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Not every single ad on there involved sex trafficking. Many, if not most, involved consenting adults of legal age advertising sex work. And before you go off on the “prostitution is illegal” but, “sex work” is an umbrella term that can often include stripping/strippers for hire, burlesque dancing, and harmless kink work (including kinks that aren’t even sexual I’m nature). Of course the US had always had a bigger issue with anything sex related versus anything violent.
The problem isn’t two consenting adults whipping each other with cat-o-nine dildos while wearing bunny suits and assess chaps.
The problem is when underage kids are taken advantage of or forced by adults and traded for sex for money like a kid would trade baseball cards.
These websites are a very hard to trace vehicle for doing such things. Im sure sexual freaks and weirdos have plenty of ways to find their pleasures to line without backpage or Craiglist
Circumventing rights and protection of all individuals to go after a single target is akin to banning all guns as a response to school shootings.
Unless that single target is say, your daughter?
Actually, according to this article, it's more like 100,000 targets. And I'm sure 12 years later, there's many more than that.
"But Debbie, which is not her real name, is one of thousands of young American girls who authorities say have been abducted or lured from their normal lives and made into sex slaves. While many Americans have heard of human trafficking in other parts of the world -- Thailand, Cambodia, Latin America and eastern Europe, for example -- few people know it happens here in the United States."
You first amendment heroes would be better off devoting your efforts to something like this rather than crying about the closure of a skeazy website that promotes sex trafficking.
You can pretty much use any website/forum/ad service to pass messages and discuss illegal activity. So once you hold the service accountable, then the risk forces them to either invest a lot of effort ($$$) to protect/filter/police or they simply shut down.
Example:
Some are using legit profiles on dating websites to maintain contact with customers. Shall legit dating websites shutdown in fear of prosecution? This includes POF, Match.com, etc...
"Microsoft is warning customers using Office, Xbox, Skype, and other products that the company is prohibiting offensive language and inappropriate content starting on May 1
...
Digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argues that Microsoft’s hard-line policy stems from Congress passing two new sex trafficking bills. The Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) and the Stop Enabling Sex-Trafficking Act (SESTA) holds platforms responsible for users’ speech, illegally shared content, and anything connected to sex trafficking."
This is similar to holding dealers or manufacturers of guns accountable for homicides that involve their weapons. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Ads don't commit crimes, people commit crimes.
I'm really interested in how many people seem to have a personal interest in these prostitution/child abuse/sex trafficking websites.
Things that make you go "hummmm?".
Well I guess there is clearly a market for it.
I've been involved with the push to legal prostitution for a long time... the same communities that push for it also push for a harder line against child abuse, sex trafficking, and pimping.
Child abuse and sex trafficking is bad for everyone... even for sex workers...
You post is just one example of the ignorance that is very common among even those at the top rungs of government. They don't understand that prostitution isn't child abuse nor trafficking. They don't understand that the people who is most equipped to help with trafficking are the prostitutes working together with the authorities.
Trafficking isn't a sex issue. It is a labor issue. SESTA and FOSTA ignore that a big portion of trafficking isn't around sex work. Trafficking exists in nanny, restaurants, hospitality services, nail salons, agriculture etc... We are ignoring those victims. I've personally been impacted by trafficking..... surprisingly it wasn't sex work.. but an uncle who was forced to work on a ship at sea... he jumped ship when it docked and he discovered we lived near by.
Interesting how many people are "experts" on sex trafficking. Unless you're an investigative reporter, involved in law enforcement, a victim, or a client, how did you gain your expertise? This isn't something that have any experience so I don't know how widespread it is.
You missed a major path..
Family and friends (for which I am/was both)
People forget that sex workers are people too.. they have lives.
Unfortunately, sex workers have to be dilligent to avoid traffickers (mostly in the form of pimps). Online ads took the ladies off the streets and enabled them to work independently outside the reach of pimps and traffickers. The opposite can happen once that access is removed.
It's a pimp ring. Pimping is not protected under the first amendment, it is a crime.
You are right. Pimping isn't protected by the first amendment. However, ad services aren't actually pimping... no more than a gun dealer is committing a murder.
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