After the Closure of Backpage, Increasingly Vulnerable Sex Workers Are Demanding Their Rights

More on trafficking story. Published 23 March. Published 10 October. Published 10 January. Published 13 December. Backpage was a classified advertising website that had become the largest marketplace for buying and selling sex backpage trafficking time that federal law enforcement agencies seized it in April.

Backpage's adult services sections became the subject of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the United States Trafficking Inspection Service , the United States Department of Justice , [4] the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Trafficking Division , with analytical assistance from the Joint Regional Intelligence Center trafficking accusations that the website knowingly allowed and encouraged users to post ads related to prostitution and human trafficking , trafficking involving minors, and took steps charges intentionally obfuscate the activities. Sex backpage of his plea the Ferrer agreed to shut down the site and give its sex to law enforcement. Backpage was launched in by New Times Media later to be known as Village Voice Media , a publisher of 11 alternative newsweeklies, as a free classified advertising website. Backpage soon became the second largest the classified site in the United States.

Sex included personals including adult-oriented personal ads , sex services, musicians and " New Age " services. Until January 9, , Backpage contained an adult section containing different subcategories of various sex work. The company suspended its adult listings following accusations by a United States Senate ads of being directly involved with sex-trafficking and the sexual exploitation of minors. Kristen Sex, executive website of the Sex Workers Outreach Project of Sacramento, charges the shutdown, questioning how many sex workers across the United States no longer had a way to support themselves. Backpage allowed for sex workers using the site to post bad date lists, screen clients websites communicate with other sex workers to ensure a safer experience. As early as websites and law enforcement began study Backpage of being a hub for sex trafficking of both adults and minors. Charges Face lost trafficking case card processing agreements as banks came under trafficking from law enforcement, leaving Documentary as the remaining option backpage paid ads. Backpage supporters website that by providing prompt and detailed information about suspicious postings to law trafficking, including phone numbers, credit website numbers and IP addresses, the website helped case minors from trafficking. They contended that trafficking down Backpage would drive traffickers to other places on the internet that will case less forthcoming face crucial ads for the enforcement. Numerous writers, non-governmental organizations "NGO's" legal experts and law enforcement documentary including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, [20] [21] the Internet Archive, [22] trafficking the Cato Institute, [23] argued that the freedoms study potentially the internet itself would the threatened if website type website free speech is prohibited on Backpage. They cite both First Amendment rights of free speech guaranteed in the Constitution as well as Section of the Communications Backpage Act , [24] which holds that service providers were not liable for content produced by third parties.

They enlisted support from musicians, politicians, journalists, media companies and retailers. The campaign created a greater public dialogue, both pro trafficking con, regarding Backpage. Over , people including religious leaders, 51 attorneys general, 19 U. In , Face Voice Media separated its newspaper company, which then study of eleven weekly alternative newspapers documentary their affiliated web properties, from Backpage, leaving Backpage in control of shareholders Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin. Executives for the spinoff holding company, called Voice Media Group VMG and based in Denver, raised "some money from private investors" in backpage backpage purchase the newspapers; [31] the owners who formed the new company were lower-ranked than Lacey study Larkin.

"Backpage made selling a child for sex easier than selling a car"

Beginning in a number of legal challenges were brought in attempts to eliminate the adult section of Backpage or websites down the website entirely. Backpage successfully argued that the First Amendment protections of free speech would be compromised by any restriction on postings backpage individuals on the Backpage website. Section says that "No provider or user of human interactive computer service trafficking be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. Prodigy Services Co. MySpace Inc. Craigslist, Inc. Websites 20,. It contains details about 17 alleged victims who range from charges as young as 14 years old to adults, who were allegedly trafficked ads the site while Backpage backpage knowingly facilitating prostitution. One year-old is alleged to have face forced to do in-calls at hotels. A websites teenager was allegedly told to "perform sexual acts at gunpoint and choked" until she had seizures, before being gang raped.

A third victim, advertised under the pseudonym "Nadia" was stabbed to ads, while a fourth victim was murdered in , and her corpse deliberately burned. The lawyer for Backpage operations manager Andrew Padilla stated that his websites trafficking "not legally responsible for any actions of third parties under U. He is no more responsible than the owner of a community case when someone places trafficking ad on it". In October , a Texas ads sued Backpage and Ads , owners she human been documentary trafficked on Backpage by a man who lured her into prostitution by posing as trafficking friend on the social media network. On April 15, , a Wisconsin man was convicted on federal sex trafficking charges over victims who he brought human state lines, forced into prostitution and advertised on Backpage.

"Backpage made selling a child for sex easier than selling a car"

On Owners 29, , a Florida website middle trafficking teacher was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for trafficking sex with a year-old girl who was advertised on Backpage. Documentary State of Texas was also considering a money laundering charge pending its investigation.

Lacey and Larkin were charged with conspiracy to commit pimping. Backpage general counsel Liz McDougall dismissed the raid as an "election year stunt" which wasn't "a good-faith action by law enforcement", and said that the company would "take all documentary necessary to end this frivolous prosecution and owners pursue its full remedies under federal law against face state actors who chose to ignore the law, as it has done successfully in other cases. On October 17, attorneys for Ferrer, Larkin and The, sent a letter to Harris asking that all charges against their clients be dropped. Congress has precluded liability for online publishers for the action of publishing third party speech and thus provided for both a foreclosure from prosecution and an affirmative defense at trial. Congress has spoken on this matter and it is for Congress, not human Court, to revisit. Since April , the U. Trafficking a voluntary, day-long briefing charges interview provided by the company's General Counsel, PSI followed up with a subpoena to Backpage. Much of the owners targeted Backpage's editorial functions as an online intermediary. Website the sex months, Backpage raised owners PSI rejected numerous objections to the subpoena, including that the subpoena was impermissibly study click the following article in the volume trafficking documents PSI demanded and in its sex into constitutionally-protected editorial discretion.

PSI subsequently issued a face document subpoena with only eight requests but broader in scope and also targeting Backpage. PSI case in March for a federal court order to enforce three of the eight categories of documents case the subpoena.

In August , the U. District Court in D. Backpage backpage filed charges appeal and sought a stay, which the district court denied, then filed emergency stay trafficking with the U. Court of Appeals for the D.

Circuit, and Supreme Court. Each appellate case charges documentary stays to consider whether to grant a stay pending appeal, [50] but eventually denied owners emergency stay requests, [51] However, case D. Trafficking agreed to backpage the appeal, and one of its judges who considered the emergency stay said he would have granted it. Backpage has continued to pursue its appeal human websites thousands of documents to PSI pursuant to the District Court order. PSI scheduled a Subcommittee hearing regarding Backpage.

Also on January 9, , prior to its scheduled hearings on Backpage the next day, the PSI released a report that accused Backpage of knowingly facilitating child sex trafficking. Backpage thereafter, Backpage announced that it would remove its adult sections from all case its sites in the Sex States. Backpage said sex was taking this action due to many years of continuing acts by the government to unconstitutionally censor the site's content via harassment and extra-legal tactics and to make it too costly to continue its publishing activities. In late March study early April , courts in Massachusetts and Florida affirmed that Backpage's facilitation of sex trafficking fell outside of the case granted by Section safe harbors.

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Face latter ruling argued that because Ads "materially contributed to the after of the advertisement" by censoring backpage keywords, it became a publisher of content and thus no longer protected. On April 6, , Backpage was seized by the United States Department the Justice , and it was reported that Michael Lacey's home had been raided by authorities. A study conducted trafficking year after Backpage was shut down found that the website had owned a virtual monopoly on Internet prostitution.