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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."
I wonder if it was really just the Tech Bros that purchased this. It seems like Tech females would also be on the market for this. Aren't there male strippers in Seattle?
Here's a story about prosecutors throwing people in jail for talking about prostitution by intimidating them with trumped up charges to get them to plea. Many got fired from their jobs. Others lost their friends and family and one man committed suicide. It's like how some cities resort to public shaming Johns which is such a horrific practice that even 18th century America stopped doing it. http://reason.com/archives/201...
All of these anti-trafficking organizations use Superbowl TV commercials of women and/or child being sold as slaves (which is extremely rare) but if you read what their true goal is, they want to stop all prostitution. They even consider 100% voluntary prostitution as trafficking. Amnesty International has the right solution which is to legalize prostitution so that women aren't forced into the underground where they are victimized by their Pimps and by the Police.
You have to figure some ethic groups have always treated woman as second class objects. This is the conflict that occurs when you mix a ethnic group that doesn't value woman equally as most do in the US. You have his sort of sex slave operation because you have a lot of potential people even in places like Microsoft and Amazon who desire this.
I do not think legalizing prostitution will stop sex trafficking. Even in Amsterdam, which has legal prostitution, still has sex trafficking problems (one example https://nltimes.nl/2017/05/18/...).
Big problem with "stopping sex trafficking" is that you'd have to have reliable numbers before and after the attempt to stop it. Unfortunately, there's a whole industry (both inside and outside of police) who earn their money dealing with sex trafficking. On top of that, it's hard to challenge those numbers, because you don't want to be that person.
So any and all news coming from police about sex trafficking numbers is suspect to me.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Wouldn't have stopped Weinstein. He could easily afford expensive prostitutes, but that wasn't what he wanted. It was about power, forcing young actress to do things with him.
Half right. In some of those cases it was young actresses doing things with him in order to further their own career and getting some money on the side, that's on top of the rape claims which may or maynot ever be proven. Rose Mcgowan who started this current outbreak, took money as payment not to shush her up but as a pay-off for the sex to further her own career. And that's by her own admission, with that I also expect to hear something in a few years that the reason she "spoke out" was because she was spurned by him for someone newer(aka better looking model upgrade). In the end that doesn't make those women victims, it just makes them high priced prostitutes that got a movie deal on the side.
And before you reply, keep in mind that in nearly all of these cases it's not pressure that makes them do something. It's because they see the opportunity to use an asset to get something they wanted.
Same with trafficking. They want certain types of girl, otherwise why take the huge risks (sending your ID or using a work email) when for $50k a year you are not going to have difficulty getting laid?
The real question you should be asking is, who was behind the actual prostitution ring. These guys were the ones paying for it, but you can bet that beyond what is being said there is/was an organization that was directly working to sell that sex. There were busts here in Canada a few years ago, with a similar situation. There were people high up in the big name companies doing the same thing, and it was an elite invite-only/pay-in prostitution ring similar to Emperors Club VIP(that was the big prostitution scandal in NYC).
Om, nomnomnom...
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
If there is more demand than is on offer, prices rise, and the job becomes appealing to a larger group of people. What you describe is what happenes when instead of paying adequate wages, people from poorer countries are imported to dump prices. That is not different with prostitution than with any other job.
most people who work in the sex industry don't want to be there
Most people who work in any industry (except for a very few glamorous professions) would rather like are less strenuous and higher payed job. Again, not in any way specific to prostitution.
abusive trafficking is an inevitable consequence of this situation.
No. Abusive trafficking is happening for a lot of reasons and for many kinds of work - just look into gastronomy and construction sites, where you can find the same "slave like" working conditions with workers "paying off debts" to those who trafficked them into the country.
Abusive trafficking is the inevitable consequence of lacking prosecution of those who traffick and those who do not adhere to existing labor laws.
Regarding the absurd "asymmetric" anti-prostitution laws in Sweden: If there was any honesty in those who want to criminalize prostitution, they would apply the same logic to many other professions: So eating in a restaurant where a trafficked worker cooked your meal would be illegal. Being helped by some trafficked nurse would be criminalized. Having your garden shack built by a company who brings trafficked workers to your site would make you a criminal.
Once you think of this, you might realize that the Swedish law is not at all against trafficking, it is against sex services being on offer in general, for irrational reasons.
And in any sane country, that has happened a long time ago. It is also patently false to think that most women in prostitution are forced into it. Or at least not more forced than anybody that has to work for a living. They just look at their options and decide that it is this one they like best. In countries were prostitution is legal or decriminalized, it is extremely rare to find anybody forced into prostitution, and it is usually one of the first few customers (often the very first one) that calls the police and gets the victim freed. Of course that only works if said customer does not need to fear prosecution....
With the thoroughly insane idea of making prostitution illegal in the US, the prohibitionists get to design the narrative, and they are shamelessly lying to promote their evil agenda. Suddenly, everybody selling sex is "trafficked", when that is very far from the truth indeed. And suddenly there are incredible masses of underage prostitutes, when in actual reality they are very rare. The "average age entering the sex trade" becomes 13, when in actual reality it is more like 22. And do not forget that prostitution being illegal correlates with significantly higher rates of rape. This evil has to stop.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The main benefits of Drug Legalization are: lower crime rates (most mugging/theft/break and enter are for drug money and legal drugs cost less), fewer drug addict deaths (drug quality control), less money to organized crime and terrorism (smuggling funds a lot of terrorists). We'd get those benefits in about 3 months (time to set up shop).
It's a bit of political posturing in this case. The NCOSE used to be an overtly Christian, right-wing pressure group dedicated to stamping out sinful media - they were called Morality in Media, and they tended to use language associated with the right-wing faction of politics - decency, morality, family. A few years ago they noticed that their name was a joke and nothing they said was taken seriously, so they completely reinvented themselves to turn from a right-wing anti-pornography organisation into a left-wing (superficially) anti-pornography organisation. Now they talk instead about needing to protect women, and use left-wing language - talking about rights, and equality. But beneath their surface appearance their actual policy positions have not changed at all - they even retain their opposition to homosexuality.
Actually, many people advocating for the basic income do wonder just how willing people are to work at the more soul destroying office jobs. Certainly they believe that a basic income would force employers to make office jobs less soul destroying.