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The true story behind the headlines

National Bestseller

Takedown: Inside the Fight to Shut Down Pornhub for Child Abuse, Rape, and Sex Trafficking
Penguin Random House
“Written like a detective thriller”
—Laura Italiano
"She took on the world's largest porn site for profiting off child abuse. She's winning.”
—Ingrid Jaques
“In Takedown, Mickelwait gives us what every generation desperately needs: an honest, human story of how we can live our lives with a love that does not look away and a hope that does not give in. I could not put this book down.”
Gary Haugen
—Gary Haugen
CEO and Founder of International Justice Mission, author of Locust Effect
“The sinister Pornhub porn barons have met their match in Laila Mickelwait. This impassioned book gives eye-popping insights into the darkest corners of the internet and offers hope for the future.”
Edward Lucas
—Edward Lucas
Author, investigative journalist, former senior editor at The Economist
“[Mickelwait's] new book is about her dogged investigation into the company, its secretive, mega-rich owners and Ferrari-driving executives, and the subsequent anonymous threats to her safety and privacy. Victims were threatened too.”
Megan Agnew
—Megan Agnew
The Sunday Times
“A testament to the tenacity of Mickelwait and others who refuse to ignore grave injustices. Documented in an accessible and highly entertaining style, her campaign did more than just clip Pornhub's wings.”
Julie Bindel
—Julie Bindel
The Spectator
“An engrossing story of greed and exploitation, Takedown is a tough indictment of one of the world’s darkest industries that reads like a thriller.”
Rosanna Arquette
—Rosanna Arquette
Actress, survivor-leader who helped bring Harvey Weinstein to justice, a catalyst of Tarana Burke’s #MeToo movement
“Laila Mickelwait devoted herself to stopping the human traffickers and enslavers making a fortune online. Cyberspace may be an unregulated digital paradise for traffickers, but Takedown is a guide for the future of abolition.”
Kevin Bales
—Kevin Bales
Professor of Contemporary Slavery and Pulitzer nominated author of Disposable People
“In this true-crime thriller, a brave young mother leads a movement to fight the world's biggest pornography company, along with the supposedly respectable corporations, like Visa and Mastercard, that knowingly enabled the global sale of sex crime videos. The story isn't over, but scores of survivors have already achieved a measure of justice.”
Dr. Judith Herman
—Dr. Judith Herman
Professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, author of Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice
“Takedown is the story of Laila's courageous fight against some of the most powerful companies in the world on behalf of society’s most vulnerable. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand child abuse, trafficking, and how a community can come together to protect women and children.”
Rachael Denhollander
—Rachael Denhollander
Attorney, survivor-leader who helped bring Larry Nassar to justice, and author of What’s a Girl Worth?
“Takedown is the thrilling and inspirational tale of Laila Mickelwait’s relentless leadership of the campaign against the dark empire of Pornhub. This story of triumph is a must read for anyone who wants to make a difference.”
Gerald Posner
—Gerald Posner
Attorney, Pulitzer finalist and author of Case Closed, and God’s Bankers
A group of people hold up Traffickinghub signs at a protest A woman with black tape on her mouth holds up a Traffickinghub sign at a protest

Takedown:
Inside the Fight to Shut Down Pornhub for Child Abuse, Rape, and Sex Trafficking

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Order Takedown today and get inspired and activated in the fight to hold Pornhub accountable and prevent this abuse in the future.


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Takedown Book

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Team Takedown

Team Takedown is a passionate coalition of bold, big-thinking, relentless activists who believe the era of impunity is over and that TOGETHER we can TAKE DOWN Pornhub, bring justice to victims, and implement policies that will prevent online sexual crime, making the Internet a safer place for generations to come. Take a stand for justice and join the team today.


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100% of author royalty proceeds are being donated to the Justice Defense Fund.

About the Book

The gripping, true story of the 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)



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About Laila

Laila Mickelwait is the Co-Founder and CEO of the , the Founder and leader of the Traffickinghub  movement supported by millions around the world, and the national bestselling author of Takedown: Inside the Fight to Shut Down Pornhub for Child Abuse, Rape, and Sex Trafficking (Penguin Random House, 2024). She has been researching and combating the injustice of sex trafficking since 2006 and is a leading expert in the field.

The Traffickinghub movement is a decentralized and diverse global effort to hold Pornhub accountable for enabling and profiting from mass sexual crime and implement policies that prevent criminal sexual abuse across the Internet. The Traffickinghub petition has been signed by over 2.3 million people from every country in the world. Over 600 organizations and hundreds of survivors have participated in the movement that resulted in Pornhub losing Visa, Mastercard, and Discover payment processing and being forced to take down 91% of the website by removing over 50 million images and videos, in what the Financial Times called “probably the biggest takedown of content in Internet history.”

Laila received her Master of Public Diplomacy degree from the Annenberg School of Communications and the Dornsife School of International Relations at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in conjunction with the U.S. Department of State. Her work has been featured in hundreds of news articles worldwide, in outlets such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, BBC News, The Times, CNN, Bloomberg, Reuters, AP, CNBC, Fox News, The Washington Post, USA Today, Newsweek, The New York Post, The Guardian, Business Insider, and many others.

Laila's work and the impact of the Traffickinghub movement have been covered in thousands of media pieces globally.

Traffickinghub
Petition

Shut Down Pornhub and Hold Its Executives Accountable for Aiding Trafficking

Sign the Petition
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