Below is a political press release from Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch:
Attorney General Lynn Fitch recently joined a 26-state coalition in sending a letter to Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, to demand answers about content featuring underaged children.
“Turning a blind eye to the sexual exploitation of children is abhorrent and will not be tolerated,”said General Fitch. Profiting from abuse of others is immoral and makes the company at best an enabler of the crime and at worst complicit in it. Protecting our most vulnerable citizens is my top priority and I will fight for these victims.
As recently reported, an employee for the company was captured on video by an undercover journalist discussing Pornhub’s moderation practices, admitting to a so-called “loophole." Specifically, when uploading content to the site, users are required to submit a photo ID, but are not required to show their face in the material uploaded. The employee admitted there is no way to confirm the person uploading the photo ID is the same person in the content. He replied,“Of course,” when asked if rapists and human traffickers use this loophole to upload content of their victims to make money.
The Attorneys General wrote, “As you are aware, various Federal and state laws forbid the creation and distribution of CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material.) We are concerned that Aylo and its subsidiary Pornhub, and possibly other subsidiaries, may be proliferating the production and dissemination of CSAM through the “loophole” identified by your employee. Please provide us with an explanation of this “loophole;” whether Aylo and its subsidiaries do, in fact, permit content creators and performers to obscure their faces in uploaded content; and, if so, whether Aylo is taking measures to change this policy to ensure that no children or other victims are being abused for profit on any of its platforms.”
General Fitch joined Attorneys General from the following states in demanding these answers: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
A copy of the letter is available here.
