Porn has always been an effective way to spread subversive ideas about sexuality, society, and even politics. But rarely does the political sphere seek out porn as a cover for its political agendas. Oddly, however, that’s exactly what Chinese propagandists have been doing for months now.
Since pro-democracy protests broke out in Hong Kong in June, the Chinese government has been waging a war of information against the protesters. “Chinese state-owned media outlets have depicted the protesters as violent separatists advocating independence,” wrote Jane Li at at qz.com. Independence isn’t what the protesters are after, of course—they want protection from extradition, greater democracy, and a curb on police brutality. But Chinese disinformation aimed at poisoning worldwide opinion against the protesters isn’t about to be deterred by things like facts…or standard channels for spreading ideas.
By early September, China’s anti-protester sentiments were spreading to social media. And not just vanilla social media, either. On September third, Echo Huang at Yahoo.com wrote, “Some Twitter accounts at the center of Beijing’s recent online campaign had been tweeting a range a content including pornography.” And, given porn’s popularity on Twitter—one of few remaining social media platforms that allows adult content, “At least two of the four accounts with the most retweets were related to pornography.”
The former-porn Twitter accounts appear to have been purchased by pro-Chinese groups, then repurposed to post anti–Hong Kong content, utilizing their large follower bases as a way to spread disinformation. Twitter removed two hundred thousand accounts found to be spreading propaganda, with Facebook and YouTube following suit.
But Chinese interests refused to be deterred. Last week, qz.com’s Jane Li broke the story that anti–Hong Kong videos were turning up on Pornhub. “Searches by Quartz on Wednesday (Nov. 13) for phrases like ‘Hong Kong rioters’ found at least a dozen recently uploaded videos,” wrote Li, depicting “Hong Kong citizens expressing their praise for Hong Kong police [and] news clips from Chinese state broadcaster CCTV condemning the protesters for violent behavior,” as well as footage of a man being set on fire after arguing with protesters, along with commentators calling protesters “fascists” and “cockroaches.”
Shu Chang, a Chinese online commentator with over 3 million followers on Chinese social media platform Weibo, said in a post translated by qz.com, “YouTube would not allow us to upload those videos so we have no other way but to post the videos to Pornhub.”
It’s a pretty smart plan, actually. Pornhub’s wide-open platform allows users to upload nearly anything with relatively little screening. And, given the site’s staggeringly massive viewership, the propaganda could be seen by hundreds of millions.
In a statement to the New York Post, Pornhub’s vice president, Blake White, said, “We have reviewed and removed the videos as soon as we were made aware of them for violating Pornhub’s Terms of Service.” As such, most of the pro-China videos weren’t seen by more than a few thousand people each before they were removed.
But Pornhub might have a hard time keeping its sprawling site free of these videos, as they can be re-uploaded by anyone, anywhere, at any time. Still, if Pornhub succeeds in keeping Chinese propaganda off its platform, it will be interesting to see where the material pops up next—live webcam shows, perhaps?
