While you might not recognise the name MindGeek immediately, you will surely know of its varied properties including PornHub, RedTube and others.

One of those websites will soon be no more following a report from The Next Web. That website is Xtube and come 5th September it, along with all of its content, will be removed from the internet.

This closure is strange for a few reasons.

The first of those is that we cannot find Xtube’s official statement anywhere aside from the tweet below.

BREAKING: Major MindGeek porn tube site Xtube is SHUTTING DOWN September 5.

Lesson: If you can’t operate legally, you can’t operate at all.

Next up: Pornhub.#Traffickinghub #ShutItDown #GoodbyeXtube pic.twitter.com/gkvYeKE5wP

— Laila Mickelwait (@LailaMickelwait) July 6, 2021

While the lack of a blog post from Xtube or MindGeek is strange, an FAQ on Xtube confirms that on 5th September, the website will be taken offline.

The second peculiarity is that nowhere is it explained why Xtube is being shut down. While MindGeek can do whatever it pleases with its brands, this move is suspicious especially with how quickly this is happening.

Given the litany of lawsuits MindGeek and its websites have faced in the past the thinking is that perhaps Xtube was hosting illegal content and would prefer to shutter the site than have to face more monetary damages.

Unfortunately, until MindGeek issues a statement detailing why Xtube is shutting down, we can only guess the reasons.

It could be as simple as the website not generating enough revenue or that traffic is on the decline but, in those cases, we can’t see why MindGeek wouldn’t explain.

Ahead of Xtube’s shuttering no content can be uploaded to the website but thankfully payouts to models will still take place before the shutdown.

[Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash]