In an ongoing wave of erasure for sex spaces online, XTube, an adult website known for hosting adult content in a format similar to that of YouTube, has announced that it will permanently shutter on September 5.
"It's a sad day for us at XTube but we have to announce that after 13 years, XTube.com will be shutting down on September 5th," the company wrote in a statement available on its website that is available online. "We're proud of the vibrant community we've built since 2008 and we're grateful to all of you who have shared your content on our platform. Unfortunately, it's time for us to move on to green pastures and greater things."
XTube is owned by MindGeek, a behemoth in adult entertainment that also owns sites like PornHub.
As of this weekend, all video and photo uploads have been disabled as well as purchasing XTube Credits or any sort of subscriptions. All subscriptions will end August 1st, 2021. On September 16th all creators who are owed will receive their full payouts.
This is just the latest step that has seen sites either shutter or diminishes — sometimes even outlawing — the space they've had for adult content over the last few years. Sites like RentBoy have shuttered while Craigslist closed its Personals section, Tumblr banished adult content, and Facebook and Instagram have seemingly tightened the screws on anything that may be deemed suggestive. Others like Patreon and even eBay have similarly taken to erasing content that is deemed adult from their content. Much of this has come either as a result of legislation like SESTA/FOSTA or as a result of credit card processors threatening to pull services. This often comes after accusations of child pornography or after a raft of lawsuits due to pirated material being available on the platforms. Upload sites have often had lax enforcement around pirated material.
Pornhub, which is also owned by MindGeek, purged millions of unverified videos and changed who could upload videos in December. Mindgeek also owns RedTube and YouPorn.
Prior to this announcement, XTube had gone dark on social media for weeks.
