LOS ANGELES — Aylo has agreed to terms for a settlement with the plaintiffs in two long-running class actions over allegations that former Pornhub parent company MindGeek knowingly allowed and profited from CSAM on its sites.
Both cases were filed in the wake of the influential 2020 New York Times article “The Children of Pornhub,” journalist Nicholas Kristof’s controversial exposé alleging deficient content moderation practices by Pornhub under then-operator MindGeek. Anti-pornography groups seized upon the piece, citing it as evidence for their allegations linking the online adult industry with sex trafficking and CSAM.
In 2023, MindGeek was acquired by Ethical Capital Partners, which renamed it Aylo and embarked on a campaign of transparency. Since then, Aylo has been dealing with multiple legal actions originally directed against MindGeek.
In the two cases being settled, Jane Doe v. MindGeek USA Inc. et al. and Doe #1 et al v. MG Freesites LTD et al., U.S. district courts granted class certification for anyone who was under 18 when they appeared in a video or image viewable on any MindGeek website starting in February 2011.
In June, after a period of mediation, the parties in both cases signed a term sheet and began working to finalize a joint settlement agreement. On Friday, the parties filed the proposed agreement with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, seeking the court's preliminary approval.
Under the terms of the proposed agreement, Aylo makes no concession of wrongdoing and no admission regarding whether it is entitled to immunity under Section 230.
The company does, however, agree to pay $120 million into a settlement fund over six years and to implement a series of enumerated security measures for verifying the ages of uploaders and people appearing in content, detecting and removing suspected or actual CSAM, and expanding procedures regarding content removal requests, withdrawal of consent requests and content flagging.
In fact, Aylo has already implemented many such measures and has publicly stated that as of June 30, 2025, any content that did not meet its performer verification standards had been disabled and removed from Pornhub.
Aylo released a statement on the settlement, reading in part: "Over the years, we have put in place robust measures to help protect our platform from abuse. Only verified content creators can publish on our platform, and every upload is subject to a combination of technological tools and human review by trained moderators before it goes live, to confirm that it complies with our Terms of Service, Community Guidelines and related policies. Many of the commitments in this settlement reflect practices we already have in place. Trust and Safety should be a priority for every online platform, and we all share responsibility for a safer online experience. Every day, our trust and safety and engineering teams work alongside law enforcement, advocacy groups and other stakeholders to prevent online abuse and to hold those abusers to account.”
Industry attorney Corey Silverstein called the proposed order “an important step toward bringing meaningful relief and closure to people whose images and videos were allegedly distributed without adequate consent or legal safeguards.”
“The proposed settlement reflects the very real legal and business consequences that can arise when platforms allegedly fail to maintain rigorous consent, age-verification and content-management practices,” Silverstein told XBIZ. “The proposed order should reinforce for every operator in this space that documentation, consent and compliance cannot be treated as afterthoughts — they have to be built into the foundation of the business.”
A final approval hearing will be held no sooner than 96 days after the preliminary order is approved. Prior to that hearing, class members have the opportunity to file objections to the proposed settlement.
