenced many things- the amount of child porn on Facebook/Twitter/YouTube (where the 90%+ majority of child porn is found,) how the media routinely uses PH for sensationalized headlines and clicks, how groups like Exodus Cry are grifting and scamming and referenced how their budgets are mostly high dollar salaries for their mouthpieces instead of actual resources to help trafficking survivors, how sex workers are constantly censored in the press and online, how these type of hyped stories make conditions much worse and more unsafe for sex workers, how we are quiet thankful that sites like OnlyFans exist so that we can have safer working conditions, how sex workers don’t want child porn on the internet and how we support creating requirements that prevents this type of content from being uploaded, how this story is too dated because PH buttoned up years ago and have been following the regulations despite MasterCard still not allowing payment on their site.

Instead of writing about any of the things that we spent over thirty minutes speaking about, Sheelah decided to take my cherry picked quotes and use them to further the agenda of the people that I repeatedly referred to as scammers, grifters, sensationalists, and absolute wack jobs. I realized this when I received a call from the fact checker the next day, where the fact checking was simply verifying my quotes to the questions asked and I realized that no actual issue we spoke about was going to be used and instead, this was going to be a hit piece- a far cry from the conversation we had had the previous day. I was truly upset, as this was the exact formula for the media bias and sensationalism that we had just spoke about being so unsafe for sex workers.

What I didn’t know is that The New Yorker was going to publicly endorse an agenda of a woman that publicly tweeted child porn through her personal account, takes an enormous salary each year under the guise of funding for trafficking survivors, and one that has pushed an antiporn agenda for years. I also had no idea that The New Yorker was going to hide replies from sex workers on their post, misrepresent my words, and push an evangelical agenda despite what the facts and data actually say.

The New Yorker should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this type of “journalism” in their publication. Retract this story.

Allie Eve Knox