Exclusive: Aylo Ex-Employee Sounds Alarm on Porn Ads Potentially Featuring Underage Girls, ‘You Can’t Verify’ Age
“You delete, it’s re-uploaded 20 million times — faster than you can actually review it.”
An undercover interview with an ex-employee of Aylo (formerly named MindGeek) by Sound Investigations and exclusively shared with Turning Point USA revealed the extreme likelihood that several advertisements run across Aylo’s porn websites could contain sexual content of underage girls. Aylo’s most well-known platform and pornographic website, Pornhub, has been criticized in the past for its lack of content moderation and for allowing videos of abuse and underage material to remain on the site for extended periods of time.
Sound Investigation conducted an undercover interview with Jenna Rolfe, who worked with Aylo’s advertising arm, TrafficJunky, until July 2023. To purchase advertisement space on sites such as Pornhub, companies, individuals, and even groups soliciting illicit activities would use TrafficJunky. More than 120 million advertisements are posted on Aylo’s sites daily.
Rolfe also worked with ProBiller, which is Aylo’s payment platform that allows individuals to purchase subscriptions to the company’s many websites. “I worked compliance for TrafficJunky,” Rolfe said, “I did compliance as well for the pay-site side of things when I was a team lead.”
“We have made changes to how underage is distinguished when we cannot specify exactly who the model is — the user using the model themselves in advertisements cannot verify either, um, I voiced my opinion that I don’t think that tattoos, and piercing, and makeup should distinguish if a woman is 18 or not,” Rolfe told the interviewer. “Unfortunately, it was — [I] was told it would be too much time and effort to reach out, and if we go that route we [would be] losing income for the [advertisers]. I personally did not agree.”
“We did many group huddles over it, there [were] others, of course, who agreed. There [were] others who also agreed with the company, and said that it would be a lot of expensive time,” she added. Rolfe clarified that this policy shift in how age is evaluated on the basis of women’s tattoos, piercings, and makeup within pornographic advertisements happened within the previous month at the time of the interview.
Rolfe was asked what ages she saw featured in these advertisements but responded, “You can’t verify” anyone’s age. Her comments echoed the sentiments provided to Sound Investigations through an undercover investigation of Pornhub executive Mike Farley: there is no meaningful way to verify the age of porn viewers, or the individuals who appear in postings, or advertisements.
Rolfe also said that once the material has been taken and distributed, it is nearly impossible to scrub from the internet. “Once it’s there, it’s there,” she said. “You deleted, it’s re-uploaded 20 million times faster than you can actually review it, delete it, go through it, it’s everything, and it’s just too deep-rooted.”
“Solomon Friedman, a cofounder of Aylo’s owner, Ethical Capital Partners, claimed earlier this year Aylo ‘had created the best-in-class online trust and safety automation tools.’ In the undercover video, Rolfe gives her an inside view that contradicts the public relations statements.”
Sound Investigations Press Release
In the interview with Sound Investigations, Rolfe said that there was a severe lack of communication after she raised her concerns, but the several levels on the chain of command prevented any progress on the issue. There was “no clear-cut policy” with this form of content, according to Rolfe.
Rolfe explained that the models used in pornographic advertisements are not required to verify their identity with TrafficJunky prior to being posted on Pornhub and other websites. The advertising studio is the only entity that needs verification, and it is the only party that could effectively be held accountable for using underage individuals in advertisements under the current process.
“You have to blame the studios and the managers,” she said “They would have to hold the advertiser accountable directly. So if you have someone who just signs up as long as their verification checks out, we know that’s an advertiser, but we don’t know who the model is, and that’s the biggest problem.”
“You could literally have a scummy person who literally has underage OnlyFans girls and he’s just pushing these ads and no one would know any different because he’s of age,” Rolfe added.
Sound Investigations independently verified Rolfe’s claims and found that anyone can place an advertisement with unidentified individuals featured within the video or image advertisement.
“The ads are getting scary, like you can’t tell if it’s true or not,” Rolfe said, noting the rapid development of AI technology and the prevalence of deepfakes. “We’ve had people come in and be like, ‘yeah take that ad down, that’s me.'”
“There are policies in place for when it does happen, but it’s so hard, because if you’re not a Pornhub user, how would you know,” Rolfe said. TrafficJunky can only be “reactive” rather than “preventative” because it does not verify the age of models featured in videos or advertisements, the former employee explained.
Rolfe was also asked about the laws enacted in several U.S. states requiring websites that contain pornographic material to verify the age of users before allowing access to the platform. This move led Pornhub to block users in some states due to a refusal or inability to comply with the new laws. Rolfe said that it is both the responsibility of the parents and of the porn companies to keep children away from harmful material before they are of age. “We all should be taking some form of initiative to protect children,” Rolfe said.
