Pornhub parent company Aylo and its affiliates have settled a lawsuit filed by the FTC and the state of Utah, which alleged that the company “deceived users” about the presence of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and non-consensual material (NCM) on its websites. The porn kingpin settled the suit for a paltry $5 million.
404Media reports that the FTC announced this week that Pornhub and its parent company Aylo reached a settlement in a lawsuit filed by the FTC and the state of Utah. The complaint alleged that Pornhub and its affiliates “deceived users by doing little to block tens of thousands of videos and photos featuring child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and nonconsensual material (NCM) despite claiming that this content was ‘strictly prohibited.’”
As part of the proposed settlement, Aylo and its affiliated companies will be required to establish a program to prevent the distribution of CSAM and NCM on its websites and pay a $5 million penalty to the state of Utah. Aylo, in a statement to 404 Media, reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining the highest standards of safety and compliance on its platforms, stating that the agreement strengthens the comprehensive safeguards that have been in place for years.
The settlement resolves the matter without any admission of wrongdoing by Aylo. In addition to the penalty fee, the proposed settlement requires Aylo to implement several measures, including:
- Establishing a system to verify that people who appear in videos or photos on its websites are adults and have provided consent to the sexual conduct, as well as its production and publication.
- Removing content uploaded before the implementation of these programs until Aylo verifies that the individuals participating were at least 18 at the time the content was created and consented to the sexual conduct and its production and publication.
- Posting a notice on its website about the FTC and Utah’s allegations.
- Implementing a comprehensive privacy and information security program to address the privacy and security issues detailed in the complaint.
Pornhub had already begun overhauling its content and moderation practices in 2020, following allegations of child pornography and sex trafficking, which led to Visa, Mastercard, and Discover suspending their services to the site and its network. The company purged hundreds of thousands of videos from its sites in early 2020, registered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), and started requiring proof of consent from every person who appeared in content on the platform in 2024.
The complaint from Utah and the FTC focused largely on content that appeared on Pornhub prior to 2020 and included allegations against several of the 100 different websites owned by Alyo (then Mindgeek, prior to the company’s 2023 acquisition by Ethical Capital Partners) and its affiliates. The complaint cited examples of CSAM identified on websites such as KeezMovies, SpankWire, and ExtremeTube, with titles suggesting rape, incest, and non-consensual acts.
Pornhub has engaged in a high profile battle with states instituting age verification laws to ensure internet users under 18 are not accessing porn sites. As Breitbart News previously reported, Florida recently filed suit against Pornhub for not complying with its age verification law:
Attorney General Uthmeier, a father of young children himself, stated: “Multiple porn companies are flagrantly breaking Florida’s age verification law by exposing children to harmful, explicit content. As a father of young children, and as Attorney General, this is completely unacceptable. We are taking legal action against these online pornographers who are willfully preying on the innocence of children for their financial gain.”
Read more at 404Media here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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