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The FTC’s Settlement With Aylo: This Isn’t Really About Fighting CSAM And Revenge Porn


This is part two of a two-part series about the recent settlement between the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Utah Consumer Protection Division (CPD), and Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub. T…

Before his confirmation as the current FTC chair, Andrew Ferguson promised to use his power to “fight wokeness” such as “DEI,” “ESG,” and “the trans agenda,” and to go after Big Tech companies for “engag[ing] in unlawful censorship.” In February, he launched an “inquiry” into that last topic (which is going just great), despite that being exactly the kind of government pressure on platforms that Republicans had decried as unconstitutional under Biden. The Aylo settlement should be viewed as part of an ongoing attempt by the FTC to exceed its statutory and constitutional authority in trying to regulate platforms’ content moderation practices, now turbocharged under Republican leadership hellbent on exerting control over online speech more generally. Still, faced with an intrusive and expensive federal government investigation, companies usually choose to settle rather than fight, even if they might have a strong case (and even after the Supreme Court killed courtdeference to agencies’ interpretations of their enabling statutes).

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