Big Internet balks at fresh effort to crack down on sex trafficking

Wednesday 2nd August 2017 22:22 GMT Anonymous Coward

Such adverts must result in interactions in the real world - either when delivering the service or buying the advert.

Why can't the law enforcement agencies treat the adverts as a honey pot? Surely their primary objective is to rescue the trafficked kids and arrest the pimps.

Blocking the adverts will just disperse it underground. The punters fuelling the trade will presumably still find their local source. Seems like a case of killing the messenger - so that the dirty linen stays out of sight and can be ignored.

"For Money Or Love" by Robin Lloyd did an investigation on the USA's newspaper and magazine adverts in 1975. It appears as if nothing has changed to fix the underlying social causes of poverty and abuse that drive people into the arms of the pimps.

22 2 Reply
1. Wednesday 2nd August 2017 23:04 GMT Mephistro
  
  (@ AC)
  
  Those were exactly my thoughts after reading the article. The site would be a boon for LEAs and TLAs interested in fighting child sex trafficking. This law would only make their work orders of magnitude more difficult, and just looks like an attempt to sweep things under the rug without addressing the main issue.
  
  I'd like to add that in my opinion, criminalizing adult, voluntary prostitution is not the right thing to do. I'm pretty sure that most prostitutes are in that trade out of necessity, and becoming a prostitute probably beats a hundred times being homeless or watching your children hungry and devoid of opportunities in life. As you said, until the underlying causes are fixed, the law is working for the pimps and against the true victims. It'd make more sense to regulate prostitution as any other job, in such a way that prostitutes get worker's rights, pay taxes and are subject to regular health inspections. That would either take the pimps out of the equation -and good riddance- or force them to act just like other employers, pay their taxes, give a fair share of the earnings to their employees...
  
  Disclaimer: I've never hired a prostitute and never will, but there is a lot of people with different views on the issue, so I don't think a "War on Prostitution" will have a different outcome to, say, the "War on Drugs" or the -thankfully now obsolete- "War on Booze", being humans the way they are.
  
  15 1 Reply
  1. Wednesday 2nd August 2017 23:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Re: (@ AC)
    
    Sex trafficking isn't voluntary prostitution. It's young girls, mostly, kidnapped and forced into sex slavery.
    
    2 5 Reply
    1. Thursday 3rd August 2017 00:09 GMT jonfr
      
      Re: (@ AC)
      
      It is also smallest part of slavery trade today. I was not able to find any good statics on it due to search pollution on Google.
      
      There are however older news reports on this subject that anyone should consider. Sex trafficking is a problem, it just isn't nearly as bad as many claim. Many other sectors are lot worse in this regards and I'm not exactly seeing any law to help those people. I want all slavery stopped, but something major has to change before that happens (sadly).
      
      Article from 2015.
      
      http://www.salon.com/2015/03/22/the_slave_labor_behind_your_favorite_clothing_brands_gap_hm_and_more_exposed_partner/
      
      8 1 Reply
      1. Friday 4th August 2017 23:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
        
        Re: @jonfr
        
        > Sex trafficking is a problem, it just isn't nearly as bad as many claim.
        
        Says who? To my knowledge, sex crime in general is rampant. I've heard it from girlfriends who were victims, from a friend employed in the district attorney's office, in all the news about pedo priests and teachers, kidnappings and disappearances, sex trafficking busts. In this matter I believe the news because direct sources corroborate it.
        
        1 1 Reply
    2. Thursday 3rd August 2017 06:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
      
      Re: (@ AC)
      
      "Sex trafficking isn't voluntary prostitution."
      
      Runaway kids, or those suffering domestic problems, will seek refuge where they can find it. Pimps will offer them some refuge and protection - but they will then be locked into that situation by necessity and coercion.
      
      Apparently the reaction of the USA conservative establishment to Robin Lloyd's investigation was to use it as the public justification of a concerted attack on the LGBTQ minorities.
      
      3 0 Reply
      1. Thursday 3rd August 2017 08:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
        
        Re: (@ AC)
        
        The definition of Sex Trafficking is disputed, because people do try to include voluntary prostitution in it. Most UK stats simply count foreign hookers.
        
        Though the real question the OP needs to ask is not whether voluntary prostitution is better than homelessness, but whether it's better than working for McDonalds, or Amazon.
        
        3 0 Reply
2. Wednesday 2nd August 2017 23:14 GMT Daggerchild
  
  Oh they almost certainly do use it to start their hunts. And they are probably pissed off at this attempt to scatter the pigeons which may only result in less children getting rescued.
  
  But as with all politics - it's not what's true that counts, it's what's seen.
  
  8 0 Reply
3. Thursday 3rd August 2017 13:07 GMT spacecadet66
  
  "Surely their primary objective is to rescue the trafficked kids and arrest the pimps."
  
  As opposed to their primary objective being, for instance, making splashy moves that those who hold the purse strings will remember when it's time to make next year's budget.
  
  3 0 Reply
Wednesday 2nd August 2017 22:26 GMT Anonymous Coward

This bill is badly needed. Even if the Backpage bosses go to jail without it, remember: it took 7 years to take them down. Nothing will ever change if it takes 7 years to bring down the next Backpage.

I've read the bill. It's refreshingly clear and limited. Shorter than this article, actually. It simply clarifies that the CDA doesn't give internet companies a free pass to look the other away when their services are used for sex trafficking. Particularly when it's willful as in Backpage's case.

As for Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, et al: if they censor users at all - which they do - they MUST crack down on sex trafficking. If that puts them out of business.... excellent.

1 19 Reply
1. Thursday 3rd August 2017 00:05 GMT Daggerchild
  
  I have a cucumber to sell you. It has cute yellow spots. It's not very long.
  
  If you aren't 'in the market', how do you know which terminology is evil? e.g. Pizzagate. And God in heaven do you even want to get involved in moderating the seething masses and guessing their mind if you run a small company?
  
  10 0 Reply
2. Thursday 3rd August 2017 16:03 GMT tom dial
  
  I also have read the bill, and it is incomprehensible without also reading the much more voluminous law that it amends. If its effect is reported here with the decent accuracy usual with The Register, it is a bit like shooting the bearer of bad news. The targeted web sites may be facilitating commerce in activities we don't like and that are harmful, but as other posters have noted are a boon to law enforcement officials in finding and shutting them down. Shutting down the web sites will not make the activities go away, or likely even interfere with them much, but will make them harder to detect and disrupt.
  
  2 1 Reply
Wednesday 2nd August 2017 22:41 GMT Anonymous Coward

How about a real world example?

Lets say I build a wall at the back of my garden and someone puts a swastika on it, who is responsible for removing it? is it me because it's my wall or can I claim that as someone else put it on my wall it's their freedom of expression and I can't remove it as it's not my problem?

It'll be interesting to see how this one plays out though I'm 99% sure it will never fall down to social media to do the dirty work.

3 2 Reply
1. Thursday 3rd August 2017 00:05 GMT Daggerchild
  
  To layer on the analogy, you have to remove the swastika if it's against the law and you know about it, e.g. a neighbour told you. That's the current state (AIUI IANAL ETC). It's still legal to otherwise just stay indoors watching the telly.
  
  What I suspect this does is, if one of the neighbourhood kids is an asshole, daubing your walls repeatedly, then not patrolling your walls regularly checking everything against a changing list of symbology, becomes dangerous. It becomes safer and simpler not to have walls.
  
  You're reading this on a wall.
  
  10 0 Reply
Wednesday 2nd August 2017 22:52 GMT Anonymous Coward

Worst Way Possible

When you need anti-sex-trafficing legislation in the worst way possible, you can always count on the US Congress to propose a completely flawed law which won't solve the real problem, but which will create all kinds of difficulties for legitimate companies. :-(

Anon Y. Mous

15 1 Reply
1. Thursday 3rd August 2017 00:11 GMT bombastic bob
  
  Re: Worst Way Possible
  
  yeah, leave it to gummints to totally "get it wrong".
  
  holding web site operators liable for the actions of their advertisers, especially when they use some kind of ad network [and can't necessarily review nor screen the ads] makes you wonder why they even BOTHER, knowing that the lawsuits over wrongful prosecution will keep this tied up in courts for, like, EVAR.
  
  Why not just go after the perpetrators instead? Or is that just not good enough?
  
  old fashioned police work does NOT need blanket surveilance, "unmasking", punishing of ISPs or web site operators, nor the kinds of idiotic "gun-control-like" laws that attempt to hold legitimate businesses responsible for the actions of a few that are inconsequentially involving them.
  
  13 1 Reply
  1. Thursday 3rd August 2017 04:33 GMT Rattus Rattus
    
    Re: Worst Way Possible
    
    I may vehemently disagree with the vast majority of Bob's posts but on occasion, like this one, he hits it out of the park.
    
    5 0 Reply
    1. Friday 4th August 2017 22:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
      
      Re: Worst Way Possible
      
      And I usually agree with him, but not this time. These are all red herrings. Backpage IS a top-level perpetrator running its own ad network, they're public ads so don't cry about surveillance. Surely there are other sites like it, operating shamelessly in the open, protected by a legal loophole.
      
      I say, at least make it difficult for them. Force them onto the dark web. And legalize voluntary prostitution.
      
      1 1 Reply
Thursday 3rd August 2017 06:56 GMT John Smith 19

"and quickly picked up endorsements from 25 other lawmakers,"

The US Congress runs some kind of FB where you have to pick up "likes" to get it voted on?

Incidentally doesn't that "protection" all feed into the debate on wheather the internet is a "common carrier" like the phone system IE udner the 1934 Telecommunications Act?

"Sweet" Pai will have something to say about that.

As soon as he's checked back with his former employers to know what that should be.

3 1 Reply
Thursday 3rd August 2017 14:26 GMT Mike Moyle

How can this be a serious law? Whenever a Congresscritter really wants to get public opinion to unite behind a bill, they give it a "clever" backronym -- vis.: USA PATRIOT Act, STOP SMUT Act, CHURCH Act, etc. This...? The SEST Act? Never gonna fly.

It comes really CLOSE to the SEX Act, so maybe Sen. Portman just couldn't come up with a word that starts with X and got as close as he could.

2 0 Reply
Thursday 3rd August 2017 17:32 GMT Cynic_999

Completely unnecessary

All law enforcement have to do is flood the site with fake honeypot ads, then arrest (with great publicity) anyone who responds to them. Pretty soon nobody will respond to any ad because they won't want to risk it being a trap. Soon afterwards, nobody will bother advertising illegal services on the site (except law enforcement).

In any case, there is already a law that makes it illegal to knowingly facilitate a criminal activity, which could be used against anyone running a web site that is so blatant about advertising illegal services that the administrator could not plausibly argue that s/he was unaware of what the site was being used for. So no need for any additional laws that will no doubt be used to attack other, far more innocent things.

0 1 Reply
1. Friday 4th August 2017 22:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: Completely unnecessary
  
  They actually did all that with Backpage.
  
  1 0 Reply