Analysis: ECP and Aylo Pull Back Pornhub’s Curtain

MONTREAL—It has been a full year since Ethical Capital Partners (ECP) acquired Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub and a global empire of top-tier adult entertainment properties. Known as MindGeek at the time, the firm immediately began undergoing a complete overhaul at the behest of its new owners, a process that started from the top.  ECP had been newly formed by an ownership group of Canadian academics, lawyers, government relations professionals, and former law enforcement executives. It presented itself as a reputation-saving private equity firm specializing in at-risk companies suffering seemingly too-far-gone public perceptions. Rocco Meliambro, a venture capital leader who has succeeded in Canada’s burgeoning cannabis sector, was installed as ECP’s chair. He brought along with him several other founding members, including top-level talent Derek Ogden, Fady Mansour and Mike Cosic. Ogden and Cosic came from the cannabis space, like Meilambro. Mansour is a criminal and regulatory attorney and professor of law. Sarah Bain—a seasoned lobbyist, political operator and government staffer—was attached as a founding partner, as well, and tasked with external stakeholder engagement. Solomon Friedman, a criminal defense attorney and law professor, was named the ownership group’s head for compliance. Bain and Friedman quickly became the public faces of this new private equity firm. This is not a typical pedigree for ownership of an adult entertainment company—and few have displayed the degree of transparency regularly shown by ECP's principals. For instance, Friedman has been profiled several times by the Canadian news media. An interview with the Ottawa Citizen presented Friedman, who is a partner with Mansour at their namesake law firm Friedman Mansour LLP, as a family man and local Jewish rabbi who sees acquiring one of the world’s most controversial companies as a development for good.  The news of ECP’s acquisition was met with both skepticism and optimism. Far-right anti-porn campaigners, especially Christian nationalists in the United States, characterized the acquisition of MindGeek as a sketchy, dark-money scheme to help the platform duck criticism and litigation. But optimism abounded in certain circles of the adult entertainment and tech spaces. The company was rebranded and reorganized as Aylo in August 2023 with the intent of establishing a culture of transparency and accountability that was lacking under the former ownership group. Earlier this week, Aylo and ECP leadership—Bain, Friedman and Alex Kekesi (Aylo’s head of community and brand)—invited news outlets, including AVN, to view the company’s overhauls in their trust and safety programming. What they presented was a drastically reformed platform.  Trust and safety on Aylo’s platforms have been hotly contested over the past year, with controversies swirling such as the right-wing smear campaign called the “Pornhub Tapes,” a “predator” loophole, claims from anti-porn activists accusing the site of targeting children and “turning straight men trans,” the age verification battle and geo-blocking entire U.S. states, criticism from a senior Canadian privacy official, and a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve a 30-month long criminal investigation. Now, the company intends to set the record straight. Friedman today walked several Canadian and U.S.-based journalists in a video conference through a live demonstration of the company’s trust and safety processes. Friedman lauded the changes the company has made, claiming that it is unlikely any other major technology platform—speaking tacitly of safety and age-gating controversies surrounding TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter)—has openly demonstrated to the news media its content moderation process and identity verification process for confirming content uploaders. The walkthrough covered a wide range of topics surrounding the company's protocols for everything from account creation to content uploading from verified uploaders.  Below are some of the key points discussed during the presentation: • AVN asked Aylo and ECP what their position is on device verification. Friedman openly endorsed laws requiring mobile device manufacturers to require that all devices sold in a certain jurisdiction have parental controls enabled at the point of purchase. Utah is set to adopt a law that requires this through the context of a so-called “porn filter” mandate. • AVN asked about the size of Aylo’s trust and safety team. According to Friedman, Aylo employs over 1,400 people around the world. About 20 percent of its employees engage in trust and safety in various capacities, including content moderation and identity verification for content creators who wish to upload content and eventually monetize. He added that most of Aylo’s trust and safety infrastructure is in Nicosia, Cyprus, is not outsourced, and is staffed by moderators who undergo three months of specific training. • Identity verification for content uploaders and content creators, as demonstrated in the presentation, is expansive. In order to upload content to Pornhub and Aylo’s other user-generated content platforms, a user must create a free account, apply to join the model program and undergo several layers of age and identity verification. This includes the signing of a consent release form, 2257 forms, the use of legitimate identification documents, AI age-estimating facial scans, and human review. The process for uploading and posting video and photo content is very similar. • AVN asked about this issue of Aylo permitting “faceless” performers, and Friedman responded by explaining that all performers who appear faceless in their videos undergo the same level of moderation as the performers who appear with their faces in their videos.  During the remainder of the presentation, Aylo reaffirmed its position against age verification proposals, such as Bill S. 210, which is before the Canadian House of Commons, and the slew of AV bills introduced across U.S. states.  Most of the bills introduced and adopted in Canada and the U.S. require adult users to submit government identification to third-party platforms, like Yoti, which are at risk of potential data bloat and data security risks. As mentioned above, in several U.S. states, Pornhub has established a geo-block. Aylo will release an official statement later this week explaining in greater depth the firm’s actions in its first full year since being acquired by ECP.