To Comcast, valuable ‘customer choice’ means promoting and selling videos glorifying themes of incest, racism, sexism, prostitution, and exploitation.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation sent a letter [Trigger Warning: explicit pornographic film titles offered by Comcast listed within the letter] to Comcast executives to bring their attention to this issue and to inform them that they could be in violation of the law for producing illegal obscene material.
On June 3, 2016, Comcast Senior Executive Vice President, David Cohen, wrote back and refused to remove Comcast’s offensive and harmful pornographic content.
“Ultimately, Comcast’s goal is to provide our customers with choice and a wide range of programming options,” Mr. Cohen wrote.
The full letter is available for review here.
This anemic defense of consumer “choice” does not mask Comcast’s flagrant social irresponsibility, open misogyny, and raw corporate greed.
Many of Comcast’s on-demand pornography offerings focus on sexually degrading specific races, and even on stepfathers or other adults exploiting “teenage” girls.
While performers may be adults, much of Comcast’s pornography attempts to accentuate first-time sexual experiences of females, as well as the youthfulness and sexual inexperience of the female performers. Comcast is, therefore, catering to the sexual fantasies of consumers interested in sex with the underaged.
In addition to its vast on-demand pornography offerings, Comcast provides copious amounts of pornography via Playboy, Vivid, Hustler, and TEN subscription channels. All in all, there are, by one review conducted in April 2016, 515 X-rated offerings on XFINITY/Comcast.
By selling this pornography, Comcast is contributing to racism and rape culture.
At present, our society is reeling from racial stereotypes and violence, colleges and universities are wrestling with an epidemic of sexual assault, thousands of young women and girls are being trafficked for purposes of prostitution, and child sexual abuse is 75 times more common than pediatric cancer.
Further, Comcast’s sale of pornography likely violates U.S. law, 18 U.S. Code Section 1468, which prohibits the distribution of obscene matter—otherwise known as hardcore pornography—by means of a cable or subscription services on television. The law is clear on this point, and NCOSE intends to inform the Department of Justice about Comcast’s persistent practice of peddling pornography.
