Pornhub’s parent company Aylo Holdings has been ordered to pay $1.8 million to the U.S. government for profiting off of sex trafficking. As part of the resolution, Aylo, formerly known as MindGeek, will be appointing a monitor to oversee its compliance efforts for the next three years.
This comes as Aylo and other adult content websites owned by the company have faced criticism for their lack of moderation when it comes to third-party uploads. In some cases, this has resulted in victims of sex trafficking being featured in videos without their consent or knowledge.
The specific focus of the investigation by the Eastern District of New York’s Attorney’s Office is on the adult content network GirlsDoPorn (GDP). This network has been posting videos on Pornhub and other Aylo websites since 2009. In 2019, a federal grand jury in the Southern District of California indicted GDP for sex trafficking, among other charges.
According to documents filed by Aylo, the company knowingly profited from GDP’s content. The authorities state that Aylo “knew or should have known” that the videos contained women who were not aware they were being filmed or that their videos would be shared publicly. In fact, many of these women had submitted complaints to Aylo between 2016 and 2019, stating that their videos were posted without their consent. However, it was only months after GDP was found guilty of sex trafficking that its videos were removed from Pornhub and other Aylo sites.
“This resolution will not only provide oversight over one of the largest online content distributors in the world and ensure the company’s lawful behavior, but it will also develop industry-wide standards for safety and compliance,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Pearce in a statement.
In an effort to address these issues, Pornhub introduced new features in 2020 such as banning video downloads and requiring user verification for video uploads. They also hired a law firm to conduct an independent review of their content compliance.
The company, now known as Aylo, has undergone changes in recent years, including being sold to a new private equity firm and the departure of its CEO and COO.
Recently, Pornhub, Stripchat, and XVideos were added to a list of platforms subject to strict regulation under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA). This act includes requirements for platforms to comply with child protection provisions, potentially leading to strict age verification measures.
In the United States, several states have already implemented laws requiring age verification for access to adult websites. In response, Pornhub initially required visitors to verify their age using an official app in Louisiana. However, after these laws expanded to other states, the company chose to block access entirely in those areas.
“Since [adding age verification], our traffic in Louisiana dropped approximately 80 percent,” said Pornhub in a statement. “Those people did not stop looking for porn. They just migrated to other corners of the internet that don’t verify age, that don’t follow the law, that don’t take user safety seriously, and that often don’t even moderate content.”
While these measures are intended to protect children, privacy advocates have raised concerns about the potential consequences of sharing personal information and compromising anonymity online. There is also a risk of government databases being hacked and this data falling into the wrong hands.
This presents a challenge for lawmakers as they push for internet regulation and safety without potentially creating additional issues.
