The world’s largest pornography website, Pornhub, has removed millions of unverified videos following a scathing report published earlier in December by the New York Times.

That report detailed how the website hosted videos of children, which resulted in the website making some policy changes. Last week, Pornhub said that it would ban downloads and restrict uploads to verified users only. The site also said it would bolster moderation on the platform.

Following the report, Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. said they would investigate the matter. Shortly after Pornhub’s policy change announcement, the two services said they were cutting ties with the website.

“The use of our cards at Pornhub is being terminated,” Mastercard said. “Our investigation over the past several days has confirmed violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site.”

For its part, Visa said it has suspended its services, but an investigation was ongoing. Sex workers who use the site for their income and groups that support those workers fired back, saying livelihoods are at risk.

Reports state that as of last Sunday, the website hosted about 13.5 million videos. On Monday morning, that was down to about 4.7 million videos. The removed videos are those that are not verified, and they are currently under review.

“This means every piece of Pornhub content is from verified uploaders, a requirement that platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter have yet to institute,” the company said in a blog post. “At Pornhub, the safety of our community is our top priority.”

The company said the Internet Watch Foundation had found 118 child sex abuse videos over the past three years, which Pornhub said was “118 too many.” Still, Facebook’s transparency report states that over the same period it pulled 84 million posts containing such illegal content. Pornhub, it seems, feels it’s been singled out.

“It is clear that Pornhub is being targeted not because of our policies and how we compare to our peers, but because we are an adult content platform,” Pornhub said. “These are the same forces that have spent 50 years demonizing Playboy, the National Endowment for the Arts, sex education, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, and even the American Library Association. Today, it happens to be Pornhub.”

Photo: Marco Verch/Flickr