Pornhub Coughs up $5 Million FTC Fine—What This Might Mean for Other Adult Content Platforms
Penalty levied for failing to remove CSAM and NCM videos
Aylo Group Ltd, owner of the popular explicit video sharing site, PornHub, agreed to pay the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the state of Utah a five million dollar fine. According to an FTC press release, Aylo deceived “users by doing little to block tens of thousands of videos and photos featuring child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and nonconsensual material (NCM) despite claiming that this content was “strictly prohibited.’’’
The substantial fine comes on the heels of a 2020 New York Times article exposing the company’s failure to control PornHub’s content. As another New York Times piece noted, this caused Mastercard and Visa to cut ties with Aylo, which, even after Aylo started requiring content uploaders and performers to provide proof of consent and of legal age.
J’Accuse!
The FTC press release also accused Aylo of misleading those very same content providers, writing that it “told its models that they could ‘trust that their personal data remains secure’ yet failed to use standard security measures to protect the data.”
But Aylo’s problems didn’t stop there. The FTC said the company was also unable or unwilling to block anyone attempting to upload CSAM videos, instead only keeping them from circumventing the ban by setting up other accounts using the username or email address.
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Not only that, but Aylo was caught in a lie when it claimed it had begun digitally marking potentially under-age content to alert them should the producer try to resubmit it to any of PornHub’s other sites—but the FTC pointed out this wasn’t effectively implemented for four years, from 2017 to 2021, resulting in what could be as many as a hundred CSAM videos being re-uploaded.
We promise, really—
In response, Aylo told TechCrunch it would be redoubling its self-policing efforts, pledging to “reaffirms [its] efforts to prevent the publication of CSAM and NCM.”
However, though accepting the judgment and fine, Aylo seems resistant to its intent, adding “The resolution reached involved enhancements to existing measures but did not introduce any new substantive requirements that were not either already in place or in progress”—apparently unaware of how many times it failed to fulfill any of its previous promises.
By admitting guilt, along with paying the five million dollar fine, Aylo agreed to verify the content and legal identity of anyone appearing in content submitted to PornHub or its other adult platforms; establish new, more stringent ways to halt the spread of underage and/or nonconsensual materials to any of its sites; permanently delete any CSAM and NCM still in its systems.
Porn needs help
Though their efforts might end up driving adult content viewers to unblocking sites, the age-verification laws sweeping the United States and other countries have certainly hit adult platforms where it hurts them the worst: their bank accounts.
Case in point: Anthony Penhale, Aylo’s chief legal officer, even went so far as to send a letter to Microsoft, Google, and Apple, begging for their help. As Wired reported, he asked the tech giants to integrate age-verification tech into not just every app they sell but into their operating systems as well:
Based on our real-world experience with existing age assurance laws, we strongly support the initiative to protect minors online. However, we have found site-based age assurance approaches to be fundamentally flawed and counterproductive.
While Apple and Microsoft didn’t respond to Wired’s request to comment on the letter, Google’s Karl Ryan gave a less than supportive answer, saying,
Google is committed to protecting kids online, including by developing and deploying new age assurance tools like our Credential Manager API that websites can use. We don’t allow adult entertainment apps on Google Play and would emphasize that certain high-risk services like Aylo will always need to invest in specific tools to meet their own legal and responsibility obligations.
Storm on the horizon
Putting all this together, it appears Aylo’s dug itself into an extremely deep hole with every failure to block content exploiting non-consensual and underage performers, who suffer great emotional, physical, and financial harm. And Aylo’s out and out lies may ensure it may never see the light of day again.
Worse, its Google, Microsoft, and Apple letters might even be read as an admission of guilt, that despite its public commitment to do better, it seems to admit it can’t fulfil the promises it made to the FTC.
If so, as with any adult platform unable to grasp the why people are up in arms about CSAM and NCM content, then Aylo and all of its other sites deserve an unmarked grave.
Image Sources: Depositphotos
