NEW YORK — New York Times opinion contributor Nicholas Kristof has announced that he’s leaving the respected newspaper to commit to a bid for the governorship of the U.S. state of Oregon. This news is relevant to the adult industry due to Kristof’s recent spate of alarmist and misinformed columns about the alleged criminal enterprise that in his mind appears to haunt the entirety of the porn industry.
In his reporting, Kristof has relied on extremist anti-porn groups like the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), formerly known as Morality in Media, seeming to swallow their claims about the adult industry whole without question. In December of 2020, Kristof published his notorious column titled “The Children of Pornhub,” alleging that that adult tube giant was ducking accountability from governments for their alleged widespread publication of CSAM and exploitative content. This was a major distortion Kristof recycled by citing the remarks of so-called experts from groups like NCOSE.
Payment processing giant Mastercard has also cited Kristof’s columns as reasons to discontinue their processing of card payments for companies that own websites like Pornhub. This policy change led to an industry-wide reckoning.
It left many independent adult content creators and online sex workers with no means of paying for their work or getting payouts for the work purchased through adult-friendly premium social media networks like the Fenix International Limited-owned OnlyFans.com.
In August, OnlyFans announced that the platform would prohibit nude content starting in October of this year. However, the policy was quickly walked back after only a few days due to the outrage from sex workers, adult studios, and other classes of creators who rely on OnlyFans to generate revenue. Tim Stokely, the chief executive officer of Fenix and a founder of the OnlyFans platform, blamed large financial institutions like Bank of New York Mellon and JPMorgan Chase for leading the company down a potential nudity ban on their site.
However, the OnlyFans team announced that the plans to block nude content were suspended that “assurances” have been issued by crucial financial partners to ensure that OnlyFans stays friendly for adult content creators and online sex workers. But, the harm done by the OnlyFans decision to ban nudity and the subsequent decision to permit nudity once again has left models untrusting of the platform.
Kristof’s columns have also been cited by far-right religious members of Congress and anti-porn Democrats to issue “Dear Colleague” letters and propose Section 230 fixes that gut legal protections for legal porn. He has also never reached out to any industry-financed groups that counter CSAM and work to limit exploitation in the adult space. Critics from within the adult industry have said that Kristof’s anti-porn celebrity status has caused irreparable harm to the industry.
YNOT reported earlier this year that the adult industry-funded ASACP, Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection, was never contacted by Kristof or any of his colleagues at the New York Times to discuss the industry’s efforts to fight child pornography and illegal content. Asked whether Kristof has overlooked the adult industry’s CSAM mitigation efforts, ASACP Executive Director Tim Henning said that Kristof “has absolutely and completely ignored the CSAM mitigation efforts in the industry.”
In his farewell column, Kristof bid farewell to readers. He discussed the work he did overseas covering war zones and major humanitarian crises. Kristof, however, neglected to mention his so-called “humanitarian work” covering adult industry players like MindGeek (the parent company of Pornhub.com) and XVideos.
“Good things are happening that we often don’t acknowledge, and they’re a result of a deeper understanding of what works to make a difference,” Kristof wrote.
Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) reports that Kristof announced his formal run for governor within hours of his column. Kristof intends to make the theme of economic insecurity a central component of his campaign for Oregon governor.
“Unaffordable housing, weak mental health support, inadequate education and a politics that has treated addiction not as a disease but as a crime,” Kristof said in a campaign video.
OPB journalists Dirk VanderHart and Lauren Dake added that much of Kristof’s platform remains “vague.”
Photo of Nicholas Kristof by Monika Flueckiger, Copyright by World Economic Forum. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. It has been resized.
