A group advocating against the sexual exploitation of women is calling on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate pornography website Pornhub and its parent company Aylo Holdings for facilitating child sexual abuse.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) made the request Tuesday on the heels of the DOJ prosecution of people involved with the San Diego-based website GirlsDoPorn. The website did business with Aylo, a Canadian company formerly known as MindGeek, until October 2019 when the DOJ shut the website down after it charged senior executives with sex trafficking and other offenses.
Earlier this month, Aylo and the DOJ reached a deferred prosecution agreement in which Aylo avoided federal charges of sex trafficking and the sexual exploitation of minors, including child pornography. Aylo denied any wrongdoing and said it voluntarily agreed to make monetary payments to individuals who were defrauded by the operator of the GirlsDoPorn/GirlsDoToys websites whose images were posted on the company's platforms without their consent.
"Given its long track record of enabling sexual abuse and exploitation, it is doubtful that Aylo will be able to comply with the promises it's making to the U.S. government in terms of moderation requirements," said Haley McNamara, vice president of strategy and communications for NCOSE in a news release.
"The GirlsDoPorn case is one of many other cases of sexual abuse on Pornhub. In fact, there are three other lawsuits against Pornhub/Aylo involving child sexual abuse that was on Pornhub — the Department of Justice should investigate these cases, as well."
McNamara said an undercover investigation showed Pornhub/Aylo has allowed videos to depict people without identifying every person and getting their consent, such as videos where faces are not visible.
"Further, Pornhub/Aylo has a long history of claiming to use state-of-the-art technology and human moderation tactics, but an ex-employee has spoken out saying that as recently as August 2023, the company still used lackluster criteria like whether people in videos were wearing makeup as a key indication for if they were an adult or child," McNamara said.
"In fact, Pornhub/Aylo has a history of verifying accounts of sex traffickers themselves who go on to post child sexual abuse material — clearly Pornhub's ability to meaningfully verify age, consent, and identity has failed historically, again and again. We call on the DOJ to ensure strict enforcement of the promises Aylo is making and urge the DOJ to open additional investigations."
The NCOSE filed a class action lawsuit in July 2021 on behalf of a child sex trafficking survivor against Pornhub. It also said it is co-counsel in a lawsuit against Pornhub and XHamster filed on behalf of nine women who were secretly filmed while changing in a college locker room for a field hockey game, the footage of which was then uploaded to Pornhub and XHamster, another pornography website.
Newsmax reached out to the DOJ and Aylo for comment.