By Diana Novak Jones
June 14 (Reuters) –Eleven people who allege videos or images of their sexual abuse as minors were uploaded to PornHub have filed lawsuits in California federal court against the company, Visa and two hedge funds over claims they knowingly profited from the content, court records show.
The lawsuits, all but one of which were filed over the past week, are the latest salvo in ongoing litigation in several courts around the country accusing PornHub and its parent company MindGeek of profiting from child sexual abuse material, or CSAM.
The individual lawsuits, which follow two class actions against MindGeek filed in 2021 on behalf of minors that are pending in federal courts in Alabama and California, include Visa and the hedge funds as defendants and contain more allegations than the class actions.
Filed in the Central District of California, the individual lawsuits accuse Visa of facilitating MindGeek’s monetization of the content by processing MindGeek’s charges for advertising next to the content and its traffic. They also claim that hedge funds Redwood Capital Management and Colbeck Capital Management provided hundreds of millions in financial backing to MindGeek, knowing that part of its business model would be to profit from CSAM.
A spokesperson for MindGeek, which is now known as Aylo Holdings, declined to comment on pending litigation and said the company looks “forward to the facts being fully and fairly aired” in court.
The spokesperson said it has robust content moderation to “mitigate the ability of bad actors to abuse our platform and post unwanted material.”
Representatives for Visa, Redwood and Colbeck did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Lauren Tabaksblat of Brown Rudnick, who filed the lawsuits on behalf of the individuals, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The class actions came two months after a New York Times article highlighted the proliferation of CSAM on Pornhub.
MindGeek has responded to the class actions in court, arguing that it can’t be held liable for the actions of its users.
The judges overseeing those cases allowed them to move forward as class actions late last year.
The individuals, who have opted out of the class actions to bring their claims, accuse MindGeek of helping its users get more views for their content by coaching them on how to promote it on PornHub and doing little to find and stop CSAM content from being shared on its websites.
Visa and the hedge funds did extensive research before choosing to work with PornHub, so they were aware of what was happening, the lawsuits claim.
The lawsuits seek damages and restitution for any money MindGeek made off of the individual’s videos. They also seek injunctions directing MindGeek to delete any content where it has not verified the ages and consent of the participants.
For the plaintiffs: Lauren Tabaksblat and Michael Bowe of Brown Rudnick, David Stein of Olson Stein
For MindGeek: Michael Zeller, Michael Williams and Diane Cafferata of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan
