Glad Wyden is one of my senate-dudes, but appalled that it was only he and Paul who saw how unreasonable this is
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or in shopping malls in Alabama.
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Pondering a way that the traffic could be shifted to Breitbart…
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As are the chunks of law enforcement that actually specialise and have expertise in things like human trafficking and child porn.
For a pretty simple reason. Back when the first legal attacks on ad venues (especially Craigslist) started. Under protest from the same groups (a closely inter related grouping of some law enforcement, sex workers advocates, child welfare, And psychology researchers). Craigslist ended up shutting down their adult services page.
Problem was Craigslist was cooperative with law enforcement and these groups. If you had a case tied to a Craigslist ad, And you could get a subpoena. Craigslist would cooperate fully.
After all this shit shifted off to Backpage. Backpage does everything it can to not cooperate. Even under court order. And as its moved off to successively sketchier venues under commuted pressure. Venues you cant even contact to work with or effect. Because they’re off shore, or operators are unknown. It’s gotten continually more difficult to investigate, research, or offer help in these areas.
All this is likely to do is push your sex trade ads. Especially the truly sketchy ones. Even further afield. This push hasn’t done anything to prevent these sorts of abuses. It’s just hidden them from view. Where less and less can be done about them.
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Did the law pass? I thought it only passed the Senate…
Do you have sources for that? (See the quote I posted upthread where they do report questionable ads for Canada, and I thought that was the case in US as well.) I’ve seen a lot of stories that are extremely biased, like portraying having a list of words that are blocked from ads as being a Bad Thing.
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everyone knows all the conservative married Congressmen use backpage anyway. So they are going to be fine.
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Please show your math where this will “help stop child pornographers”. And as pointed above by @Wanderfound , actual living sex workers are opposed to this. Sex workers most need salvation from their putative saviors.
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Thanks for your work on this. Now for the first time in over 200 years there is no more prostitution in America. Kudos!
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How? I’d like an explanation of in what way criminalizing websites for the actions of their users helps stop child pornography.
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I thought that prostitution was illegal in the USA. So, presumably, advertising for sexual services would be illegal as well?
(I am French. In France advertising for sexual services using telecommunications can send you 10 years into prison. That counts for the provider of the service / web site as well.)
Not specifically. Complaints from people I know who need to make them cooperate. Though there was plenty of coverage of backpage’s issues at the time. So it should be quick to track down info on their earlier hardline. I’m at work and can’t spend the time ATM.
You’ve got a progression. From Craigslist who were pretty above board. To backpage who were/are so reliant on sex ads that they avoided playing nice as long as possible. There was an insane amount of pressure on backpage (often to the exclusion of other companies) a while back. Made it look like they were going to collapse. So from what I understand they’ve changed the way they do things. Though by report are still more difficult to deal with than Craigslist was.
But in the meantime all that pressure saw a large proportion of sex work ads move off to other venues. “Escort” sites and forums. Often members only. Chat channels. Dark web shit. So you’ve got a movement from one or a few open, public, us based cooperative platforms to a disperate group of venues that are harder to work with, often based abroad, hidden. And ads that are hidden in unexpected platforms like snapchat, tinder, And what have.
All of which has apparently made outreach, research, prevention, And enforcement a lot more complicated or difficult.
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Craig Newmark has a progressive activist streak and hates tech legislation that’s poorly thought out. This is him making that valid point.
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(Listening intently)
Waiting for the legions of free speech bitchers who grouse about losing their right to be offensive because people have decided not to put up with it anymore to jump in and wage the good fight against a REAL attack on the first amendment. You know, all those folks who decry “PC culture” and “liberal college campuses” and screech about “safe spaces.”
(Nothing but silence)
I guess fighting the good fight takes away from shilling for clicks and money…
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very few bring up the 1st amendment when it’s speech they don’t like being attacked.
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How many ads for kiddie porn have you ever seen on craigslist?
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First they came for Craig’s List, and I was not on Craig’s List, so I swiped left.
Then they came for Tinder, and I was not on Tinder, so I swiped left.
Then they came for Grindr, and I was not on Grindr, so I swiped left.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to swipe right.
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Apparently not so much anymore. But I’ve heard about cases of sex trafficking of kids and childporn distribution involving Craigslist ads. Though not since the early backlash against Craigslist adult services page and the resulting diaspora of sex work ads to everywhere else. And it was never a common or default thing or something you might spot if you didn’t know what you were looking for.
From what I can tell what little human trafficking material still there has to do with all those Asian massage parlor ads. And the less common equivalents from other groups. Where the ads aren’t neccisarily a factor in trackingor shutting it down. And they certainly aren’t limited to Craigslist these days. And then of course some murders, kidnappings and assorted other crimes connected to specific ads in almost all sections.
The dynamic was apparently more of a “this kid disappeared, we know she contacted some one through this Craigslist ad we need to know who posted it”. Than anything where this shit was routinely posted out in the open.
Eta: to clarify what I’m trying to get at is it’s not like these things start from the Craigslist as. As in a bunch of people are waiting for shit to be advertised so they can take a run at it. Typically went the other way. Something happened. A crime. A disappearance. What have. And a Craigslist ad came up while chasing it down. And that ad may have seemed totally innocuous. It’s not like any of the general, publicly accessible venues are loaded with this stuff.
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Long-arc pendulum for rent. Will swing all night long.
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I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume your intentions are sincere.
Disrupting open communication in grey markets does only one thing, drive it further underground to private channels where law enforcement have greater difficulty investigating crimes and predators can more easily evade whisper networks. Laws such as this increase the danger to the vulnerable.
Welcome to BoingBoing. Since you seem sincere, I hope you stick around for more than one topic.
For the most part it’s a combination well-intentioned people who believe that if something is not in the open, it ceases to exist. And of course politicians who may or may not share that misconception, but who are heavily incentivized to cater to it. Meanwhile the damage done to the marginalized by the ill-informed goes roundly ignored because, however well-intentioned, the primary motivation for them is to feel as if they’re doing something, regardless of the actual consequences.
Constructive approaches, such as advocating for sex-worker rights and encouraging/forcing law enforcement to go after predators, while not punishing their victims, using the information that can be subpoenaed from an open platform, are unpalatable to the do-gooders, because it requires admitting that sex workers deserve rights and agency, and accepting that because prohibition is a dangerous and counterproductive strategy, simply pushing grey markets out of sight serves only only to assuage their own consciences at the expense of those they claim and often convince themselves they are helping.
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