Money

The Strange Philanthropic History of Pornhub

November 17th 2015

Unless you live under a rock that doesn’t have Wifi, it’s likely that you’ve heard of Pornhub. Since its conception in 2007, Pornhub has become the largest pornographic website on the internet, as well as the leading cause of deleted browser histories in the world.

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Pornhub LogoMichael Coghlan - flickr.com

Okay, so the last part is a joke. But Pornhub’s reach is profound. There were 78.9 billion video views through 2014, which breaks down to 5,800 visits per second, according to Pornhub’s data analytics.

In an effort to continue expanding, Pornhub created an additional arm of its network called Pornhub Cares. It’s a charitable endeavor that donates money based on eyeballs, and raises money for issues such as breast and testicular cancer awareness and research, as well as environmental campaigns like tree planting. Its latest charitable effort includes giving away a $25k college scholarship.

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But not everyone is willing to accept the dollars raised by the company. After Pornhub offered to donate dollars to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure in October of 2012, the foundation rejected Pornhub on the grounds that they were not at all affiliated with the website and did not want their money.

Komen Race for the CureKenneth Freeman/Komen - flickr.com

"Susan G. Komen for the Cure is not a partner of pornhub.com,” a Komen spokesperson responded via email to the Huffington Post’s request for comment. “We will not accept donations from this organization and have asked them to stop using our name.”

The Komen foundation isn’t the only organization disenfranchised with the pornography company.

A statement released by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) argues that Pornhub’s scholarship is a “blatant attempt to exploit economically vulnerable young people,” and get society to accept pornography, CNBC reports.

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"If Pornhub truly cared about disadvantaged youth, they could give away scholarship money without exploiting thousands of teenagers," said NCOSE Executive Director Dawn Hawkins in an emailed statement, according to CNBC.

TreesAndreas Wienemann - flickr.com

Disassociating with the pornographic website hasn’t stopped the philanthropic efforts, though. More than 13,000 trees were planted as a result of their “Pornhub Gives America Wood” campaign, according to the Huffington Post. They also raised $75,000 for their breast cancer awareness campaign, the New York Post reports.

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Pornhub Cares has also seen dozens video and essay submissions for a chance to receive the college scholarship. Though submissions are now closed, the rules seem like many other scholarship applications: All applicants must be 18 years old or older, have a 3.2 GPA to apply, and must answer the question: “How do you strive to make others happy?”

Oh, and there's no sexually explicit content allowed, either. Here's one submission below.

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