The California investigation which resulted in the CEO of Backpage getting arrested (along with two major shareholders, interestingly enough) "was prompted, in part, by reports from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children of thousands of instances of child sex trafficking through Backpage." [1]

Backpage's management was hiding behind the 3rd-party provisions of the CDA (and the usual last-defense-of-scoundrels, "free speech" absolutism) but were helping to edit and revise ads [2,3] to conceal obviously illegal activity. Thus they were complicit in it.

It's unfortunate, because there's probably a place for a responsibly-managed online clearinghouse for adult services. But there's no indication that the management of Backpage was attempting to offer that; they were hiding under a veil of 'free speech' when it suited them, while at the same time profiting from activity they should have known was illegal (and beyond illegal, morally repugnant even to those of us who take no issue with what consenting adults do between themselves and find prostitution laws outdated and sexist).

[1]: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/07/497006100/...

[2]: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2016/1007/Backpage-CEO-...

[3]: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/re...

"It's unfortunate, because there's probably a place for a responsibly-managed online clearinghouse for adult services."

This is interesting, but unfortunately, doing so would probably be illegal, so it will likely be shady characters doing the work.

California passed a law making it unlawful to prosecute underage hookers. Whoever proposed this law has not thought this through.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...

If you read the senate complaint, they were editing the ads to remove anything that looked suspicious or potentially illegal. I wouldn't necessarily attribute intent to conceal to that.

The problem is that you can't edit ANYTHING and still be protected by the CDA. And they clearly did it.

>>the usual last-defense-of-scoundrels, "free speech" absolutism

Sigh....

you either have free speech or you don't, there is no way to be a "free speech absolutist" If you are for censorship, of any type even "hate speech" or other speech you do not personally like you do not support freedom of speech, it really is that simple

>Backpage's management was hiding behind the 3rd-party provisions of the CDA

Following the law is not "hiding", Backpage, nor any other website should be legally responsible for the content posted by people using their platform, that is a very dangerous precedent

>It's unfortunate, because there's probably a place for a responsibly-managed online clearinghouse for adult services.

Government has shut all of these down before targeting BackPage. See myRedBook, theReviewBoard, and several others as examples

What makes you think the people posting backpages ads aren't trafficked as well? The reason we don't have "street pimps" isn't that backpages got rid of them; it's that we don't really have street anything anymore --- it's economically irrational in a world where even the poorest among us have smart phones.

Mobile phones are part of the equation! I don't think this is an either/or scenario. Sites like Craigslist and Backpages make it a lot easier for those who do sex work to do it without a pimp. Legal brothels and want-ad based sex work is a lot safer for the people involved than street trafficking. Want-ads are a part of the puzzle just like phones are.

I'm not convinced that this is doing any more good than harm to the majority of the people out there who are engaged in this sort of work.

How exactly do mobile phones make it easier for sex workers to avoid being victimized by pimps?

One less intermediary for the interaction. That's my understanding of the thought on the subject. The pimp has less economic and coercive power if a girl can make her own appointments. If a girl feels she needs protection it's a lot easier to hire someone to watch outside while she goes and does her work, but that is a very different position than that of the traditional pimp.

I find the argument convincing. Unsurprisingly there's not a ton of research on the subject, at least none that comes up on quick searches other than the usual stuff about violence vs sex workers decreasing with legalization.

It seems like the full protection of the law is the only rational and humane way forward. It is time to legalize prostitution in America.

That's not really what street pump means. Even a sex worker using a smartphone for booking has a similar need for extralegal protection.

And we still do have street pimps and street prostitutes, where police haven't flushed them out.

So... what service do pimps still provide in the age of the smartphone?

The same "service" they've always provided: mafia-style protection. Sex workers didn't suddenly become less vulnerable simply because they're posting Craigslist ads.

Could you provide some support to that statement? Since much of drug dealing went online, there has been several articles on how that activity become more safer when moved out of the street.

Just a few months ago I also read an article here in Sweden where a journalist reached out to sex workers, where the person that agreed on a interview said that they had no pimp. They did all the booking and reservations Online. While anecdotal, its enough to at least question statements like sex workers aren't safer when they can stay out of the street and do their advertisement and booking from home.

Why do you think sex workers ever had pimps?

because they are in bad parts of town at night with cash on them?

Did you have something different in mind?

> Sex workers didn't suddenly become less vulnerable simply because they're posting Craigslist ads.

Actually, they did. With a red-light district you have to be there, exposed to the pimps, to be exposed to the customers. And the density allows pimps to control more people, enough to make the activity profitable.

With out-call services from ads you avoid the presence of the pimps in the first place, and the configuration (outcalls) makes capturing a sex-worker much harder if they try which makes the economics much less attractive. Pimping is a crime of opportunity and outcalls remove most of that.

Also, not being street-people, call-girls get much more respect from police if they need to report a crime.

Wouldn't be better if that protection was provided by the police?

Ceteris paribus (though remember there's a long and ugly history of the police victimizing sex workers as well).

But all things aren't equal. Most importantly: so long as prostitution is formally illegal, men and women can't be pressured by social norms to participate in sex work. Once prostitution is legalized, the stage is set for that to change: perhaps body integrity isn't nearly as important as bootstrapping oneself to self-reliance, or providing for vulnerable family members.

Usually in economic analyses we stop and ask ourselves if normal people would prefer the choice rather than having it foisted on them: for instance, maybe we'd rather allow ticket scalping because someone with a valuable ticket would probably prefer the option of being able to sell it for a steep profit and pay for health care rather than just having the experience promised by the ticket. But here we have a case where most normal people probably do not want the choice deregulation would allow.

>though remember there's a long and ugly history of the police victimizing sex workers as well

Mainly in areas where prostitution is illegal, thus the police use their power over the "criminal" to abuse them.

Sex workers have no legal method to report this abuse with out also admitting to a crime themselves.

Thus if it were legal, Abuse by police would only be as frequent for sex workers as is for other legal occupations, which much hire than it should be but....

You do know there are western countries where prostitution is legalized, right? The moral and social fabrics of these nations are not unraveling at the seams.

> Most importantly: so long as prostitution is formally illegal, men and women can't be pressured by social norms to participate in sex work.

Untrue, social norms can pressure people into formally illegal acts quite easily, and that absolutely happens with sex work now.

Also would seem that it would be a good idea to know the 'street corner' that the pimps are on (backpage) so it's easier to find, trace and prosecute them. Seems a cost effective 'lead generation' technique for law enforcement.

Backpage does not mean no street pimps. The average profile of a sex worker in the US is a young runaway who begins dating a slightly older man. He takes care of her in a way her family like never did and eventually convinces her to sell herself, becomes her pimp. It's a very rare sex worker that elected to start completely in her own.

you're trying to define an average. Last report I read said the reasons people went into the sex-trade were varied and many. Defining the average is precisely what always skews the perception and draws the partisan lines so I'm not sure its a good idea to do this.

Source?

This is from my experience consulting with the Alameda County District Attorney's office. I'm using average here less in the statistical sense and more in the ordinary sense.

Seems likely those girls were simply those you happened to encounter, possibly because that's what the local cops picked up.

From what I've read, here in NYC most prostitution is Korean immigrants trafficked to the US to work in massage parlors. They are of age, but clearly coerced. So it really is different all over.