Judge Dismisses Some Claims In Children Of Pornhub Trafficking Suit
The original complaint in the case, filed in 2021 and later amended, contended that MindGeek — then Pornhub’s parent company — knowingly allowed and profited from CSAM on its sites.
Plaintiff Serena Fleites, who is now an adult but was underage in 2014 when her then-boyfriend uploaded a sexually explicit video of her to Pornhub without her consent, was profiled in journalist Nicholas Kristof’s controversial 2020 exposé of deficient content moderation practices. Anti-pornography groups seized upon the piece, citing it as evidence for their allegations linking the online adult industry with sex trafficking and CSAM.
On Friday, Judge Wesley Hsu of the United States District Court for the Central District of California issued a ruling in which he granted MindGeek’s motion to dismiss the following complaints:
- Conspiracy to violate the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.
- “Misappropriation of likeness” claims.
- Distribution of private sexually explicit materials, as the distributed material was previously distributed by another person.
- Violation of California’s Trafficking Victims Protection Act, as the plaintiff has made no allegations that MindGeek induced or persuaded the plaintiff to engage in a commercial sex act.
- Civil conspiracy.
The court denied, however, MindGeek’s motions to dismiss several other complaints, including counts of negligence and of receipt, transport and distribution of CSAM.
The court also found that while MindGeek is not “directly liable” for causing the then-underage plaintiff to engage in a commercial sex act, the company is subject to “beneficiary liability” since it is alleged to have monetized postings of CSAM and other nonconsensual content, and thus “knowingly received benefits from the trafficking venture.”
The plaintiff’s attorneys can be expected to file a new amended complaint in the coming weeks, focusing on the counts that the judge did not dismiss.
In 2023, MindGeek was acquired by Ethical Capital Partners, which renamed it Aylo and embarked on a campaign of transparency. Since then, Aylo has been dealing with multiple legal actions originally taken against MindGeek.
On Sept. 3, for instance, Aylo settled a complaint by the Federal Trade Commission and the state of Utah, which alleged that MindGeek “participated in deceptive and unfair acts or practices” by misrepresenting the extent to which it guarded against the posting of CSAM and nonconsensual material on its sites.
