GENEVA - UN experts* today raised the alarm over the large-scale sexual exploitation of women and girls facilitated and monetised by Pornhub and its parent company Aylo Holdings, as well as the role of payment networks, and search engines.
The experts stressed that businesses cannot evade responsibilities for being complicit in human rights violations and providing available tools to direct perpetrators. "A red line must be drawn," the experts said. "Systems that facilitate and profit from the sexual exploitation of women and girls cannot merely be regulated at the margins, they must be fundamentally confronted."
They urged the Governments of the United States and Canada to fully prosecute Aylo and require third-party age and consent verification for all user-generated pornography sites. While no response was received from the Government of the United States, in its response, the Government of Canada acknowledged the need to "modernize the private sector privacy law" and to enact legislation that would hold social media service providers accountable for harmful content.
"We are concerned that the abuse reflects a broader pattern on platforms such as Xvideos and X.com, which allow user-generated pornography without reliable age or consent verification," the experts said. "Exploitation is further enabled through platform monetisation and the continued involvement of payment networks and search engines."
The experts raised concern over the burden placed on victims to remove non-consensual content, which often remained online despite repeated reports and effort, shifting responsibility onto victims. "This creates a system in which victims are forced to chase their own abuse. They are constantly retraumatised and, even many years after the initial abuse while abusive material continues circulating," they said.
"There is an urgent need for States to impose binding measures on Pornhub and other digital platforms distributing pornography," the experts said. Such measures include mandatory, third-party age and consent verification, including for all individuals depicted; rigorous monitoring and moderation modalities and the duty to remove violent and abusive images of children and of adults, particularly where they have not consented.
The experts noted positive steps taken by Aylo, while noting that these changes would not have been made without victims raising their voices and pursuing legal action in reference to the over 25 lawsuits and action by the US Federal Trade Commission. "Collectively, these actions led Pornhub to take down the majority of its content library since 2020, amounting to over 50 million unverified images and videos. Aylo's response makes clear that the company cannot credibly dispute its longstanding conduct in globally distributing and monetising the traumatic exploitation of victims on Pornhub."
Recalling the deferred prosecution agreement of December 2023, the experts expressed concern over the United States Government's failure to pursue full criminal accountability against Aylo, warning this risks reinforcing corporate impunity for large-scale online sexual exploitation. In December 2023, U.S. prosecutors reached a deferred prosecution agreement with Aylo, under which Aylo agreed to pay financial penalties and compensation to selected victims and accept external monitoring for three years. If it complies, the charges will be dismissed in 2026, and no conviction will be entered.
"The contrast is stark: individuals are imprisoned for trafficking, whilst the corporate entity that enabled and knowingly profited from the criminal enterprise on a large scale avoids conviction," they said.
The experts have raised these issues with Aylo Holdings and the Governments of the United States, the country of nationality of the two victims, and of Canada, where the headquarters of Aylo Holdings is located. They have also been in communication with the financial networks previously used to pay for content on Pornhub, such as Mastercard and Visa, as well as the internet companies that drive website traffic to Pornhub, such as Google LLC, Meta, and Microsoft Corporation.
