episode-header-image

Mar 2024

23m 41s

The Pornhub Empire Episode 2: Pornhub go...

About this episode

Not only did Pornhub become a massive moneymaker, it also helped push porn into the spotlight by using data, clever PR, and the power of celebrity. How did Pornhub make itself a household name?

This is episode 2 of The Pornhub Empire: Understood. Hosted by Samantha Cole.

Full transcript here.

Up next

The Pornhub Empire Episode 3: Pornhub’s disgrace

Jane was coerced into making a pornographic film, and told it would never be shared online. Then, it was posted on Pornhub, over and over again. How did a scandal involving the hosting of sexual abuse material seriously damage the lives of many and nearly destroy the company? Thi ... Show More

The Pornhub Empire Episode 4: Cleanup crew

New name, new owners, new rules. Can Pornhub rebuild its reputation and remain one of the world’s biggest porn sites? Or will the company be disrupted out of business by a new crop of online porn entrepreneurs?This is episode 4 of The Pornhub Empire: Understood. Hosted by Samanth ... Show More

Modi's India: Season 3 of Understood

How did one man rise from poverty to the peak of political power and secure the adoration of nearly one billion people? And how did he overcome accusations — that he denies — of complicity in religious violence and alleged international assassination plots?In the latest season of ... Show More

Recommended Episodes

Front Burner Presents: The Pornhub Empire

How did a handful of competitive foosball players in Montreal create the world’s largest online porn site? And what do a picturesque Dutch cabin, thousands of pornographic VHS tapes, and the subprime mortgage crisis have to do with it? This is episode 1 of The Pornhub Empire: Und ... Show More

What Pornhub’s New Rules Could Mean for the Rest of the Internet

Let’s be real: most people watch it and it’s about as fundamental to Internet culture as Google itself: Porn. And nowadays, that means Pornhub, the massive shadow YouTube for porn that accumulates millions of clicks daily. Recently, Pornhub made headlines when a New York Times ex ... Show More

Episode 1: Porn Meets the Internet

Stoya is a porn star who saw first-hand how a firehose of free porn online transformed the adult industry. She sends hosts Alex Barker and Patricia Nilsson a quest: Find out who is in charge, and get to the bottom of how the business of porn really works. If you’d like to keep up ... Show More

My Bread and Butter: The OnlyFans Economy

In the early days of the pandemic, OnlyFans made headlines as both celebrities and regular people made large sums of money selling sexually explicit content on the site. In this episode, Audie hears from the people who have made OnlyFans their career. What do their days look like ... Show More

Pornhub just deleted 80% of its videos

One of the most popular porn sites on the internet just purged more than 10 million videos. Vice’s Samantha Cole explains why. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ep. 2 - The Normalization of Incestuous Porn and What It Means For America

Click here to join the member exclusive portion of my show: https://bit.ly/3DzN2Uj One of the most popular pornographic themes right now is "incest porn" ... this should deeply disturb you. In this episode, I explain what that means for our country and how Kim Kardashian and her ... Show More

Episode 7: Porn Meets OnlyFans

Alex and Patricia track down the family behind OnlyFans, the site that has transformed online porn by shifting power back to performers. But there is a whole other side to the OnlyFans story. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts ... Show More

The Story Behind The $1.5B Pornhub Curse

Episode 548: Shaan Puri (https://twitter.com/ShaanVP) and Sam Parr (https://twitter.com/theSamParr) tell you the greek tragedy behind the Pornhub empire. If you like stories about nerds taking over, arson, secret billionaires and….foosball tables, you’re going to like this episod ... Show More

Introducing: Hot Money

The FT just launched a new podcast on porn, power and profit. When FT reporter Patricia Nilsson started digging into the porn industry, she made a shocking discovery: nobody knew who controlled the biggest porn company in the world. Now, she and her editor, Alex Barker, reveal wh ... Show More