When Serena Fleites was 13 years old in 2014, it’s claimed that a lover forced her to make an obscene film that he then uploaded to Pornhub. Ms. Fleites claims that Visa colluded with Pornhub’s parent company MindGeek to profit from films of her assault by processing ad revenue.
Visa had asked to be excluded from the situation. The Children of Pornhub, a New York Times piece that included Ms. Fleites’ narrative, led MindGeek to erase millions of videos and significantly alter its practices and rules.
The Central District Court of California’s pre-trial decision summarises her claims.
Countless views
By the time she found the original explicit film, which had been uploaded to Pornhub without her knowledge or consent, Ms. Fleites claims it had 400,000 views. She claims that as soon as she learned about the film, she emailed Mindgeek under the guise of her mother to “let it know that the video qualified as child pornography.” Several weeks later, it was taken out.
However, she claims that individuals downloaded and re-uploaded the film numerous times, with one of the re-uploads receiving 2.7 million views. It is claimed that MindGeek received advertising money from these re-uploads.
After multiple unsuccessful suicide attempts and deteriorating family ties, Ms. Fleites claims her life had “spiraled out of control” when she moved in with a friend and met an older guy.
She continued to make sex movies at this man’s request while still a minor to support her addiction, some of which were posted to Pornhub.
According to Judge Cormac J. Carney’s summary of her claims, “Plaintiff was intermittently homeless or living in her car, addicted to heroin, unhappy and suicidal, and without the assistance of her family while MindGeek profited from the child pornography involving Plaintiff.”
According to MindGeek, the court must presume all of the plaintiff’s allegations are genuine and correct at this point in the proceedings because it has not yet made a determination regarding the veracity of the allegations.
We are convinced the plaintiff’s allegations will be dismissed for lack of merit when the court can actually review the facts, the business stated.
