(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — A potential loophole that could let predators share videos of child sex abuse on Pornhub has Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and 25 of his counterparts demanding answers from the company behind the website.
“Without airtight safeguards, a website like this can become a haven for child molesters, rapists and other abusers,” Yost said. “It appears the people in charge left the gate unlocked for predators, and the company needs to explain itself.”
In a letter to Aylo, Pornhub’s Montreal-based parent company, the attorneys general question Pornhub’s practices for vetting user-uploaded content to ensure participants are consenting adults, rather than victims of child sex abuse and other crimes.
The inquiry was prompted by an undercover journalist’s recorded conversations with Mike Farley, an Aylo technical product manager. According to Farley, content creators must submit a photo ID for verification when opening a Pornhub account, but they are not required to show their faces in materials uploaded to the website. In other words, there is no guarantee the people shown in the uploads are participating willingly and legally.
The journalist asks Farley if rapists exploit the flaw to share videos of their victims. Farley responds, “Of course. Of course.” Asked if human traffickers do the same, he replies, “To do what? To make money? Of course.” Farley offers this solution: “You (Pornhub) shouldn’t have content up [if] you can’t identify the person.”
In their letter, the attorneys general seek Aylo’s response to the claims and an explanation of the company’s plan to fix the alleged loophole, so no children or other victims are abused for profit on its platforms.
The letter also asks what steps the company is taking to prevent the spread of child sex abuse materials generated by artificial intelligence, a growing concern that Yost and every other state attorney general in the nation shared with Congress earlier this month.
Aylo and Pornhub are no strangers to controversy. Formerly known as MindGeek, the company changed its name to Aylo in August amid lawsuits alleging that it profits from child pornography and videos of nonconsensual sex. Last year, Visa and Mastercard shut off payment processing for advertising on Pornhub due to similar concerns. Additionally, YouTube and Instagram suspended Pornhub’s accounts on the social media sites for policy violations.
