Ad server domain name changes hands, sending hardcore porn to mainstream websites

Yesterday, Phil Torrone of Adafruit messaged to alert me to the fact that an old post of mine on Make: had a porn video where a video on artful welding used to be. Yikes! [Fixed.]

Turns out, this is something that's been happening to other sites, too, like The Washington Post, Uproxx, New York magazine, and the Huffington Post.

Vice writes:

Hardcore porn is embedded all over regular-ass websites because a porn company has purchased the domain of a popular, defunct video hosting site.

This is because a porn site called 5 Star Porn HD bought the domain for Vidme, a brief YouTube competitor founded in 2014 and shuttered in 2017. Its Twitter account is still up, but the domain lapsed. 

Seemingly any vid.me embeds now redirect to the 5 Star Porn HD homepage. The site vid.me also redirects there.

So, if you have a website that embeds video, make sure to do a search for any old vid.me content.

Thanks, PT!

Image: Screengrab