NATIONAL BESTSELLER

The gripping, true story of one woman’s battle to expose and shut down a criminal online porn empire.

Pornhub was the 10th most visited site on the Internet, often praised as a progressive champion of women. Then one day, an activist discovered a secret they had been keeping from the world for over a decade: it was infested with child sexual abuse and rape videos.

Now for the first time, anti-trafficking expert and mother of two Laila Mickelwait tells the story of her battle against Pornhub’s billionaire executives and the credit card companies who helped them monetize the abuse of countless victims—some as young as three years old. Readers will follow her from her first horrifying discovery of criminal content on Pornhub to closed-door meetings with credit card executives, White House and Justice Department senior officials, a powerful hedge-fund manager and more. Through insider accounts from Pornhub moderators and executives, you’ll meet the world’s first online porn tycoon, AKA “the Zuckerberg of porn,” along with Pornhub’s top brass (known internally as “The Bro Club”) who operate in secrecy.

The culmination of years of activism, Takedown is the true, never before told story of how Mickelwait mobilized a movement of two million people and together they accomplished "the biggest takedown of content in Internet history." (Financial Times)

"For years, it was an open secret that Pornhub was infested with child sexual abuse material, revenge porn, and illegal content. The billion-dollar website's executives happily took advantage of how difficult it was to moderate and discipline criminals, and for years they were rewarded financially. That is, until activist Laila Mickelwait decided to do something about it. Takedown is a shocking exposâe of the criminal inner workings of the world's largest porn empire, and one activist's battle to destroy it. For years, Pornhub and its shadowy parent company MindGeek were complicit in a sex trafficking scheme that destroyed the lives of victims as young as twelve years old - all while Pornhub dubbed itself a champion of women. Readers will follow Mickelwait from her first horrifying discovery of unmoderated content on Pornhub to her fight with major credit card companies who ignored her petitions in favor of profit. Through accounts from firsthand witnesses like Pornhub moderators and industry executives, you'll meet the world's first online porn tycoon, AKA "the Zuckerberg of porn," and read his desperate pleas to take back his company after losing everything; as well as Mindgeek's top brass (known internally as "The Divas") who operate in shadowy secrecy. Mickelwait's journey to bring these men to justice takes her all the way to Washington D.C., where she bravely testifies before Congress on behalf of the millions of victims of Pornhub. Today, Pornhub has been forced to delete 80% of its content--and Mickelwait isn't stopping there. Takedown will forever transform the way we think about the pornography industry, challenging our beliefs about safety, freedom, and liberation. The ambitious culmination of years of activism, Takedown uncovers an intricate web of conspiracy amidst a lawless industry operating behind closed doors"--