Major Streaming Service Pulling Pornography Channels from Platform

Tré Goins-Phillips : Nov 4, 2021
Faithwire.com

"This is a big strike to the exploitation industry as Roku was the only mainstream media streaming platform that allowed pornography, given that Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV have long banned it. Following on the heels of other mainstream companies cutting ties and refusing profits from sexual exploitation—such as Kraft-Heinz that will no longer run ads or MasterCard, which stopped processing payments—the pornography industry is finding few willing to prop up its infrastructure." -Dawn Hawkins, CEO of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation

[Faithwire.com] For years now, pornography sites like Pornhub have been stealthily taking advantage of an oft-overlooked loophole in the streaming service Roku. That workaround, though, is going away. (Screengrab image)

The shift is a major victory for those fighting to expose the dark underbelly of the pornography industry, Dawn Hawkins, CEO of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, told Faithwire via email Wednesday.

Roku announced during its annual developer conference last week it is updating how it deals with private channels—uncertified channels, as the company calls them—that don't appear in the service's bonafide channel store, according to Protocol. The restructured policy takes effect March 1, 2022.

Initially intended to allow developers the freedom to test feeds before submitting them to Roku's official channel store, a whole host of pornography websites saw an opportunity, and they pounced. They took advantage of the option to run uncertified channels, which would never be granted final approval for the channel store, through the platform by giving users a code or direct link via the Roku website.

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