Aylo, the parent company formerly known as Mindgeek, has agreed to pay $120 million to settle lawsuits alleging violations of federal laws regarding child sexual abuse material and sex trafficking.
The agreement resolves two class action lawsuits filed in 2021, one in California and another in Alabama. The California case involved a woman who claimed her ex-boyfriend uploaded videos of her when she was 16 to Pornhub. The Alabama suit alleged that two women were trafficked as minors and that their abuser uploaded footage of them to Mindgeek’s sites. One plaintiff stated she was drugged and raped at 16, noting that the abuser profited from the videos through Pornhub’s Modelhub program.
The settlement covers anyone under 18 who appeared in a video or image made available on a Mindgeek-owned or operated website between February 12, 2011, and December 6, 2024.
Mindgeek was acquired by Ethical Capital Partners and rebranded as Aylo in 2023. Aylo will contribute to the settlement fund with an initial $25 million payment in 2026, followed by six annual installments over the subsequent six years. A press release noted the deal resolves the matter without an admission of liability or wrongdoing by Aylo, pending court approval.
Beyond the financial payment, Aylo agreed to specific content moderation terms. These include verifying that all models in uploaded content are over 18, combining human and automated review to prevent illegal material from appearing, and reporting suspected abuse to authorities. Aylo’s sites have implemented many of these injunctive reliefs for years.
Following allegations of abuse material in late 2020 and being dropped by major credit card processors including Visa and Mastercard, Pornhub overhauled its trust and safety measures. The platform banned downloads, restricted uploads to verified users, and expanded its moderation processes. It also launched the “Trusted Flagger Program,” allowing non-profit internet and child safety organisations to immediately disable content flagged as abusive. In early 2021, Pornhub implemented biometric identity verification for uploaders through Yoti. In 2024, the site began requiring written proof of consent from everyone featured in every video.
Aylo management stated in a statement: “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.”
