> the US gov went full on war against torrent websites and closed every one of them no matter how small

A teacher in a Soviet provincial day care center tells the children: “The Soviet Union is where the best hospitais are found, the best schools, trains, airplanes, the best factories, the best candy and toys…” Some of the children cry out, “We want to live in the Soviet Union!”

Must be nice to live in US that had victory against torrents.

Does it actually host so many illegal videos? It is difficult to verify those claims (as certainly one can't simply go there to search for some child porn, and usually the videos will already have been removed when a story is published). Maybe actual criminal proceedings could be checked with the police? Are there articles that provide such references?

See, the comment above you is how the reader of that article was supposed to react, while you are the irregular one asking questions.

The article simply lies. Finding illegal content on a giant service like Pornhub is actually less likely because of the automated moderation and content identification systems that already have most of the unwanted content in their databases. In comparison, some small sites or forums might still have something uploaded a decade ago, and do nothing about it until someone complains. Also, if you think that a company of that scale doesn't have behind-the-scenes agreements with law enforcement (in addition to whatever legal obligations they have in native jurisdiction), you don't understand how internet works today, and who is the global policeman in it.

Any serious internet user knows that stories of common people finding “loads of child porn” somewhere are obvious fantasies. Heck, even some other content that teens shared on CD-Rs 15 years ago is nowhere to be found today. But the article is clear about the type of people it addresses, and it's not actual internet users.

I wonder what percentage of lawmakers are regular users of PornHub and its affiliates.