Investigators say staff at “moral-free” porn site Motherless uploaded thousands of videos themselves, including 23 containing child sexual abuse imagery, as the 62m-a-month platform faced renewed scrutiny
Employees of a “moral-free” X-rated website were found to frequently upload videos including footage of child sexual abuse. Motherless, a notorious, massive image and video-sharing adult website that garnered roughly 62 million visits per month became the center of a massive international criminal scandal following joint investigations by CNN and the Dutch broadcaster NOS.
In a new research involving NOS and watchdog group Offlimits, thousands of videos uploaded by Motherless employees between 2100 and 2025, were identified.
This reportedly included one staff member alone who uploaded as many as 110,000 videos. Moreover, 23 videos uploaded by Motherless staff were found to contain child sexual abuse imagery.
NOS reported that the videos showing child sexual abuse imagery were still accessible online on Thursday evening (June 4). Offlimits director Robbert Hoving said: “Every image is one too many.
“I hope this will prompt further investigation into the site.” The Authority for Online Terrorist and Child Pornographic Material (ATKM) called it “shocking” that the administrators of the site uploaded child sex abuse images themselves, NL Times reported.
ATKM director Arda Gerkens told NOS: “Unfortunately, there is no obligation for these types of websites to do everything in their power to prevent dissemination. Otherwise, there would be sanctions for that as well.”
20,000 videos
Earlier this year, journalists began examining a disturbing online network in the wake of the French abuse trial of Gisèle Pelicot. Their reporting suggested Motherless had become a central hub for a category of content referred to on the platform as “sleep [x-rated content]”.
The investigations alleged the site hosted more than 20,000 videos showing women who appeared to be drugged, sedated or unconscious being sexually assaulted. Users were said to be promoting the material using tags including #passedout and #eyecheck, with links also drawn to private Telegram channels described by media as “online rape academies”, where men allegedly exchanged tips on drugging partners without their knowledge.
Because Motherless was hosted on servers in the Netherlands, NOS and current affairs programme Nieuwsuur examined its operations there, including the role of the hosting provider, NFOrce. In a key development, NOS said it worked with digital safety group Offlimits, which led to the discovery about the Motherless staff.
The combined pressure generated by the CNN reporting and NOS’s findings prompted action by Dutch authorities. On May 8, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service intervened and the Motherless website was taken offline.
But less than two weeks later, it came back online and was still hosted in the Netherlands by the same provider – Nforce from Steenbergen, according to NL Times. Nforce told NOS it had been given permission to restore the service.
After the site returned, administrators said it had rules prohibiting abuse and that a “small number of uploaders” were exploiting the platform. “With tens of thousands of uploads per day, every violation is like finding a needle in a haystack,” they said.
“All content on this site is 100 percent user-uploaded.”
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