Despite the global crisis that is the COVID-19 pandemic, Pornhub has managed to get its name in the public eye a number of times recently. Sightings of “Coronavirus Porn” were seen on the site (along with other pornography sites), while the company famously gave out free Pornhub Premium subsriptions to those residing in Italy. That offer has since been extended to those in France and Spain, too.
Pornhub has also released a few figures from their statisticians, who studied the change in behaviour of users after the outbreak of COVID-19. The answer was clear: In general, worldwide traffic to Pornhub was up by 11.6% on March the 17th—around the time that many countries were beginning to feel the impact of the outbreak.
Countries that were given free Premium access also saw a huge spike in traffic—predictably. France showed a spike in 38.2%, while Spain saw a rise in traffic of 61.3% on March 17th; free Pornhub Premium began on the 16th of March for Spain and France.
The pornographic video hosting platform also shared numbers on the popularity of coronavirus-themed porn, with searches for “corona virus” first appearing on the 25th of January. That popularity—perhaps due to the novelty of the situation—has grown. In the past 30 days, more than 9.1 million searches containing either “corona” or “covid” have been made.
Where does the Malaysian audience rank?
Pretty high, if you look at Pornhub’s numbers. Visitors to Pornhub’s sites from Malaysia are more likely to search for coronavirus-themed porn than anywhere else in Asia—84%.
Globally, Slovakia ranks at the top of the list for “Countries Most Often Searching” for Coronavirus Porn, followed by Bulgaria, Ireland, and Malaysia. Interestingly, Pornhub’s sites are, by default, blocked by local ISPs in Malaysia, although there are workarounds to access blocked sites in general. That, perhaps, could be why Malaysians are yet to receive free access to Pornhub’s Premium services.
Additionally, statisticians also say that people generally stayed up later and stayed in bed for longer on the 17th of March, evidenced by increased traffic of 31.5% at 3am, and 26.4% at 1pm. This certainly makes sense, with impacted regions in a varying states of restriction; Malaysia is currently under a Movement Control Order that restricts non-essential movement.
To find out more, click here for Pornhub’s insights page.
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