Silicon Valley on edge as lawmakers target online sex trafficking ( pizzagate )

submitted by Factfinder2

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-sex-trafficking-backpage-20170831-story.html

"After a sustained assault from lawmakers, investigators and victims groups, the website Backpage.com agreed early this year to shut down its lucrative adult page, which had become a well-known sex-trafficking hub.

It wasn’t long before the company was back in the headlines.

The adult section was gone, but the sex traffic was not. In May, authorities in Stockton charged 23 people with involvement in a trafficking ring that was using another corner of Backpage to market sex with girls as young as 14. A Chicago teenager allegedly trafficked on Backpage had her throat slit in June.

The resilience of this platform — host to an estimated 70% of online sex trafficking at its peak — is a long-running public relations mess for the tech industry. Internet freedom laws held sacred in Silicon Valley have helped shield Backpage from prosecution and lawsuits by victims of gruesome sex trafficking.

Now the tech industry’s Backpage problem has evolved into a full-blown political crisis. An unexpectedly large coalition of lawmakers is aiming to hold sites like Backpage liable for trafficking, sparking panic in Silicon Valley over the far-reaching consequences for the broader Internet."

Narcissism

Agree - what adult hookers choose to do is their business alone.

Silencio

Skeptical this will just be used to exert more control over the internet and free speech. Someone could set up some real or fake trafficking on voat and then use it as an excuse to punish the site owners, seems more likely that would happen and not much actual sex trafficking stopped.

Imo better plan would be to increase punishments for the traffickers, and clients, and mix in some punishment for law enforcement if they fail to follow through on legitimate tip offs to stop it. Force the industry to go deeper underground and the problem will shrink significantly, it's probably never going away entirely unfort.

Marlamin89

Why do I only learn about places like this AFTER they have been shout down?

Are_we_sure

The law that protects Backpage also protects Voat. If I use this site for criminal activity, like posting child porn. I'm responsible for that not Voat.

sore_ass_losers

It's not just freedom of speech. It was shown that Backpage was editing ads for child sex so they didn't seem so obvious.

Are_we_sure

Right. But that would fall outside of the law the Silcon Valley is concerned with.

Trade groups representing Google, Facebook and other Internet giants warn of a “devastating impact” on the tech industry if the 1996 Communications Decency Act is tinkered with in the way lawmakers envision to hold Backpage and others liable for criminal material on their pages.

The article is making it seem like this law is about protecting sex trafficking when it's much, much broader than that.

Factfinder2

As weeds-in-the-garden points out, this is definitely is a double-edged sword. Large-scale brainstorming needs to happen to come up with alternatives.

One possibility would be to rely on crowd policing to identify and report potential trafficking ads to the website administrators and then hold the website legally responsible only if they fail to follow up. A federal law would need to be drafted outlining the method for notifying the webite of potential abuse, the steps the website must take in following up, when it must report to authorities, maintaining a list of blocked offenders, etc., etc.

Such a plan would:

1) Allow continued internet freedom.

2) Utilize the power of crowd sourcing to identify potential abusers.

3) Ensure legal repercussions to websites that fail to act when notified of potential abuser.

10382165?

THIS. The Internet is custom-made for crowd sourcing.

Tzitzimitl

provide legal protections to pedobaiters.

SoldierofLight

I think there might be similar guidelines already in place for web hosting companies. Not sure, but I think that when they're notified that a customer of theirs has a website with illegal content (such as CP) then by law they have to investigate and if the allegations are true they have to notify LE.

weeds-in-the-garden

Well this is a double edged sword. On the one hand I really do want sex-trafficking off the web, and it is everywhere (just look at craigslist). But, you can't monitor everything and if you're making an effort to fight against trafficking I wouldn't hold the actions of outsiders against you.

Given Silicon Valley's ties to the trafficking industry though, I hope they push this through. Cut those illicit funds.

angry_mob

yeah, also silicon valley RUINED san francisco, so fuck 'em.

Steinmacher

If individual sites would police themselves then government would have no reason to step in...

Factfinder2

Yes. See my separate comment in this thread discussing potential solutions to the problem.