If it's so clearcut, give us the article numbers and let's talk about specifics. The indictment is easy enough to read.
This whole subthread is starting to sound like the McMartin Preschool case.
No actual crimes were committed and there were no victims. In this case the facts are entirely pedestrian and the victims real. It seems pretty clear that people were abused. The only real question is how guilty are the people running Backpage.
Since they were running a page selling people and seemed at best disinterested in not selling children I'd say very. If you sell produce you acquire along with customers money the obligation to ensure that the produce you sell is safe and doesn't cause your customers to die of food poisoning.
If you sell sex it seems people selling children for sex is a foreseeable risk that they did at best NOTHING to mitigate.
I'm not sure why some people seem apt to defend them.
If you want some proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the proprietors of BackPage.com committed the crimes they are accused of, that's totally fair, and that's also what the criminal justice system is supposed to produce as an end result.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17815396
It does in fact completely validate your position, although I guess you know that.
There's a lot in the indictment to suggest that they don't take child sex trafficking seriously as a problem. They joke about it ("entrapment.com"). They take meetings and disregard the information they're given. They're on the record declining to adopt things they say are "good ideas" because they don't have enough "P.R. value". I think the balance of information we have strongly suggests that Lacey and Larking just DGAF.
This is the problem I have with the Standard Internet Discussion on Backpage.com. It invariably focuses on the harm reduction argument. I'm prepared to buy the harm reduction argument! But someone responsible needs to run that site; the people who actually ran it belong in prison.