dagblog - Comments for "Scrubbed clean: why a certain kind of sex is vanishing from the internet"

Backpage.com taken offline

artappraiser — Sat, 07 Apr 2018 00:31:35 +0000

In reply to Scrubbed clean: why a certain kind of sex is vanishing from the internet

Backpage.com taken offline ‘as part of an enforcement action,’ federal officials say

By Tom Jackman & Mark Berman @ WashingtonPost.com, April 6

This was the notice that greeted visitors
to Backpage.com on Fridayption

The website Backpage.com was taken down Friday and seized by federal law enforcement authorities, according to a notice posted online.

The classifieds website has been the focus of intense scrutiny over the issue of its sex ads, which have included those involving children being trafficked by adults.

Visitors to the site Friday were greeted with an announcement that said “Backpage.com and affiliated websites have been seized as part of an enforcement action” by agencies including the FBI as well as the law enforcement wings of the U.S. Postal Service and the Internal Revenue Service.

Numerous other state and federal authorities in Arizona, California and Texas also were “participating in and supporting the enforcement action,” the notice stated. It said more information would be released later by the Justice Department [....]

The USPS and Fed ex take

ocean-kat — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 22:35:04 +0000

In reply to It's kind of like saying you

The USPS and Fed ex take precautions to find and stop illegal activity and cooperate fully with law enforcement if there's an investigation. One thing that was discussed frequently back in my pot smoking days when mailing pot was to not get high and to wash your hands well when packaging the pot because post offices sometimes had dogs sniffing packages.

These sites facilitate illegal activity. They know that's what they're doing. It's by design a large part of their revenue stream. When called on it they play innocent and claim free speech rights.

If an ad is clearly offering a child for sale the site doesn't need to verify the girl is actually underage to ban those types of ads. And once again even adult prostitution is illegal in most states whether or not you or I think those laws are good or wise.

ETA: You keep making what I consider bad analogies. Here's one that isn't good either but better imo than your's. If a taxi company let it be known that it would take you to the tenderloin district, drive around until you picked out a 13 year old run away, and then drop you off at a hotel that would also look the other way I'd have no problem shutting down and prosecuting that taxi company. Even if they made absolutely sure that no sexual contact happened in the cab.

It's not the programmatically

ocean-kat — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 22:06:03 +0000

In reply to The difference is that mags

It's not the programmatically driven online ads that are the problem. It's the "personals" that are quite often thinly veiled ads for prostitution, a significant number for child prostitution. If a site is incapable of monitoring it's personal ads for child prostitution it shouldn't have the site. It's because they were unwilling to monitor for ads for child prostitution that they left an opening to restrict ads for adult prostitution, which by the way, is still illegal in most states. How ever you or I might feel about those laws.

It's kind of like saying you

PeraclesPlease — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 21:37:45 +0000

In reply to What Craiglist and similar

It's kind of like saying you can operate a taxi, but you have to verify none of your riders has been doing anything worn or carrying illicit material on them. It's not like the IlUS Post Office checks that no one is sending kiddie porn, and if soneone's caught, it's them that face the burden, not USPS. Same w UPS et al. So why the policing requirement for the online providers? Sure, they can easily flag certain terms in ads, but are they supposed to verify age or what?

The difference is that mags

PeraclesPlease — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 21:32:07 +0000

In reply to Web sites want a complete

The difference is that mags sell specific ad space - online pubs have a space with massive numbers if rotating ads - no one's going to review 10,000 programmatically driven online ads derived from a specific user demograpgic. The ads aren't even known until the user clicks.

Web sites want a complete

ocean-kat — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 21:26:44 +0000

In reply to And there's no compromise

Web sites want a complete exemption from all liability for content on their site. It's illegal in most jurisdictions to publish a magazine that contains ads for sex work, especially child sex work. Why should web sites get more protections than print?

Imo web sites could have avoided this law if they had been proactive in eliminating all child sex ads. One reason they weren't proactive is that child sex ads were part of their revenue stream. They chose to fight for a complete exemption and as expected they lost big. Not just liability for child sex ads but ads for all illegal paid sex.

What Craiglist and similar

ocean-kat — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 21:17:23 +0000

In reply to related op-ed @ The Guardian:

What Craiglist and similar sites are implicitly saying is the revenue stream from personals seeking unpaid consensual sex is insufficient for them to monitor the site to eliminate ads for paid services. There are still many sites where a person can look for queer, kink, adultery etc. unpaid sex. I've seen no articles that they are shutting down.

I'm usually of the opinion that almost everything should be legal but that doesn't mean that I think web sites should be allowed to advertise things we as a society have decided are illegal.

It very much appears to be

artappraiser — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 20:24:48 +0000

In reply to And there's no compromise

It very much appears to be very lousy law, l I just found this: the DOJ called it unconstitutional and said it would make convictions harder!...

FOSTA Passes Senate, Making Prostitution Ads a Federal Crime Against Objections from DOJ and Trafficking Victims

The measure will "make it harder, not easier, to root out and prosecute sex traffickers," said Sen. Ron Wyden, one of only two senators to vote no on FOSTA.

By Elizabeth Nolan Brown @ Reason.com, Mar. 21, 2018 3:55 pm

[....] "In the absence of Section 230, the internet as we know it would shrivel," warned Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) from the Senate floor Wednesday. "Civic organizations protecting their right to free speech could be [ruined] by their more powerful political opponents" and "there would be an enormous chilling effect on speech in America." That's why big companies like Facebook like efforts like this to weaken it, Wyden added—"because it would pull up the ladder in the tech world" so new companies couldn't afford to get in.

Wyden stressed that he's been highly proactive on measures that could actually helps victims of sexual exploitation. But FOSTA "is not going to prevent sex trafficking [and] it's not going to stop young people from becoming victims," he noted. In fact, "the legislation before the Senate is going to make it harder, not easier, to root out and prosecute sex traffickers."

This isn't just Wyden's opinion. The Department of Justice has not only called FOSTA unconstitutional; it says the legislation will "create additional elements that prosecutors must prove at trial," thereby making it harder to get guilty parties convicted.

"You're heading in the wrong direction if you [pass a bill] that would raise the burden of proof in cases against sex traffickers," Wyden chastised his colleagues. He was one of two senators today—along with Rand Paul (R-Kentucky)—to vote against the measure [.....]

And there's no compromise

PeraclesPlease — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 20:20:03 +0000

In reply to HOW A CONTROVERSIAL NEW SEX

And there's no compromise between policing ads for under girls vs. allowed content?

If an underage girl is walking the street, can we sue the city for providing a platform for trafficking?

HOW A CONTROVERSIAL NEW SEX

artappraiser — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 20:17:54 +0000

In reply to Scrubbed clean: why a certain kind of sex is vanishing from the internet

HOW A CONTROVERSIAL NEW SEX-TRAFFICKING LAW WILL CHANGE THE WEB

By Nitasha Tiku @ Wired.com, March 22

THE DEBATE OVER altering a bedrock law governing the internet in the name of curbing sex trafficking was polarizing. The final vote was not.

The Senate Wednesday voted 97-to-2 to approve changes to the law that has shielded website operators from liability for content posted by others. The Stop Enabling Online Sex Trafficking Act was previously approved by the House and now goes to President Trump, who endorsed it earlier this month.

The legislative effort inspired fervent opposition along the way from Google, free-speech stalwarts, and sex workers. Supporters of the bill say it will allow victims of online sex trafficking to legally pursue websites that facilitate trafficking, Until now, those efforts have been thwarted by the liability shield in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The bill was proposed after a California judge dismissed criminal charges against Backpage.com and its CEO over online ads featuring underage girls because of Section 230 [....]

Congress OKs sex-trafficking bill that critics say will “censor the Internet”

By Jon Brodkin @ ArsTechnica.com, 3/21/2018

Critics say law will limit free speech online and won’t help trafficking victims.