LOS ANGELES — Solomon Friedman of Ethical Capital Partners, the investment group that controls Aylo and its flagship website, Pornhub, is profiled this week in Canada's National Post newspaper.
Friedman is an ECP partner and the firm's VP of compliance. In the article, titled "Porn, part of the human experience and possibly Canada’s greatest export," he discusses with writer Tyler Dawson the company's approach to online safety, his personal thoughts on the idea of porn addiction, and recent shifts he has seen in the adult business.
Friedman tells Dawson that he was first introduced to the industry when, as a lawyer, he was contacted by a group of investors looking to perform due diligence on MindGeek, as Pornhub's parent company was then known.
He dove in headfirst and came away impressed with what he saw: a cutting-edge tech company, first and foremost, with software that had the ability to aid law enforcement.
Friedman went back to his law partner, Fady Mansour, and together they formed a private equity group to acquire MindGeek themselves. According to Friedman, they recognized the value in “the gap between the public perception of what this company was about and the reality of what its values were.”
Values were already a familiar topic to Friedman, who also happens to be an ordained rabbi. From his perspective, all that MindGeek needed was an owner willing to step out of the shadows and answer questions about the business with honesty and transparency in an effort to dispel the stigma around it.
While Friedman acknowledges that sex work is controversial, he says it deserves the same protections as any other profession.
“At ECP, we fundamentally believe that sex work is work deserving of dignity, legal protection, and all the safeguards that a responsible platform can offer,” he tells the National Post. “We don’t take one category of labor and say this is fundamentally unacceptable and therefore should be deprived of the legal protections of labor ordinarily in our modern society.”
As far as safety goes, Friedman says that Aylo uses a third-party tool called Yoti that is used by government insurance companies, banks, and car rental agencies globally to verify identity. It involves a biometric face scan, and the application must be approved by a human moderator.
“It’s not YouTube, it’s not Facebook, it’s not Reddit — it’s not you just go and create an anonymous account,” says Friedman. “For every single verified uploader, the company knows exactly who they are and has verified their identity.”
He adds that each piece of content is also approved by both human moderators and automated means. Additionally, Aylo has banned "hypnosis" porn from its platforms, as well as spy cams, revenge porn, and scenes of violence or where consent is not evident — even in a fictional scene depicting known actors.
Some critics of the adult industry mistakenly believe that female performers are being forced or coerced into doing porn and don’t have free will of their own. Friedman calls such critics “patronizing, paternalistic, insulting,” noting that he’s seen a major shift from the studio model to that of individual content creators who can work from the safety and comfort of their own homes without traditional intermediaries.
“I think that’s a very positive development,” says Friedman. “The fewer people or intermediaries between a creator and audience, the far lower the likelihood of exploitation.”
Friedman says he believes there’s something “profoundly human” about the porn industry and disagrees with the notion that “porn addiction” is a real thing.
“This is not an accepted mental health diagnosis in the present diagnostic standards manual,” he explains. “The vast, vast majority of individuals are consuming it in a way that has absolutely no negative impact on their life. In fact, many report a positive impact on their sex life and their functioning. But if an individual is obsessed and spends all their money and their time, and it interferes with their real-life human relationships, that’s a big problem and they should seek assistance for that.”
The full article is available on NationalPost.com.
For more information on Pornhub, click here.