Another Horny Conspiracy (This Time About Porn)
Yet Another Horny Conspiracy
Arabs used to tell their children that Jews have horns: https://kingchill.com/jude/repost-1967. Maybe, some still do.
There is a long tradition of claiming Jews are descendants of pigs and apes, Khazars, lizard people, or whatever else helps racist scum conjure a grotesque image. Apparently, BBC anchors prefer to just call us rats, the same image the Nazis used to evoke ick.
Every day, I see new conspiracies about Jews—all of which contradict each other. According to Palestine supporters, Jews either invented the entire LGBT+ movement to subvert other cultures (somehow duping many of ourselves in the process), or we’re the ones preventing them from being accepted (just don’t look up where hormone blockers are produced). Kanye West says we’re to blame for all abortions, but, Hannah Einbinder claims we’re the reason abortion access is blocked (despite Israel legalizing abortion before the U.S. and Emma Goldman’s work). We block shawarma from Gaza while simultaneously blocking it from being a vegan utopia.
The point is always the same: whatever you hate, blame the Jews/Israel/Zionists. Insist if we’re gone, you’ll have your paradise. Just don’t think about it too hard. And, please, Palestine Supporters, don’t ever talk to the others about what your paradise entails, because you might realize their “Free Palestine” is the polar opposite of yours. Scapegoat and don’t think about it.
As someone (I forget who) pointed out, Jay-Z can rap that Jews own all the property in America and people role with it. Nobody flinches. Never mind that the Emmerson family (not Jewish), then John Malone (Irish, not Jewish), and then Ted Turner (Episcopalian, not Jewish) are the ones who own the most property in America. Or that the British Royal Family, the Catholic Church, and the Saudis—none of them Jewish—own the most global property. As Sartre pointed out, truth is not their goal.
Then there are the really bizarre lies. My favorite, repeated by the dumbest of the dumb, is: “There was peace before 1948.” Ignore virtually all wars predate 1948, ignore centuries of pogroms, ignore the fact that no place on Earth has ever been truly peaceful—just ignore reality all together to support Palestine. If you want someone to believe every evolving blood libel, making them believe there used to be a utopia is a great start. “Make Palestine Great Again! Like Khaybar!” They can claim 10m people will die tomorrow. When tomorrow comes, and you find nobody died, instead of being held accountable for the lie, they’ve already moved on to the next one.
When they run out of fearmongering, they move to jealousy. Suddenly, everything Jews and Israel have contributed to the world was secretly Palestinian. Jesus—famously Jewish, famously from Judea, famously would not be allowed in Palestine—is somehow Palestinian. The Temples? Islam predates it. And Jews? A culture the rest of the world emulates? We're told we “have no culture.” Just ignore the holidays, food, fashion, Nobel prizes, media innovation, and millennia of tradition, the businesses, the humor…
So sometimes, I just want to hit back with the truth. For example, BDS refuses to boycott the internet, because they need it to spread their hate. But the internet was largely built by both Jews and Israelis:
Hedy Lamarr (Jewish by birth) co-invented frequency hopping, the foundation for WiFi and Bluetooth.
Bob Kahn co-created TCP/IP, the protocol that powers the entire internet.
Leonard Kleinrock helped build ARPANET, the direct ancestor of the internet.
Israel’s cyber unit 8200, alongside other IDF tech forces, helped the U.S. build out early web infrastructure.
8200 graduates launched countless startups, especially in cybersecurity—like Check Point, CyberArk, and NSO Group.
Dov Moran, founder of M-Systems, invented the USB flash drive.
Most major tech companies now run R&D hubs in Israel because they know we’re necessary.
AI is especially reliant on Israeli talent—some of our founders get funding before they even name the product.
They hate us cause they aint us.
So now, the latest lie: “Jews/Zionists own all the porn.”
There were two core claims to the original iteration of this lie, just a few years ago:
Pornhub was founded by Jews. (Not true — it was started by Syrians in Canada.)
Pornhub is currently owned by a rabbi. (Sort of true, but it’s misleading and means nothing.)
This year, apparently owning all the porn wasn’t damning enough. So there’s a fresh new libel that Jews run 98% of the gay porn industry. (Completely fabricated.) No sources needed—just vibes. Why 98? The same reason as the claims of 109 states. They want to pick something specific so it stands out when they repeat their lie over and over.
I did a deep dive into the facts. Within minutes, it was obvious these conspiracies are pure garbage. Pornhub had years of problems under non-Jewish ownership, including unchecked user-generated content and illegal material. If anything, it was a Jew who stepped in to clean it up—after a decade of abuse, law evasion, and trafficking that previous (non-Jewish) owners allowed to fester. Jews should be thanks for reducing PornHub’s exploitive issues, but are instead blamed.
So, yes, a Jew (who happens to be an ordained rabbi, but works as a lawyer) bought Pornhub. He reformed it. He got mocked and harassed for doing so by QAnon freaks who think they’re helping the world one scapegoat at a time.
After hours of digging, I let ChatGPT take over. I deliberately asked ChatGPT to find evidence of Jewish or Israeli invovlement. Below you’ll find its deep research into the absurd claims that Jews run the porn industry. It’s based on objective inquiry, not defensiveness. And frankly, as someone who’s not a prude, I wouldn’t care if Jews did run a big chunk of the porn industry. Arabs have oil. UK and Switzerland have stolen goods. Half the world had slave labor. It is not be a big deal if we own sexy time. As you’ll see, we don’t. What I do care about is lazy lies. And this one’s as lazy as they come.
Jewish/Israeli Influence in the Porn Industry & Pornhub: Separating Fact from Fiction
Claims of Jewish or Israeli Control in the Porn Industry
Claims that Jews or Israelis “dominate” or control the porn industry (including general and gay pornography) have circulated in conspiratorial and anti-Semitic circles [timesofisrael.comjpost.com]. For example, a 2019 Al Jazeera segment alleged that Jews were “the first to expand porn” and cited a few Jewish figures (like porn actor Ron Jeremy and Vivid Entertainment founder Steven Hirsch) as evidence [jpost.com]. It even quoted the provocateur publisher Al Goldstein saying Jews in porn “hate Christ” [jpost.com] – a statement often used to suggest a malicious “Jewish agenda” behind adult entertainment. Similarly, white supremacist David Duke has tweeted that “Jews dominate porn,” framing it as an attack on Christian society [timesofisrael.com]. These narratives cherry-pick certain individuals and rely on bigoted tropes, but how do they stack up against verifiable facts?
Historical Context: It is true that secular Jewish entrepreneurs have played a role in the American adult film industry, especially in its early and mid-20th century development. Historian Nathan Abrams has documented that Jews were disproportionately represented among pornographers and performers relative to their population [sharefinalcall.com finalcall.com]. For instance, from the 1920s onward some immigrant Jewish businessmen were prominent in distributing erotic [materialsfinalcall.com]. Notorious 1970s porn mogul Reuben Sturman – dubbed “the Walt Disney of Porn” – was Jewish and at one point “controlled most of the pornography circulating in [the U.S.]” [finalcall.com]. In later decades, Jewish figures like Steve Hirsch (co-founder of Vivid Entertainment) became major players in adult film [productionfinalcall.com]. There are also well-known Jewish adult performers (e.g. Ron Jeremy, Nina Hartley) and publishers (e.g. Screw magazine’s Al Goldstein). This historical presence is the kernel of truth that conspiracy theorists often exaggerate.
Reality Check: Importantly, having a “disproportionate” presence is not the same as controlling an entire industry. The adult entertainment business has always included people of many backgrounds, and no evidence shows a monolithic Jewish or Israeli cabal running it. In fact, several of the largest pornography empires were founded by non-Jews. For example, Playboy (1953) was founded by Hugh Hefner (of Protestant background), Penthouse by Bob Guccione, and Hustler by Larry Flynt – none of whom are Jewish. Today’s biggest porn conglomerate (formerly MindGeek, now Aylo – owner of Pornhub, Brazzers, etc.) was led until recently by CEOs of Middle Eastern and European descent, not by Israelis or Jewish community organizations. Allegations that “Jews ban porn in Israel but spread it elsewhere” [jpost.com] or that there is a “Zionist agenda” behind porn are not supported by credible data – they stem from anti-Semitic propaganda. In the gay porn sector, there is also no evidence of overarching Jewish control. Notably, Israeli-born producer Michael Lucas (CEO of Lucas Entertainment) is one of the few prominent Jewish gay porn studio owners; he himself stated, “I’m the only Jewish owner of an adult [gay] company in the industry” [ynetnews.com]. His visibility may have fed speculation, but as Lucas’s comment suggests, Jewish ownership is rare on the “gay side” of the porn business.
Motivations and Myths: Credible scholarship indicates that Jewish individuals entered the porn industry as individuals pursuing opportunities, not as a coordinated effort. Many were drawn by the same factors attracting others: profit and the chance to break into a new media frontier. During much of the 20th century, pornography was a marginal business with fewer barriers to entry, welcoming those (including Jewish entrepreneurs) who faced discrimination in mainstream [fieldsfinalcall.com finalcall.com]. As Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman observed, “Those Jews who enter the pornography industry have done so as individuals pursuing the American dream,” driven largely by entrepreneurial [motivesfinalcall.com]. In other words, Jewish participation in adult entertainment has been personal and secular, not religiously or ethnically driven. Most Jewish pornographers are non-observant and did not feature any overtly Jewish themes in their contentfinalcall.com. The bottom line is that while a number of Jews (especially in the U.S.) have been influential in porn’s history, the claim that Jews or Israelis “control” the porn industry is overblown and misleading [timesofisrael.com]. It exaggerates a partial truth into a conspiracy. No verified statistics support the notion of Jewish dominance; instead, this claim appears in fabricated or extremist narratives rather than in reputable industry analyses.
Pornhub: Founders, Ownership Changes, and Policy Evolution
Pornhub’s story offers a case study in how the modern pornography industry is not dominated by any single ethnicity or religion, and how content policies have changed under public scrutiny. Pornhub was founded in 2007 at the dawn of the online “tube site” revolution (when porn sites began adopting a free streaming model similar to YouTube). Its creation is credited to a team of young tech entrepreneurs in Montreal, Canada – notably Matt Keezer, along with partners Stephane Manos, Ouissam Youssef, and Feras Antoon [slidebean.com]. (Keezer had earlier launched other adult sites and a network called Interhub.) This group, none of whom are Israeli or Jewish (and only one of whom – Antoon – has Middle Eastern heritage), also founded the adult studio Brazzers around the same time [slidebean.com]. Pornhub launched in May 2007 and rapidly gained global popularity as a free aggregator of adult videos [netflix.com].
In 2010, Pornhub was acquired by German internet entrepreneur Fabian Thylmann, who bought the site (along with others) for about $140 million and consolidated them under a company called Manwin [slidebean.com]. Thylmann was known for his technical savvy (he developed software for tracking web traffic) and he aggressively expanded his porn portfolio [slidebean.com]. Under Thylmann’s ownership, Pornhub’s traffic and revenue skyrocketed – by 2012 Manwin even managed porn operations for brands like Playboy [slidebean.com]. No evidence suggests Thylmann (a German national) or Manwin had any Jewish or Israeli backing; his success was a story of leveraging technology and scale in a lucrative market.
In 2013, Fabian Thylmann was embroiled in a legal case (tax evasion charges in Germany) and decided to sell the business. Pornhub’s ownership then shifted to a management-led buyout: Thylmann’s lieutenants Feras Antoon and David Marmorstein Tassillo took control, rebranding the company as MindGeek [slidebean.com]. MindGeek (based in Montreal/Luxembourg) would operate Pornhub for the next decade. Antoon, of Syrian-Canadian background, became CEO; Tassillo (Canadian) became COO. Neither was Israeli (Tassillo has a Jewish-sounding middle name, but there’s no indication of any religious role in the company). MindGeek grew into a porn behemoth owning multiple top sites (Pornhub, YouPorn, RedTube) and studios. During this period, Pornhub’s content policies were relatively lax, much like other user-generated platforms. Anyone could upload videos, and verification of uploaders or performers was not stringent – a situation that later led to serious problems.
Content Moderation Changes: A turning point came in late 2020. In December of that year, a New York Times exposé by Nicholas Kristof accused Pornhub of hosting videos of rape, child abuse, and non-consensual acts, due to poor moderation. The fallout was immediate: major credit card companies (Visa and Mastercard) suspended payments with Pornhub after these revelations [techcrunch.com]. Facing public outrage and the threat to its revenue, Pornhub’s owner MindGeek took drastic action. On December 14, 2020, Pornhub announced the removal of all content uploaded by unverified users – millions of videos were taken down in one sweep [techcrunch.com]. Going forward, only verified creators or official content partners could upload to the site [techcrunch.com]. Pornhub characterized this as “the most comprehensive safeguards in user-generated platform history” [techcrunch.com]. In effect, the site instituted mandatory ID verification for all uploaders and disabled downloads of content to hinder redistribution of illegal videos. This was a major shift in policy, directly prompted by external pressure rather than an ownership change – MindGeek’s leadership at the time (Antoon and Tassillo) remained the same throughout 2020.
The scandal did, however, contribute to leadership changes soon after. In June 2022, under continued scrutiny (including lawsuits alleging MindGeek knowingly profited from trafficking and child porn), CEO Feras Antoon and COO David Tassillo resigned from their roles [reuters.com cseinstitute.org]. The company stated this transition had been planned, and the two remained shareholders, but it closely followed the public backlash and documentary investigations into Pornhub’s failures [cseinstitute.org]. MindGeek was left effectively leaderless at the top, and this paved the way for a new chapter.
In early 2023, a newly formed private equity firm named Ethical Capital Partners (ECP) acquired MindGeek (Pornhub’s parent company) [cseinstitute.org]. ECP – based in Canada – presented itself as a group committed to “ethical leadership” in sensitive industries [cseinstitute.org]. Its team includes professionals like a former RCMP police superintendent and tech and legal experts [cseinstitute.org]. Notably, one ECP co-founder and public face is Solomon Friedman, a Canadian criminal-defense lawyer who is also an ordained rabbi [time.com]. Friedman’s involvement garnered media attention as an unusual footnote (an “ordained rabbi” helping run Pornhub) [time.com], but he has framed it as an effort to reform the site’s ethics. Under ECP (which has full control of Pornhub’s parent), the company says it is doubling down on robust content moderation [cseinstitute.org cseinstitute.org]. As of 2023-2024, Pornhub’s policies require every content creator to verify their identity and age and to provide documentation of consent for all performers in a video ctvnews.ca]. Each new video is reviewed by human moderators before publication, in addition to AI-assisted screening [cseinstitute.org]. The company has implemented fingerprinting technology to automatically block re-uploads of banned content as well [cseinstitute.org]. These measures go beyond what Pornhub had a decade ago, and ECP claims it wants Pornhub to be a “model” for safer adult content platforms.
It’s worth noting that these content restriction changes do not neatly align with any Jewish takeover or such – they align with public and legal pressure. The major crackdown in 2020 occurred under MindGeek’s original owners (who are not Jewish), and the ongoing improvements in 2023 coincide with new ownership by ECP (which includes a Jewish figure, Friedman, but also others). In other words, the tightening of Pornhub’s moderation was driven by external scrutiny and business risk, not by the ethnicity of its owners. If anything, the new ownership by ECP – which removed the old MindGeek shareholders entirely [cseinstitute.org] – has simply continued the trajectory of stricter policies. Friedman and his partners have stated their goal is to “clean up” Pornhub’s reputation and ensure it operates within the law [time.com].
Conclusion
In summary, claims that Jews or Israelis “run” the porn industry are unfounded. While a number of Jewish individuals have been prominent in adult entertainment (especially in the U.S. historically) [finalcall.com], there is no evidence of any organized Jewish dominance of the general or gay porn sectors. Such claims originate from conspiracy theories or anti-Semitic propagandists [timesofisrael.com jpost.com] and should be viewed with skepticism. The history of Pornhub – from its Canadian founding by a diverse team in 2007, through ownership by a German investor, then a multinational company, and now a Canadian firm – illustrates that this industry’s leadership is international and driven by entrepreneurship, not by any particular ethnicity or religion. Moreover, Pornhub’s content moderation reforms in 2020–2021 were a reaction to societal and legal pressures, and those reforms have continued under new management in 2023, aimed at making the platform safer. The focus should remain on verifiable facts: individuals of various backgrounds have contributed to porn’s development, but the notion of a disproportionate Jewish/Israeli stranglehold over pornography is not supported by credible data and belongs in the realm of myth rather than reality [timesofisrael.com].
Sources:
Nathan Abrams, “Jews in the American Porn Industry,” Jewish Quarterly (Winter 2004)finalcall.comfinalcall.com.
Jerusalem Post – report on Al Jazeera’s claims (2019) jpost.com jpost.com.
Times of Israel – Jenna Jameson response to David Duke (2016) timesofisrael.com.
Ynet News – interview with Michael Lucas (2023) ynetnews.com.
Slidebean Tech Story – “Who Created Pornhub?” (2023) slidebean.com slidebean.com.
TechCrunch – “Pornhub removes all unverified content” (Dec 14, 2020) techcrunch.com techcrunch.com.
Reuters – “Pornhub-owner MindGeek CEO, COO resign” (June 21, 2022) reuters.com.
CSE Institute blog – “ECP: Pornhub’s New ‘Ethical’ Owners” (2023) cseinstitute.org cseinstitute.org.
TIME Magazine – “How an Ordained Rabbi Ended Up Owning Pornhub” (Sept 2024) time.com time.com.
