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A comment on Backpage Shuts Down Adult Ads in the U.S., Citing Government Pressure. Parent comment

Re:Backpage Shuts Down Adult Ads in the U.S., Citing Governm... by Kadin on Tuesday January 10, 2017 @12:46PM (#13366935)
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even to those of us who take no issue with what consenting adults do between themselves and find prostitution laws outdated and sexist).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...

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Re:Backpage Shuts Down Adult Ads in the U.S., Citing Governm... by jonlucc on Tuesday January 10, 2017 @12:49PM (#13366972)
"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.

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Re:Backpage Shuts Down Adult Ads in the U.S., Citing Governm... by wang_li on Tuesday January 10, 2017 @07:20PM (#13370630)
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...

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Re:Backpage Shuts Down Adult Ads in the U.S., Citing Governm... by hendersoon on Tuesday January 10, 2017 @01:04PM (#13367155)
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.

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Re:Backpage Shuts Down Adult Ads in the U.S., Citing Governm... by syshum on Tuesday January 10, 2017 @01:03PM (#13367132)
>>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

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