The U.S. government has agreed to drop criminal charges against Pornhub related to sex trafficking after three years of monitoring, the Department of Justice announced Thursday afternoon.
Prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York entered a deferred prosecution agreement with Pornhub parent company Aylo, in which the company has agreed to be independently monitored for three years and make payments to the federal government and to victims of the trafficking.
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“Motivated by profit, Aylo Holdings knowingly enriched itself by turning a blind eye to the concerns of victims who communicated to the company that they were deceived and coerced into participating in illicit sexual activity,” FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge James Smith said in a press release. “Make no mistake, any entity that engages in sexual exploitation will be held to account for the mental anguish and terror imposed on victims. I hope today’s proceedings bring a sense of justice to the victims in this case as they move forward in their lives.”
The deferred prosecution agreement requires Aylo to pay the U.S. government $1,844,952.83, as well as make undisclosed payments to the victims of the trafficking whose images showed up on websites like Pornhub and other Aylo-run pornography sites.
Proceedings for the agreement were held before U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Lois Bloom.
The independent monitoring entity, when named, will be tasked with tracking Aylo’s compliance with the terms of the agreement for three years, including ensuring “due diligence protocols for its content partners and content programs.”
It will also keep track of Aylo’s content moderation practices and make sure Aylo has sufficient staffing and resources to “address, mitigate and remediate takedown requests or allegations of the presence of illegal content.” The company will also be checked for how well it discloses the presence of illegal material on its website to the proper authorities.
If Aylo breaches the agreement within the three-year window, it will face prosecution.
The deferred prosecution agreement comes after the FBI concluded an investigation into Aylo for its connection with GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys, several founders of which have been convicted of sex trafficking offenses and “deceiving and coercing young women to appear in sex videos which were then posted online without the women’s consent.”
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Aylo admitted in documents filed earlier Thursday that it knew or should have known it was profiting from the sex trafficking operations.
“This deferred prosecution agreement holds the parent company of Pornhub.com accountable for its role in hosting videos and accepting payments from criminal actors who coerced young women into engaging in sexual acts on videos that were posted without their consent,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said. “This Office is committed to ensuring internet safety and protecting people from online sexual exploitation. It is our hope that this resolution, which includes certain agreed payments to the women whose images were posted on the company’s platforms and an independent monitorship brings some measure of closure to those negatively affected.”
