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(LifeSiteNews) — Aylo, the Montreal-based pornography conglomerate that owns Pornhub, has agreed to pay out U.S. $120 million to settle two federal class-action lawsuits first filed in 2021 (one in California, one in Alabama). The settlement has yet to be approved by a court.
The California plaintiff alleges that her abusive boyfriend uploaded sexually explicit videos of them to Pornhub as revenge, and that the company reviewed the material but still made it public. The Alabama plaintiff states that she was drugged and raped as a minor teen, and that her rapist uploaded the videos to Pornhub and other sites. Both plaintiffs are referred to as “Jane Doe.” A related claim alleges that videos of a trafficking victim were uploaded.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs allege that these videos were viewed over 684 million times on Pornhub and related Aylo smut sites, something the porn giant denies.
The $120 million settlement would be paid in installments, beginning with a lump sum of $25 million, and includes requirements for stronger safeguards to protect children, including verified government-issued ID to confirm that those uploading images or videos and the people depicted in them are all 18 years old or older when the content was first created. The settlement also includes five years of external audits and independent monitoring.
Significantly, however, the settlement would include no admission of liability or wrongdoing by Aylo. This is Aylo’s attempt to get ahead of what could be a wave of similar lawsuits, as the proposal would cover anybody who was a minor when they appeared in sexually explicit content on Aylo’s porn sites between February 2011 and December 2024. Those wishing to make a claim would have to file for a share of the $120 million fund.
It is easy to see why Aylo wants cases dealing with child abuse material out of the way. In a bombshell 2020 New York Times report titled “The Children of Pornhub,” Nicholas Kristof exposed their flagship porn site as a crime scene:
Its site is infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags … Most aren’t of children being assaulted, but too many are …
Pornhub is like YouTube in that it allows members of the public to post their own videos. A great majority of the 6.8 million new videos posted on the site each year probably involve consenting adults, but many depict child abuse and nonconsensual violence. Because it’s impossible to be sure whether a youth in a video is 14 or 18, neither Pornhub nor anyone else has a clear idea of how much content is illegal.
It is not just the sexual content of minors that Pornhub that is at issue—it is the systematic eroticization of sexual violence. From Kristof’s report:
Moreover, some videos seem at odds with the list of banned content. … Another user posts videos documenting sex with teenage girls as they weep, protest and cry out in pain.
While Pornhub is becoming more careful about videos of potentially litigious Americans, it remains cavalier about overseas victims. One Indonesian video … shows what appears to be a young teenager having sex. …
“They’re making money off the worst moment in my life, off my body,” a Colombian teenager who asked to be called Xela, a nickname, told me. Two American men paid her when she was 16 for a sexual encounter that they filmed and then posted on Pornhub. She was one of several Pornhub survivors who told me they had thought of or attempted suicide.
In the last few days as I was completing this article, two new videos of prepubescent girls being assaulted were posted, along with a sex video of a 15-year-old girl who was suicidal after it went online. I don’t see how good-faith moderators could approve any of these videos.
In the meantime, Aylo is also dealing with a series of other lawsuits, including 2025-26 class action suits in California alleging that the company violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act by using third-party tracking tools and lawsuits surrounding state-level age verification laws, and other lawsuits relating to non-consensual content.
Preliminary approval for the settlement will be determined at a hearing on November 4 before U.S. District Judge Wesley L. Hsu in Los Angeles.
Jonathon’s writings have been translated into more than six languages and in addition to LifeSiteNews, has been published in the National Post, National Review, First Things, The Federalist, The American Conservative, The Stream, the Jewish Independent, the Hamilton Spectator, Reformed Perspective Magazine, and LifeNews, among others. He is a contributing editor to The European Conservative.
His insights have been featured on CTV, Global News, and the CBC, as well as over twenty radio stations. He regularly speaks on a variety of social issues at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions in Canada, the United States, and Europe.
He is the author of The Culture War, Seeing is Believing: Why Our Culture Must Face the Victims of Abortion, Patriots: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Pro-Life Movement, Prairie Lion: The Life and Times of Ted Byfield, and co-author of A Guide to Discussing Assisted Suicide with Blaise Alleyne.
Jonathon serves as the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.
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