Sex trafficking: Pornhub’s parent company will pay $1.8 million in the United States to escape prosecution

2023-12-22 09:24:39

Accused of sex trafficking, the parent company of the pornographic site Pornhub, Aylo Holdings, has reached an agreement with the American justice system in order to escape prosecution. This company based in Montreal, Quebec, has sealed a so-called “deferred prosecution” agreement, according to a statement from the US Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Brooklyn, New York, published Thursday.

Aylo Holdings has agreed to pay more than $1.8 million to the federal state and to financially compensate “individuals who are victims of sex trafficking,” according to the American justice press release. In addition, for a three-year probationary period, the parent company of Pornhub.com and porn sites such as Brazzers and Youporn will be under surveillance by a US judicial authority to ensure that it complies with the terms of the agreement. .

“This deferred prosecution agreement makes Pornhub.com’s parent company responsible for hosting videos and agreeing to be paid by criminals who forced young women to perform sexual acts on videos that were then broadcast without permission. their consent,” Brooklyn federal prosecutor Breon Peace said in the statement. The magistrate said “hope that this (transactional) settlement, with financial compensation to women whose image was posted on the company’s platforms, (them) will allow them to turn the page”.

Videos published without consent

On its website, Aylo, founded in Montreal in 2004, claims to “offer global adult entertainment on some of the safest platforms on the internet”. According to federal justice, Aylo began in 2009 producing and distributing pornographic videos on Pornhub.com created by the company GirlsDoPorn (GDP) of a certain Michael Pratt and associates.

These individuals were indicted in 2019 in California for sex trafficking and accused of deceiving and forcing young women to appear in pornographic videos posted online without their consent.

This legal agreement in the United States comes the day after an announcement by the European Commission in Brussels which added the pornographic sites Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos to the list of very large online platforms subject to reinforced controls as part of the new legislation on digital services, particularly for the protection of minors.