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