LOS ANGELES — A U.S. District Court judge on Monday granted preliminary approval to a settlement between Aylo and the plaintiffs in two class-action lawsuits 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 August, the parties filed a proposed agreement with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. On Monday, Judge Wesley Hsu granted preliminary approval to that proposal.
Under the terms of the 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.
A final approval hearing on the settlement agreement will be conducted on Feb. 26, 2027. Prior to that hearing, class members may still file objections to the proposed settlement.
