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Tech Bros Bought Sex Trafficking Victims Using Amazon and Microsoft Work Emails (newsweek.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
Newsweek's National Politics Correspondent reports on "a horny nest of prostitution 'hobbyists' at tech giants Microsoft, Amazon and other firms in Seattle," citing "hundreds" of emails "fired off by employees at major tech companies hoping to hook up with trafficked Asian women" between 2014 and 2016, "67 sent from Microsoft, 63 sent from Amazon email accounts and dozens more sent from some of Seattle's premier tech companies and others based elsewhere but with offices in Seattle, including T-Mobile and Oracle, as well as many local, smaller tech firms." Many of the emails came from a sting operation against online prostitution review boards, and were obtained through a public records request to the King County Prosecutor's Office.
"They were on their work accounts because Seattle pimps routinely asked first-time sex-buyers to prove they were not cops by sending an employee email or badge," reports Newsweek, criticizing "the widespread and often nonchalant attitude toward buying sex from trafficked women, a process made shockingly more efficient by internet technology... A study commissioned by the Department of Justice found that Seattle has the fastest-growing sex industry in the United States, more than doubling in size between 2005 and 2012. That boom correlates neatly with the boom of the tech sector there... Some of these men spent $30,000 to $50,000 a year, according to authorities." A lawyer for some of the men argues that Seattle's tech giants aren't conducting any training to increase employees' compassion for trafficked women in brothels. The director of research for a national anti-trafficking group cites the time Uber analyzed ride-sharing data and reported a correlation between high-crime neighborhoods and frequent Uber trips -- including people paying for prostitutes. "They made a map using their ride-share data, like it was a funny thing they could do with their data. It was done so flippantly."
"They were on their work accounts because Seattle pimps routinely asked first-time sex-buyers to prove they were not cops by sending an employee email or badge," reports Newsweek, criticizing "the widespread and often nonchalant attitude toward buying sex from trafficked women, a process made shockingly more efficient by internet technology... A study commissioned by the Department of Justice found that Seattle has the fastest-growing sex industry in the United States, more than doubling in size between 2005 and 2012. That boom correlates neatly with the boom of the tech sector there... Some of these men spent $30,000 to $50,000 a year, according to authorities." A lawyer for some of the men argues that Seattle's tech giants aren't conducting any training to increase employees' compassion for trafficked women in brothels. The director of research for a national anti-trafficking group cites the time Uber analyzed ride-sharing data and reported a correlation between high-crime neighborhoods and frequent Uber trips -- including people paying for prostitutes. "They made a map using their ride-share data, like it was a funny thing they could do with their data. It was done so flippantly."
So it seems I work with some people involved which sucks. But can we please not have sex trafficking mandatory training from HR next year? People who aren't sick fucks don't need a training video to show them how to act like humans.
It's not that there aren't people who want to work in the sex industry - there absolutely are. However, as studies repeatedly bear out, the number who want to is far below the demand; most people who work in the sex industry don't want to be there, and abusive trafficking is an inevitable consequence of this situation.
Making prostitution symmetrically illegal doesn't solve the problem. By making it illegal and aggressively policing it, yes, you cut down on part of the demand. But you also cut down on the supply. And since the ratio of clients to sex workers is far greater than 1, it's much easier to crack down on the "supply" side of the equation, thus increasing the trafficking motive. On the other hand, making it fully legal causes a boom in demand (and especially sex tourism), which usually is associated with a trafficking boom.
I'm personally a fan of the Nordic system: purchasing sex is illegal, as is pimping, but selling sex is perfectly illegal. After all, if your goal is to stamp out trafficking and protect abused women, why would you throw them in jail? The Nordic system cuts demand without cutting supply, thus heavily damaging the trafficking motive; it's been very successful. There are some things you have to be careful about, of course - for example, in the first version of the Swedish laws they had problems with landlords kicking prostitutes out, out of fear that they'd get caught up in anti-pimping / anti-brothel laws (the laws were later amended to address this). But in general it's been shown to work well. It also makes it so that prostitutes are unafraid of having to deal with the police, which means better crime reporting and an all-around better environment for them.
"I can get my own men." "Yeah, you better go check your traps."
Seems every generation society gets on this hysterical kick about something threatening their children/womenfolk. While back it was the indians, then sometimes later the yellow peril, then later blacks, and not too long ago satanists. Now I guess its obese greasy white IT nerds. Every notice how you never or rarely heard of sex trafficking before yet starting a few years ago if you believe the stories all of a sudden every town is blanketed with hidden lairs of hundreds of chained up damsels lying in darkened smoky brothels around every corner of town in america. And of course evil men are driving this. Yeah I pretty sure there's always been some hookers here or there who were forced into it, but its pretty hard not to be skeptical when almost all these stories are big on vagueness and sensationalism and small on details and the few that are followed up you often find even the hookers don't consider themselves 'slaves'
Can't get a man as a screaming misandrist? Make sure they can't fuck for money.
On one those 'anti-trafficking' organisations, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation* (better know by their old name of Morality in Media, they rebranded because they were a laughing stock) features a 'dirty dozen' list every year of the twelve organisations they consider most destructive to sexual morality. Amnesty International is on the last two lists because they support decriminalisation of prostitution.
They also list the American Library Association (for opposing government-mandated filtering), Amazon (for selling pornography), youtube, Comcast (for not blocking pornography by default) and HBO (for making Game of Thones, with "with copious amounts of gratuitous nudity, sex, and sexual violence.").
There's a lesson to be learned here: Sometimes organisations try to veil their real goals. The National Center on Sexual Exploitation sounds like an organisation dedicated to protecting women, superficially, and their front page supports this interpretation - boldly claiming "NCOSE has a proven track record of changing corporate and government policies that previously facilitated sexual exploitation." But dig a little deeper and you find that their definition of 'exploitation' includes not only trafficking, but consentual prostitution and even the very absolute softest titillation of pornography - they have called upon Steam to ban Mass Effect: Andromeda as too racy. Dig a bit deeper still and you find they have campaigned for schools to block gay rights websites for 'promoting the homosexual lifestyle.'
*Abbreviated NCOSE, by their own choice. Probably to avoid confusion with the NCSE, the National Center for Science Education.
What if I we're to cut your ear off if you refused to consent to have butt sex with Tim Cock - would you do it?
There's a fine line between consent and coercion. You have no idea what is pressing against the other person's head who is willing to "consent" to sex with you.
You just summed up decades if not centuries of family pressure on daughters to 'make a good match'.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
"Hey ladies, just make yourselves more open to being abused. Then there won't be any more abuse."
Yeah, nice plan, dickhead.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
What if it only stops half of it?
How about not treating women like their only purpose is to get men off?
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
It's almost like you're both idiots who think in black and white!
You have no idea what is pressing against the other person's head who is willing to "consent" to sex with you.
You also have no idea what is pressing against the other person's head who is willing to "consent" to a soul-destroying office job, yet no one seems to bat an eye there. Perhaps instead of trying to second-guess everyone's reasons for doing what they do, we could go after the people who are threatening harm if they don't do the thing?
Legalize prostitution: If you prohibit something that has demand, illegal/black markets *will* be created. It would also be easier to help the women who want to quit and don’t manage on their own. Health controls could be done, which benefits both clients and sellers.
Not to mention, you could tax it. Just make it a job like an artist or a performer.
Criminalizing certain vices; the prohibition of gambling, prostitution, and even drugs has fueled the rise in violent, organized crime. Where there is a demand for a product or a service, a market will exist. The mafia made fortunes on bootlegging and other vice crimes throughout the 20th century. When you criminalize a service or product, it becomes unregulated and MUCH more dangerous. It's time to admit that these vice crimes just need to go away. If we legalized and regulated drugs, then the domino effect of violence that results from drugs starts to go away.