The parent company of Pornhub has agreed to pay a $1.8m fine to avoid criminal prosecution for profiting from sex trafficking videos.
US officials announced last week that they had reached a final deal with the Canadian online porn giant Aylo Holdings, which owns a slew of adult sites including RedTube, YouPorn, and Brazzers.
In exchange for avoiding prosecution, Aylo admitted that it made money from sex trafficking and will pay compensation to some of the victims, as well as submitting to independent monitoring for the next three years.
Prosecutors said that the company had repeatedly failed to act on information that certain videos were posted on its service without the performers' consent, all the while continuing to make money from them.
"Motivated by profit, Aylo Holdings knowingly enriched itself by turning a blind eye to the concerns of victims who communicated to the company that they were deceived and coerced into participating in illicit sexual activity," said James Smith, head of the FBI's New York field office.
"Make no mistake, any entity that engages in sexual exploitation will be held to account for the mental anguish and terror imposed on victims.
"I hope today’s proceedings bring a sense of justice to the victims in this case as they move forward in their lives."
In a statement last month announcing the beginnings of agreement, Aylo said that it "deeply regretted" hosting the videos but insisted it was "unaware" that they had been produced by criminal means.
The case stems from a sprawling US criminal investigation and a parallel civil lawsuit against GirlsDoPorn (GDP), a San-Diego-based adult film studio which often posted videos on Pornhub before its closure in 2020.
Prosecutors say the studio used a battery of tricks and threats to manipulate women into appearing in porn videos that they believed would never be posted online.
The studio allegedly plied victims with alcohol and cannabis, made them sign false legal documents, and coerced those who tried to back out by blocking doors, threatening to sue them, or threatening to post their videos on the internet.
Multiple people involved with the studio have since pled guilty to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, while the studio's owner Michael Pratt is reportedly awaiting extradition from Spain to stand trial in the US.
According to prosecutors, Aylo was first notified about these concerns in 2016 and was repeatedly asked to remove GDP's videos by victims who said they had never given their consent.
Despite this, Aylo allegedly took GDP's word against the victims' and continued to make money from the videos, even after a GDP videographer testified in court that nonconsensual videos had been posted on PornHub.
Although GDP was finally banned from PornHub in October 2019, prosecutors say that Aylo did not take steps to remove unofficial GDP videos and also failed to act on a sister channel that was run by the same people and featured many of the same performers.
In its statement, Aylo said it had received what appeared to be consent forms from GDP signed by the victims, only later realising that these were obtained through fraud and coercion.
"The government did not find that Aylo or its affiliates violated any federal criminal laws prohibiting sex trafficking or the sexual exploitation of minors, including child pornography," the company added.
