Attorney General Todd Rokita is suing about 50 sexually explicit websites, alleging they have violated Indiana’s age-verification law.
The lawsuits allege that the content made available to children by the defendants — all of whom are associated with a multinational pornographic conglomerate known as Aylo — includes sexual violence, choking, rape fantasies, sex slavery and sex with teen girls.
“We know for a fact, from years of research, that adolescent exposure to pornography carries severe physical and psychological harms,” Rokita said. “It makes boys more likely to perpetrate sexual violence and girls more likely to be sexually victimized. Yet, despite such realities, these defendants seem intent on peddling their pornographic perversions to Hoosier kids.”
Lawmakers in 2024 passed the law requiring websites that host pornography to verify that users are at least 18 years old. As a result, Pornhub, which is owned by Aylo, blocked access to the site in Indiana.
Challenges to the law were ultimately unsuccessful.
“Rather than implement any form of reasonable age verification for its websites, Defendants represented to Indiana consumers, including Hoosier parents, that they had ‘completely disable[d] access to our website[s] in Indiana.’ However, Defendants have publicly admitted they know that Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), proxies, and location spoofing software may be used to continue to access Defendants’ websites in Indiana,” the lawsuit said.
In addition to Indiana’s age-verification law, Rokita’s lawsuit also alleges the defendants violated the state’s Deceptive Consumer Sales Act in several ways:
1) by making false and misleading statements regarding the accessibility of the pornographic websites by Indiana residents and 2) by misleading consumers about their alleged hosting of child sexual abuse material and nonconsensual material.
The attorney general’s office is seeking an injunction, civil penalties and costs.
“Despite these known harms to minors, the Defendants’ websites are pumping enormous amounts of pornographic content onto the internet, where minors can and do freely access it,” the lawsuit said.
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