Pornhub’s parent company has been fined a $US5 million ($7.7m) penalty and will submit to a decade of oversight to settle claims that it hosted videos of child sex abuse material (CSAM) and nonconsensual material (NCM) and failed to prevent the spread of the content.
The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said Wednesday that Pornhub and Aylo, formerly known as MindGeek and the operator of Pornhub and more than 100 other pornographic sites, misled users by claiming it had “zero tolerance” for abusive content while in fact allowing, and in some cases promoting, videos and playlists featuring CSAM.
Under the settlement, Aylo must adopt a comprehensive compliance program, including systems to verify the ages and consent of people depicted in videos, technology to detect child sexual abuse material, the removal of unverifiable content and mandatory third-party reviews of its practices for the next 10 years. The company also must adopt a comprehensive privacy and data security program after regulators found it had mishandled Social Security numbers and IDs collected from performers.
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The settlement comes after an investigation conducted by Utah’s attorney general in conjunction with the FTC.
“Pornhub’s operators turned a blind eye to the proliferation of videos depicting the sexual abuse of children on its sites so it could profit off this exploitation,” Christopher Mufarrige, the director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in an emailed statement. Utah’s attorney general and the FTC detailed the allegations in a complaint made in federal court that became available Wednesday (Thursday AEST). The complaint alleged that Pornhub failed to uphold guarantees that it would ban users who uploaded such content and conduct reviews of its content to make sure it did not contain CSAM.
The settlement is one of the most sweeping US enforcement actions against one of the world’s largest adult entertainment companies. It follows years of scrutiny.
Pornhub came under fire in 2020, when a New York Times investigation found that the site, which at the time allowed users to upload videos with little oversight, was riddled with videos of rape and child abuse. Credit card companies like Discover, Mastercard and Visa soon blocked payments to the site. At the time, Pornhub did not specifically deny the allegations but claimed that “the safety of our community is our top priority” and instituted policies like insisting new content is only uploaded by verified users.
In response to Wednesday’s complaint, Aylo did not deny the allegations, but said the previously instituted safety policies “place us among the safest platforms on the internet.”
An Aylo spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the company has agreed to third-party compliance reviews for the next decade to ensure it is taking ample steps to remove illegal content, but that most of what the company agreed to has been in the works since it instituted an increased trust and safety program after the Times story.
The Aylo spokesperson claimed in the email to NBC that “the FTC’s complaints all stem from 2020 or earlier.”
However, an FTC spokesperson disputed that, saying that while some of the accusations in the agency’s complaint refer to conduct before 2020, other general allegations are ongoing and deliberately written in the present tense.
In 2023, Utah passed a law requiring porn sites to verify the ages of users attempting to access content on their platforms, which helped to initiate a wave of similar state laws across the country. In response, Pornhub blocked people in Utah from accessing the website. An industry group challenge to the law was dismissed in court.
