Tea at Trianon: Major Pornographic Website Announces It Is Shutting Down

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Major Pornographic Website Announces It Is Shutting Down

From Elizabeth Johnston:

The pornographic website XTube is set to close its digital doors in September, something which is being hailed by anti-trafficking advocates. This comes as parent company XTube shares with the massive pornography platform, Pornhub, faces increasing scrutiny for allegedly profiting from, by some accounts knowingly, illegal content. Fox Business reported that it is not entirely clear why the website is set to shut down, but in a statement, parent company Mind Geek said it expects users will be adequately “served” on its other platforms.

“Like any tech company, we are constantly evaluating our content offerings and products to best serve our users,” the company said in a statement. “XTube has always had a dedicated but small community, and we believe that its users and creators will be better served on one of our existing platforms, where they will be able to take advantage of wider reach and increased visibility,” the statement continued. Anti-trafficking advocate Laila Mickelwait, who founded the activist group Traffickinghub, cheered the news on Twitter as a major blow to the porn giant Mind Geek, who she says pulls a profit from the “mass sex-trafficking and exploitation of women and minors.”

“Another one bites the dust,” the activist wrote.

“Soon we’ll be saying goodbye to the whole ‘MindGeek Criminal Enterprise’ as owners Antoon, Tassillo and Bergmair are hauled away in handcuffs for profiting from & globally distributing ‘child pornography’/CSAM, rape & sex trafficking,” she predicted. (Read more.)