Pornhub’s impact on the porn industry has been gigantic for a variety of reasons: in addition to facilitating access to free content and empowering porn actresses and performers, the platform has made possible… large scale video of rape and child pornography. The documentary Money Shot: The Pornhub Story traces the struggle between critics and defenders of the platform, which has just changed hands.

“Ethical Capital Partners bought MindGeek/Pornhub. They bought the crime scene that is Pornhub,” Laila Mickelwait wrote Thursday afternoon, following news of the sale of MindGeek, the Montreal-based company behind the Pornhub platform, to Ethical Capital Partners, an Ottawa firm.

Laila Mickelwait is the head of TraffickingHub, a movement calling for the closure of Pornhub and for its leaders to be held accountable for enabling the distribution of images of rape and other sexual abuse and for taking advantage of the sexual exploitation of people, especially minors.

Available since Wednesday on Netflix, the film tells the story of the very popular streaming platform, recalls the upheavals it caused in the porn industry and the controversy it arouses, in particular since the publication in the New York Times, in December 2020, of an opinion piece that discussed underage sexual assault videos posted on the platform.

Money Shot isn’t a full-throttle charge against Pornhub, but it does address the problematic aspects of the platform head-on. It is about the lack of control over the content that allows the dissemination of illegal material (child pornography, scenes of rape, etc.), the laxity in the treatment of complaints and the withdrawal of contentious videos, as well as the relative indifference of its leaders towards those who make them live, that is to say the sex workers.

The film also highlights the links between some Pornhub critics and the American religious right. Laila Mickelwait, for example, is linked to fundamentalist groups who are against all forms of pornography – Sports Illustrated is porn in their eyes, the documentary points out.

Suzanne Hillinger manipulates explosive content with great nuance. She highlights diametrically opposed points of view and skillfully identifies the complex issues they raise. Does cutting off this kind of platform do more harm than good? What are the consequences of a poorly crafted legal framework? What is morality and what is protected by free speech between consenting adults? How can victims of assault be protected and spared the trauma of spreading the abuse suffered?

Money Shot lucidly addresses issues that concern the internet in the broad sense (scabrous content is also found on Facebook and many other networks, the documentary recalls). And, without minimizing the trauma of victims of sexual exploitation, he keeps in mind that the demand for porn is not going to go away and that this industry must protect those who sustain it: sex workers.