Why free speech advocates oppose a law to battle sex trafficking

The 1996 law Section 230 is widely seen as a foundation of the Internet economy.

Read the whole story

 

[pcsandmotorcycles]

There's a lot of talk about legalizing sex workers on this forum, so I thought I would give my two cents. In my college debate class, the topic of our first debate was legalized prostitution. By coin toss I got the pro legalization position. At that time in my life, I was almost violently against legalizing anything that didn't agree with my conservative upbringing. Having to debate for the legalization of it actually changed my opinion for real. To make a good case, I had to research how big the problem was, the harms associated with the underground nature of it, etc. In the end I came to the conclusion that the prohibition was causing society more harm than the prostitution itself. Shortly after that I came to the same opinion about cannabis. I think conservative types tend to think that if they don't violently ban something then they are condoning it. I hate abortion too, but I fight to keep it legal because of the massive harms associated with banning it. In the end I respect a person's choice to live their own life absent my meddling. This is counter to the conservative ideal of legislating morality.

 

[Pinjata]

This is how civil liberties die, with some hysterical pearl-clutchers screaming "WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?!?!". Weakening Section 230 of the CDA to combat sex trafficking is like using a flamethrower to kill a mosquito in your living room. Yes, you might eliminate your target, but there are thousands more where it came from and in the meantime you've burned down your house.

I'm in full agreement with those suggesting we legalize and regulate the sex trade industry to eliminate pimps and traffickers, since history shows that moonshiners and bootleggers more or less went away shortly after alcohol was legalized. Even if we don't, this bill is penny-wise pound-foolish, short term thinking at its finest and will do far more harm than good.

Just a side note, that I often see rejected or ignored in regards to legalizing the sex trade, is that legalization and regulation tends to not have as much of an impact on trafficking as one would expect. The main issue is that a legal industry can always manufacture more commodities to meet demand, but when that commodity is a consenting person, supply is going to be finite. The "happiest" middle ground seems to be what they call the "Nordic model" which legalizes the selling of sex, but not the buying. In such a model, the seller has no reason to not seek legal protection, while the illegality of buying tries to lessen demand which would hopefully reduce the incentive for trafficking (although I've still seen reports of mixed results from human trafficking prevention advocacy groups like Polaris).

I just want to point out that the Nordic model isn't working either since the prosecutors simply changed tactics and now women are jailed for pimping each other or even them self. Politicians write laws, prosecutors/police implement.

 

[rabish12]

Spoiler

Wait, I'll admit to skimming 25% of this article but did I miss the part where 230 applies to them? I thought that protected sites who host user generated content they were not aware of. But if backpage is actively editing the content how does that qualify? Were not talking about some basic formatting or spell checking, they're actively writing scripts with the goal of making illegal sound legal. Isn't that aiding and abetting?

Slightly tangential, but if I'm not mistaken does 230 also have a DMCA like clause where if you're informed about the content you're required to take it down, or perhaps that law enforcement with the proper order can make you take it down? This isn't a solution, but I just wanted to make sure I understood correctly that this is mostly about knowledge of the content.

I'll say I have mixed feelings about this. I seriously think they could litigate under current law and would normally be inclined to say that that's what they should do. However, as noted, they have tried a few times. But I feel like they haven't tried very hard. That's to say nothing of the implication of practical effectiveness of shutting down a site and the activities actually ceasing that the author brought up.

The editing point is one that some folks have made. The details just came out late last year so I don't know if courts have ruled on this question definitively.

And no, I don't think Section 230 has a DMCA-style takedown process. Intermediaries just get immunity, full stop, even after someone explicitly tells them about content that's potentially illegal.

Tim, your follow up shows how much you care. We all appreciate that.

I feel like I can see an amendment to 230 provisioning some sort of limited ability to force take downs on overtly criminal behavior. For example if there is an ad explicitly for child sex, murder, etc. This is a hell of a lot more important than fucking copyright and they have that ability. I think it should be limited to governmental action from DA's or law enforcement. If you don't like it, bring it to the authorities. At that point you should be protected as long as you comply.

But what backpage is doing with editing is wrong. Still, taking them down would be dumb-as-hell. They're handing you useful cases on a silver platter. I agree with everyone who has said that this is about making a show and not solving a problem. It really is.

Yes. Unfortunately that's not the law we are getting. This one sounds way too broad and easy to abuse.

Yeah. These changes prevent section 230 from applying to any civil action over sex trafficking at all, regardless of whether or not the host made an effort to quash the stuff. I suspect that's going to make it really expensive to run any kind of website for casual encounters, whether or not its owners make a decent effort to police it. Unfortunately, that's probably the point.

 

[BradTheGeek]

There is one aspect to this no one has mentioned yet as it is only tangentially related. I am certain there are some -perhaps many - politicians who can see that it is a poor idea and would argue and vote against changing 230.

Except for one thing. During the next election cycle, that would get reduced to one sound bite, one phrase, "Candidate Jones voted agains making life harder for child predators and sex-trafficers."

Voiting against useless measures and protecting civil liberties in the process - especially on hot button issues like sex offenses and trerrorism - is often political suicide. This is also another reason that term limits should be enacted. When you only serve for a set time, a person may be more likely to work in the public interest instead of feigning it for their own political gain.

Edit - spelling and to add: Where are the term limits Trump promised. I never expected him to be able to pull it off, but is he even trying? It was probably the only populist idea he spouted that I could actually get behind and support.

 

[Infinity4011]

Anyone who thinks that a law is sufficiently narrow to avoid unwanted or unintended consequences is a fool. A lawyer will grasp at whatever straws he can, however remote, to make their case. It's not a matter of if, but when, and how well other lawyers do at blocking their attempts to distort the meaning.

The risks of writing any legislation are that it will be used in unintended ways to the detriment of society.

 

[rabish12]

Anyone who thinks that a law is sufficiently narrow to avoid unwanted or unintended consequences is a fool. A lawyer will grasp at whatever straws he can, however remote, to make their case. It's not a matter of if, but when, and how well other lawyers do at blocking their attempts to distort the meaning.

The risks of writing any legislation are that it will be used in unintended ways to the detriment of society.

The major concern that people have here is that the law's unwanted consequences are intended. Legislators haven't exactly hidden their disdain for websites that allow adults to have casual sex, but it's effectively impossible for them to bar the sites outright. They've made efforts to prove that several of these sites are deliberately hosting this kind of content in order to shut them down, but in just about every instance they've failed to provide any compelling evidence supporting it. Even the allegations in the article regarding how Backpage was treating child sex ads came with no proof whatsoever to support them, at least as far as I saw when I looked into their investigation and the results that they published.

So they're changing the law. Note that they're not changing the law to exclude any civil action over content violating a federal statute from section 230 protections. They're doing it exclusively for sex trafficking content, something that's by far most likely to result in civil suits against websites enabling casual encounters. That could very easily make it financially impossible to actually run those kinds of websites unless the courts show some very solid restraint there, and there's a fair chance that doing so is part of the intent here..

 

[flunk]

If they know about all these illegal ads on BackPage why aren't they going after the people posting the ads? Surely that makes more sense, save those victims rather than just shutting down this site so they go somewhere else.

 

[jodyleebruchon]

If they know about all these illegal ads on BackPage why aren't they going after the people posting the ads? Surely that makes more sense, save those victims rather than just shutting down this site so they go somewhere else.

It's not about saving victims or helping people. It's about stopping people that aren't them from having sex with other people that aren't them in ways that they don't personally morally approve of.

 

[xWidget]

Some questions I have...

- What's the point of allowing civil suits? With all the hysteria our government makes aren't sex trafficking cases on the top of the DoJ's priority list anyway?

- What happens if a 16-year-old puts themselves up on Backpage? Do they get prosecuted as a pimp and potentially go to jail for 20+ years?

- Why are warrants so difficult? I doubt many of these people are hiding their IPs. I don't know if Backpage ever offers services for payment, but that would be an easy catch too.

- How many unwilling minors does this actually affect? The 1M number is wordwide, right? Which would include countries that are much, much worse than here. If the answer is ~1000 people or less then why can't we prosecute all those cases directly?

- What if a minor posts solicitations on Facebook? Even just their status probably counts. Is Facebook supposed to get shut down?

 

[Matthew J.]

Time to write your congressman, folks.

 

[rabish12]

Time to write your congressman, folks.

This is one case where I can all but guarantee that it won't help. It's far too easy for them to present themselves as protecting children from being trafficked for sex, and it's far too easy for them to dismiss any and all critics as supporting child sex trafficking. This is an extremely emotional subject, and that makes it easy for them to score political points by targeting it even when a minority of their constituents recognize how problematic their actions are.

Your vote just isn't as valuable as the political capital they can get from pushing this kind of thing through.

 

[SymmetricChaos]

- What if a minor posts solicitations on Facebook? Even just their status probably counts. Is Facebook supposed to get shut down?

Facebook makes an effort to prevent the posting of illegal content on their website so you'd have to convince a judge that what they're doing is not only insufficient but deliberately and criminally insufficient. On the other hand Backpage actively attempted to cover up the posting of illegal content which certainly seems like it should be a separate crime.

 

[thatanonymouscoward]

Backpage is the white whale they are chasing.

Everyone cheered when they got CL to drop adult services, well not everyone.
A large number of Police Chiefs were pissed, because CL was very helpful in helping them bust pimps & rescue people.
CL didn't have to do it, but had an entire department working with LEOs who wanted to fight against pimping.
But they shamed CL into dropping those ads... which ended several successful programs that were rescuing girls & busting pimps.

We have a very victorian view of sex. Some cops love to publish the names and photos of accused johns, because shame will make them stop... yet don't publicize the pimps. It made more sense to bust the johns. If 2 adults consent to have sex for money, who have they hurt? A bunch of high minded moral people will rail on about destroying families and communities... but if someone is a sex worker by their own choice, who gets hurt?

If we admitted that people like sex & some are willing to pay for that service from professionals in the profession, & not every prostitute is a victim we would legalize it. Allowing legit prostitutes to run their business in the open, narrows the pools of advertising that have to be searched for the bad actors who force people into this work.

Netflix/Spotify/etc. didn't end piracy, but they made serious dents in piracy in the countries where they expanded to. Some diehard pirates are gonna pirate (and sometimes because of the giant fustercluck copyright has become making some regions wait a decade for content).

Yes people who force children into sex work need to be found & stopped.

Screwing with 230 only allows people to feel better because they are suing the nearest deepest pocket. I would love to see someone explain why we have a law protecting gun makers from lawsuits from parents who's children were murdered in gun violence, but BackPage needs to be held liable. Explain the difference and explain how the moral obligation is only applied to 1.

Something no one wants to talk about is we have parents who give 9 yr olds smartphones and don't monitor them. They do not teach their children how to be safe online, or that if someone makes you feel weird you can talk to me. Instead we cover the world in nerf so the parent can be the friend & not the parent.

My kids fat because McDonalds put a toy in the happy meal!!!!!
So your kid stole your wallet, stole your car, drove to McDonalds and bought themselves one?
Oh... your kid complained & to not look like a bad guy & silence the whining you stuffed fast food into their mouth. Yet they demanded and got laws in some areas banning the toys.

Being a parent is supposed to be hard, we need to stop adapting society to give the illusion the world is totally safe. We need to be honest that some creepers might send you a message on Kik or that posting photos of yourself on Insta showing off a thong at 14 might not be the right message to send. That people on the internet lie, even if some adults seem to have never learned this, just because its online don't make it true. He might tell you hes your age & pressure you to meet up... he might be 50 and looking for a child bride.

Yes the ads for underage kids on BackPage are gross and disgusting, but you could delete BackPage from the internet today... there are still going to be ads for underage kids out there. Well getting rid of BackPage will send a strong message & people will stop!! Nancy told us to just say no to drugs, how'd that work out for ya?

We've taken a large serious problem & found a single point to assign the blame to & claim we can stop it if only we crush this single point. How childlike is our understanding of serious societal problems if we think changing 1 thing fixes it all?

We keep caring more about soundbites & dog 'n' pony shows than doing the serious work.
Most trafficked kids aren't randomly grabbed off the street, the parents often invite them into the home via the internet & don't provide guidance on the bad people because we think we are protecting them by pretending they don't really exist.

 

[rabish12]

- What if a minor posts solicitations on Facebook? Even just their status probably counts. Is Facebook supposed to get shut down?

Facebook makes an effort to prevent the posting of illegal content on their website so you'd have to convince a judge that what they're doing is not only insufficient but deliberately and criminally insufficient. On the other hand Backpage actively attempted to cover up the posting of illegal content which certainly seems like it should be a separate crime.

I mentioned it in an earlier post, but I've never actually seen evidence that Backpage did this. I've seen allegations that they did, but if there was evidence that they were doing what the senators claimed then they probably wouldn't be protected by section 230 anyways - the specific claim is that they were altering the contents of those ads while knowingly and intentionally hosting them without notifying authorities, meaning that they were taking part in the content itself (which removes 230 protections) and that they were likely breaking at least a few other laws. Basically, the lack of prosecution has less to do with 230 being overly broad and more to do with the fact that no actual evidence has been produced to support the accusations here.

As for the Facebook example, it doesn't matter that they're preventing the posting of illegal content on their website. Section 230 is what prevents them from being liable for that content, and this bill strips 230's protections entirely from any civil action over sex trafficking. Absent those protections, Facebook could be considered liable for that content even if they actively try to remove it.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

I'm generally not in favor of weakening "safe harbor" provisions in favor of perceived threats to our way of life, but for the life of me I can't come up with a single good reason to allow web sites protection to show advertising for clearly horrific things like child sex trafficking. If nothing else maybe web sites will be forced to be a bit more discerning on which ad networks they align themselves with.

The discussion going on here about legalizing prostitution has nothing to do with child sex trafficking. I don't care to get into that debate.

 

[thatanonymouscoward]

Some questions I have...

- What's the point of allowing civil suits? With all the hysteria our government makes aren't sex trafficking cases on the top of the DoJ's priority list anyway?

They are to busy doing the bidding of the **AA's pursuing Kim Dotcom & seizing websites the RIAA claims are pirate hubs... ignoring that the RIAA sent the music to the site to get publicity.

The DoJ is worried about their win/loss metrics. During the banking insanity, they had clear evidence that some of the big bank guys were guilty as sin... but decided not to try to prosecute because the bankers might put on experts that would baffle the jury & they might lose. (And lets gloss over the guy making that decision now has a job a GoldmanSachs who he declined to prosecute.)

 

[daggar]

Fighting human trafficking is an excellent thing, but too much of that effort resolutely refuses to acknowledge that consensual, adult sex worker are a thing that exists separately from trafficking.

What's more, it's been shown that, where that distinction is drawn, those by-choice adult sex workers are valuable allies and information sources in fighting actual trafficking.

 

[rabish12]

I'm generally not in favor of weakening "safe harbor" provisions in favor of perceived threats to our way of life, but for the life of me I can't come up with a single good reason to allow web sites protection to show advertising for clearly horrific things like child sex trafficking. If nothing else maybe web sites will be forced to be a bit more discerning on which ad networks they align themselves with.

The discussion going on here about legalizing prostitution has nothing to do with child sex trafficking. I don't care to get into that debate.

The "good reason" is that the alternative, as outlined in this bill, is to make websites responsible for any content that they host, regardless of whether they do so knowingly or intentionally and regardless of whether or not they do anything to try and stop it. Also, this isn't about ad networks. This is about a website that hosts people proposing casual sexual encounters with each other. That website may or may not be trying to stop that problem, but given the abusive behavior that the authorities have directed towards them I'm not inclined to just accept senators' claims about the site at face value.

 

[Mustachioed Copy Cat]

This has been on my radar since Claire McCaskill's report on Backpage came out, a document so utterly disgusting and lacking in context that its actually a pretty good guide on its own problems.

https://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/backpage
http://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/downloa ... nuary-2017

On the one hand, we have a company that appears desperate to maintain CDA 230 and comply with LE subpoenas. On the other hand, we have a coalition of state AGs and two stupid senators, McCaskill included, who just want to make headlines for doing something about sex trafficking, and who cares if they undermine the basis of the internet as a whole? Who cares if scatters the roaches to the darknet, where people don't respond to subpoenas?

Well, I do. An associate district attorney has told me they'll find it a great deal more difficult to gather evidence, and logic tells me that the darknet is more secure than a third party service on the open internet.

tl;dr: Claire McCaskill and anyone supporting this shithouse is supporting child sex trafficking and fucking over everyone else in the process.

 

[Mustachioed Copy Cat]

I'm generally not in favor of weakening "safe harbor" provisions in favor of perceived threats to our way of life, but for the life of me I can't come up with a single good reason to allow web sites protection to show advertising for clearly horrific things like child sex trafficking. If nothing else maybe web sites will be forced to be a bit more discerning on which ad networks they align themselves with.

The discussion going on here about legalizing prostitution has nothing to do with child sex trafficking. I don't care to get into that debate.

If you're interested in stopping child sex trafficking, it is generally to your benefit that said activity be as visible as possible. You can't save the person you don't know about.

The problem here is that McCaskill and others are playing the three wise monkeys game. They're pushing the problem onto the darknet, making it less visible, which allows them to claim they've done something, while everyone actually trying to stop child sex trafficking is gnashing their teeth because their job just got a shitload harder.

 

[operagost]

Current law gives website owners blanket immunity, allowing them to dispose of lawsuits quickly and with minimal expense. A new exemption could open the door for frivolous litigation that claims to be related to sex trafficking. Even if these lawsuits are ultimately thrown out, technology companies could face significant legal expenses in the meantime.

Even if that's true, activists say it's a small price to pay to stop the sexual exploitation of children.

It's small to them, because it's not how they make their livelihood. You can't just ignore the social and economic realities, shrug your shoulders and say, "Meh, I'm just an activist. That's their problem."

 

[jodyleebruchon]

Who cares if scatters the roaches to the darknet, where people don't respond to subpoenas?

Well, I do. An associate district attorney has told me they'll find it a great deal more difficult to gather evidence, and logic tells me that the darknet is more secure than a third party service on the open internet.

This is exactly the problem with silencing these things. People advocating for doing so are actively pushing for someone to make a network of "Silk Roads of child sex trafficking" whether they realize it or not.

 

[mrvco]

The article is reasonably nuanced but the title is crap. Free speech advocates oppose a law which purports to battle sex trafficking but will really do little to stop it and will likely cause substantial harm. The title suggests that free speech advocates believe free speech trumps sex trafficking, which isn't generally the case. Personally, I'd be willing to place some limits on free speech if it actually was effective at limiting child abuse and trafficking. I just don't believe this law will be effective at doing that.

Yep. The road to hell is paved with good intentions... as they say.

 

[pika2000]

This is hilarious. Yeah, let's blame the internet and the law. Meanwhile, the pedos in government and religious institutions are roaming free. Heck, I'm sure there are some in the law enforcement agencies as well. I mean I think there was a find back when showing that many of the traffic for child porn were from government and law enforcement institutions.

 

[Deleted member 1]

Who cares if scatters the roaches to the darknet, where people don't respond to subpoenas?

Well, I do. An associate district attorney has told me they'll find it a great deal more difficult to gather evidence, and logic tells me that the darknet is more secure than a third party service on the open internet.

This is exactly the problem with silencing these things. People advocating for doing so are actively pushing for someone to make a network of "Silk Roads of child sex trafficking" whether they realize it or not.

There is an argument to be made on the other side that pushing the sites to the dark web means that a lot of people can't or won't go looking for them, and will therefore decrease the number of active seekers, though one assumes it won't decrease the desire. Whether the costs are worth the benefits, who knows. It certainly seems more measurable if you keep the majority of the traffic where law enforcement can monitor it easily.

 

[vlam]

Who cares if scatters the roaches to the darknet, where people don't respond to subpoenas?

Well, I do. An associate district attorney has told me they'll find it a great deal more difficult to gather evidence, and logic tells me that the darknet is more secure than a third party service on the open internet.

This is exactly the problem with silencing these things. People advocating for doing so are actively pushing for someone to make a network of "Silk Roads of child sex trafficking" whether they realize it or not.

There is an argument to be made on the other side that pushing the sites to the dark web means that a lot of people can't or won't go looking for them, and will therefore decrease the number of active seekers, though one assumes it won't decrease the desire. Whether the costs are worth the benefits, who knows. It certainly seems more measurable if you keep the majority of the traffic where law enforcement can monitor it easily.

I'm pretty certain that if you're an adult actively looking to have sex with a minor, scurrying off to the dark web won't stop you in pursuing your goal. I can't imagine someone just casually wanting to rape a minor through intermediaries.

 

[Frosty Grin]

Yeah. These changes prevent section 230 from applying to any civil action over sex trafficking at all, regardless of whether or not the host made an effort to quash the stuff. I suspect that's going to make it really expensive to run any kind of website for casual encounters, whether or not its owners make a decent effort to police it. Unfortunately, that's probably the point.

It's definitely the point. They shut down Rentboy.com with the same bullshit charges of "money laundering" even as there was absolutely nothing about trafficking. Even the judge admitted that the site was doing a good thing.

 

[Deleted member 1]

Who cares if scatters the roaches to the darknet, where people don't respond to subpoenas?

Well, I do. An associate district attorney has told me they'll find it a great deal more difficult to gather evidence, and logic tells me that the darknet is more secure than a third party service on the open internet.

This is exactly the problem with silencing these things. People advocating for doing so are actively pushing for someone to make a network of "Silk Roads of child sex trafficking" whether they realize it or not.

There is an argument to be made on the other side that pushing the sites to the dark web means that a lot of people can't or won't go looking for them, and will therefore decrease the number of active seekers, though one assumes it won't decrease the desire. Whether the costs are worth the benefits, who knows. It certainly seems more measurable if you keep the majority of the traffic where law enforcement can monitor it easily.

I'm pretty certain that if you're an adult actively looking to have sex with a minor, scurrying off to the dark web won't stop you in pursuing your goal. I can't imagine someone just casually wanting to rape a minor through intermediaries.

Maybe it's like a vending machine in a highly populated area when you're trying to stay on a diet?

I feel dirty now.

 

[JPan]

"In the site's early years, moderators were instructed to reject ads that appeared to be soliciting prostitution."

I am confused. Do we target children trafficking or prostitution ( something that is legal in multiple states and most countries world wide. )

Before these guys get any law through congress I would like to see at least some evidence that their proposed law actually fixes child trafficking issues. And that they do not use this as a pretense to go after adult ladies who can decide themselves what they do in general.

The problem is there will always be prostitution. In Germany for example there were some cases of girls being lured to the country under false pretense but bordells are now visited regularly by officials and prostitutes are registered ( and taxed )

If you don't have that you will either have websites or little flyers posted on telephone booths or people standing on streets. What is better? I would argue internet ads since that gives at least a bit of visibility and ability for police to look into things.

It is really sad that my immediate reaction to this is "Won't someone think of the children" and the suspicion that the children are used as a pretense by christian and/or leftwing busybodies to shutdown adult services which both sides abhor.

Although this one is pretty horrifying:

"Rather than rejecting these ads outright, the Senate report claimed, Backpage's software would strip terms like “lolita,” “little girl,” “school girl," and “amber alert” out of ads before posting the rest of the ad online."

Seriously? If they would post them at least officials could target them as well.

 

[Resolute]

When it comes to issues like this, there is no such thing as an exception. If we create an "exception" for sex trafficking, then every other group that dislikes Section 230 will be rushing Congress demanding "exceptions" of their own. Most notably, The MPAA/RIAA and vexatious litigants wishing to suppress enemies and keep unflattering history off the net.

No matter what these advocates outwardly believe or claim, the logical conclusion of their campaign is to kill section 230 entirely. And that could be disastrous for free speech rights on the internet.

 

[Gooberslot]

I don't see why we need new laws. Shouldn't Backpage have already lost their immunity from prosecution when they started editing the ads? You can't really say it's just user generated content when you're helping generate the content.

 

[Mustachioed Copy Cat]

Who cares if scatters the roaches to the darknet, where people don't respond to subpoenas?

Well, I do. An associate district attorney has told me they'll find it a great deal more difficult to gather evidence, and logic tells me that the darknet is more secure than a third party service on the open internet.

This is exactly the problem with silencing these things. People advocating for doing so are actively pushing for someone to make a network of "Silk Roads of child sex trafficking" whether they realize it or not.

There is an argument to be made on the other side that pushing the sites to the dark web means that a lot of people can't or won't go looking for them, and will therefore decrease the number of active seekers, though one assumes it won't decrease the desire. Whether the costs are worth the benefits, who knows. It certainly seems more measurable if you keep the majority of the traffic where law enforcement can monitor it easily.

I'd go ahead and strike "can't" from "a lot of people can't or won't go looking for them". Tor is dead simple these days. Your (a general "your", not calling out OP) only hope is that someone just starting out won't have any other opsec in place, and something like a NIT will catch them. That's an argument that really needs something in the way of empirical evidence before we go changing the law, but its something that the idiots pushing for this seem to deliberately not be talking about.

Googling "how to find illegal things on the internet" will get you within clicking distance of the darknet. The other side is assuming a lack of technological sophistication that isn't really warranted at this point.

 

[Phobos89]

Law enforcement can bust sites like Silk Road, that are on Tor, but can't catch child sex traffickers on some shitty classifieds website? Do they actually want to catch traffickers, or just get them out of sight and mind? Color me skeptical.

WE NEED TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN!!!

Give me a fucking break. How about the times when they have given up on prosecuting people for child pornography because they are not willing to reveal the dubious methods used to gather evidence?

Does anyone know actually how big child trafficking is on Backpage? I mean the actual numbers. Suing websites is not going to protect the god damn children but can do huge damage to the internet in general. This seems like such a bullshit thing that i can't help but wonder what the actual reasons behind it are.

 

[Fatesrider]

The article is reasonably nuanced but the title is crap. Free speech advocates oppose a law which purports to battle sex trafficking but will really do little to stop it and will likely cause substantial harm. The title suggests that free speech advocates believe free speech trumps sex trafficking, which isn't generally the case. Personally, I'd be willing to place some limits on free speech if it actually was effective at limiting child abuse and trafficking. I just don't believe this law will be effective at doing that.

Activists want to fight sex trafficking by changing a key Internet law

That's the title I'm reading now.

At no point did I think free speech advocates were "activists" with respect to that title. Activists tend to want to change things politically and/or socially while advocates tend to publicly support a cause or policy - usually one that already exists. Could it be you're reading "advocate" where the word "activist" is being used? Because the policy now is pretty much open season for free speech (with the possible exception of a increasing public intolerance for hate speech).

When I read that title, I knew it was some fucktards doing something we'd hate. And the article was all about them using "what about the CHILDREN" bullshit to impose some assbackward Christian draconian morality on people, so I didn't get any false impressions about free speech advocates wanting to change the Internet laws - especially older ones.

Could it be they changed the title?

 

[dirrey]

In Canada, there is a law that allows prostitutes to accept money, but makes it illegal for someone to buy sexual services. The theory is that this would reduce the number of potential customers, and so reduce the amount of trafficking, because traffickers can't get enough money to make it worth the risk. At the same time this gives people who do want to sell sexual services a means of legal income so they aren't afraid to approach cops if they are being abused. Perhaps something like this should be implemented everywhere.

 

[Mustachioed Copy Cat]

I don't see why we need new laws. Shouldn't Backpage have already lost their immunity from prosecution when they started editing the ads? You can't really say it's just user generated content when you're helping generate the content.

Thing is, the McCaskill report makes it seem like Backpage was doing that in order to comply with the law, and the various legal threats being levied against it. Backpage did not handle the situation perfectly, but there wasn't a huge corpus of caselaw telling them precisely what they needed to do to maintain CDA 230. They complied with LE subpoenas and tried to draft community policies to discourage ads like that. One of those policies was to target keywords which suggested child sexual exploitation, and not allow them. That appears to have gotten them trapped in a downward spiral of euphemism.

If you're going to damn someone for enabling child sex trafficking, I think it should be for a reason other than "desperately trying to get rid of child sex trafficking".

 

[Dark Jaguar]

I'm generally not in favor of weakening "safe harbor" provisions in favor of perceived threats to our way of life, but for the life of me I can't come up with a single good reason to allow web sites protection to show advertising for clearly horrific things like child sex trafficking. If nothing else maybe web sites will be forced to be a bit more discerning on which ad networks they align themselves with.

The discussion going on here about legalizing prostitution has nothing to do with child sex trafficking. I don't care to get into that debate.

The "good reason" is that the alternative, as outlined in this bill, is to make websites responsible for any content that they host, regardless of whether they do so knowingly or intentionally and regardless of whether or not they do anything to try and stop it. Also, this isn't about ad networks. This is about a website that hosts people proposing casual sexual encounters with each other. That website may or may not be trying to stop that problem, but given the abusive behavior that the authorities have directed towards them I'm not inclined to just accept senators' claims about the site at face value.

That seems fair. It's hard not to side when the gut reaction is that every single second of the suffering of an innocent is utterly impossible to tolerate for me. It just shouldn't be, but I can get why this wouldn't actually help in this case. It's just the very existence of such things is so unacceptable... it's easy to get wrapped up in proposed solutions.

 

[Frosty Grin]

In Canada, there is a law that allows prostitutes to accept money, but makes it illegal for someone to buy sexual services.

What's the logic behind this? If the prostitutes themselves don't have a problem with prostitution, why should the state have a problem with the clients?

 

[Rookie_MIB]

The article is reasonably nuanced but the title is crap. Free speech advocates oppose a law which purports to battle sex trafficking but will really do little to stop it and will likely cause substantial harm. The title suggests that free speech advocates believe free speech trumps sex trafficking, which isn't generally the case. Personally, I'd be willing to place some limits on free speech if it actually was effective at limiting child abuse and trafficking. I just don't believe this law will be effective at doing that.

Any laws concerning sexual trafficking and/or abuse written by the sexual miscreants who inhabit DC should automatically be suspect.

IMHO, give the recent changes to the law time to work. Building a case doesn't happen overnight, see how it goes from there.

 

[Reaperman2]

Kamala Harris is desperately trying to be the new face of the Dem party, and she thinks that, since this is the issue that got her into the Senate to begin with, it'll make her a Hillary replacement.

Meanwhile, her efforts are poorly thought-out, make fighting sex trafficking more difficult, and amount to pointless grandstanding.

Here's hoping the Democrats come to their senses and realize that they can do better.

edit: A little background: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161 ... ress.shtml