Slashdot Mirror
US House Passes Bill To Penalize Websites For Sex Trafficking (trust.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Thomson Reuters Foundation News: The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed legislation to make it easier to penalize operators of websites that facilitate online sex trafficking, chipping away at a bedrock legal shield for the technology industry. The bill's passage marks one of the most concrete actions in recent years from the U.S. Congress to tighten regulation of internet firms, which have drawn heavy scrutiny from lawmakers in both parties over the past year due to an array of concerns regarding the size and influence of their platforms. The House passed the measure 388-25. It still needs to pass the U.S. Senate, where similar legislation has already gained substantial support, and then be signed by President Donald Trump before it can become law.
Several major internet companies, including Alphabet Inc's Google and Facebook Inc, had been reluctant to support any congressional effort to dent what is known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a decades-old law that protects them from liability for the activities of their users. But facing political pressure, the internet industry slowly warmed to a proposal that gained traction in the Senate last year, and eventually endorsed it after it gained sizable bipartisan support. The legislation is a result of years of law-enforcement lobbying for a crackdown on the online classified site backpage.com, which is used for sex advertising. It would make it easier for states and sex-trafficking victims to sue social media networks, advertisers and others that fail to keep exploitative material off their platforms.
Several major internet companies, including Alphabet Inc's Google and Facebook Inc, had been reluctant to support any congressional effort to dent what is known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a decades-old law that protects them from liability for the activities of their users. But facing political pressure, the internet industry slowly warmed to a proposal that gained traction in the Senate last year, and eventually endorsed it after it gained sizable bipartisan support. The legislation is a result of years of law-enforcement lobbying for a crackdown on the online classified site backpage.com, which is used for sex advertising. It would make it easier for states and sex-trafficking victims to sue social media networks, advertisers and others that fail to keep exploitative material off their platforms.
Diaspora might finally get some users!
How sex saved the social network!
..how you can impose platform censorship under the name of preventing sex trafficking. Let's ignore all the rich and/or shitheads that get away with fucking kids and teens without consequence (politicians, the Catholic church, people in Hollywood, etc.) and look at what Craigslist and Backpage provide: prostitution. Is there illegal trafficking? Quite possibly, but there is also prostitution which is legal in the UK, Australia, NZ, much of Europe and a couple of counties in Nevada.
How about just legalizing prostitution, taxing/regulating it, and then go after actual sex traffickers and pedos, without compromising freedom of speech or making it much more difficult for smaller players to enter the walled gardens of content hosting, media distribution and social networks.
Sex trafficking is not a 1st Amendment issue. Backpage was using the CDA to shield itself from being prosecuted for running a underage prostitution ring.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
The Senate bill, and a similar one in the House, were inspired by the numerous court victories won by Backpage.com, an online classified ads site that hosts massive advertising for prostitution, including an unknown percentage of children being trafficked by adult pimps. Backpage has successfully cited the Communications Decency Act, which protects websites from liability for posts by third parties, to evade both criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits. As attorney general of California, Harris launched a criminal case against Backpage for prostitution, and it was thrown out by a judge who cited the Communications Decency Act.
The Senate's subcommittee on investigations sparked congressional action when it found that Backpage was editing ads to remove references to underage prostitutes, but allowing the ads to remain online. Then, in July, The Washington Post revealed that Backpage was actively soliciting ads from prostitutes on other websites, and creating new ads for those prostitutes so that they could post on Backpage with just one click.
Some members of Congress called for the Justice Department to investigate Backpage for seemingly creating illegal content, not just hosting it. And some opponents of the new bill cited The Post story as evidence that Backpage could be prosecuted under the existing law, with no need to amend the law and possibly open up unforeseen areas of civil and criminal liability.
After the bill was introduced, tech lobbyists worked Capitol Hill trying to drum up opposition. Google issued a statement saying the proposed bill "would be a disaster" and "would actually hinder the fight against sex trafficking." The bill amends both the Decency Act and a federal sex-trafficking statute.
But members of the tech community worked with Senate Commerce Committee staff to tweak the language of the bill, which is scheduled for markup Wednesday. One of the keys was the definition of "participation in a venture" in the anti-sex-trafficking statute, which courts have found did not include Internet sites hosting illegal content. The proposed bill originally defined participation as "knowing conduct, by an individual or entity, by any means, that assists, supports or facilitates a violation" of sex trafficking laws.
Internet companies thought the phrase "by any means" had the potential to be broadly interpreted when analyzing a website's actions. The newly amended bill changes the definition of participation to simply "knowingly assisting, supporting, or facilitating a violation" of sex trafficking laws, Senate staff members said.
The changes to the bill also amend the standard by which state prosecutors can seek to charge or sue websites, requiring them to meet the federal standard, including the new definition above, rather than those established by state law, which can vary widely.
Michael Beckerman, president of the Internet Association, which counts Google, Twitter and Microsoft among its members, said in a statement that "Important changes made to SESTA will grant victims the ability to secure the justice they deserve, allow internet platforms to continue their work combating human trafficking, and protect good actors in the ecosystem."
Beckerman said the association was looking "forward to working with the House and Senate as SESTA moves through the legislative process to ensure that our members are able to continue their work to fight exploitation."
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and other members of the Commerce Committee welcomed the endorsement from the Internet Association. "I'm pleased we've reached an agreement," Portman said in a statement. "We've reached
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
But is this going to change how anyone here votes? Either in a primary or general election? If not, there's zero reason for Congress not to support these kind of things. There are people who _will_ vote for Congresscritters who push this sort of legislation. This is part of the "tough on crime" theme that's dominated American politics for ages.
So again, if this kind of overreach isn't going to change how anyone votes it's hardly worth discussion.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Was Backpage actually running an underage prostitution ring or were third parties running underage prostitution rings and using Backpage as a place to post ads? The rhetoric around "sex trafficking" is full of logical fallacies, anecdotal evidence, and opinions-as-facts appeal-to-emotion presentations by law enforcement officials and politicians. It is difficult to trust that what is presented is actually truthful, especially when the facts run counter to the prevailing narrative.
https://reason.com/blog/2017/0...
Partial quote: "Both law enforcement and nonprofits such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) routinely use sites like Backpage to search for teenagers reported missing. The cross-country nature of the site allows authorities to track potential victims who may move around a lot, and provides tangible evidence for prosecutors to use against their exploiters. Police also use Backpage extensively when conducting sting operations ostensibly targeting the recovery of minors. Backpage itself has, at least historically, reported suspicious ads (such as those featuring pictures of people who look underage) to NCMEC or local law enforcement."
I'm not saying that Backpage is a company run by angels, but I am definitely saying that there's so much propaganda and lies by omission out there about the Backpage prostitution situation that facts are hard to come by without scooping through truckloads of bullshit and ignoring the moralistic crusaders screaming in your ears that they're right. In any case, the people posting underage prostitution ads are the ones committing the heinous act and going after Backpage won't do a damn thing but shovel a bunch more of the prostitution ad volume onto Tor and I2P. Driving the information further underground and further from the legal reach of law enforcement will only make matters worse.
Was Backpage actually running an underage prostitution ring or were third parties running underage prostitution rings and using Backpage as a place to post ads?
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
A contractor for the controversial classifieds website Backpage.com has been aggressively soliciting and creating sex-related ads, despite Backpage's repeated insistence that it had no role in the content of ads posted on its site, according to a trove of newly discovered documents.
The documents show that Backpage hired a company in the Philippines to lure advertisers -- and customers seeking sex -- from sites run by its competitors. The spreadsheets, emails, audio files and employee manuals were revealed in an unrelated legal dispute and provided to The Washington Post.
Workers in the Philippine call center scoured the Internet for newly listed sex ads, then contacted the people who posted them and offered a free ad on Backpage.com, the documents show. The contractor's workers even created each new ad so it could be activated with one click.
Workers also created phony sex ads, offering to "Let a young babe show you the way" or "Little angel seeks daddy," adding photos of barely clad women and explicit sex patter, the documents show. The workers posted the ads on competitors' websites. Then, when a potential customer expressed interest, an email directed that person to Backpage.com, where they would find authentic ads, spreadsheets used to track the process show.
They were certainly making aggressive moves to break into the underage prostitute ad market. And when people complained they said it was 'third party content' and used the CDA as a shield
For years, Backpage executives have adamantly denied claims made by members of Congress, state attorneys general, law enforcement and sex-abuse victims that the site has facilitated prostitution and child sex trafficking. Backpage argues it is a passive carrier of "third-party content" and has no control of sex-related ads posted by pimps, prostitutes and even organized trafficking rings. The company contends it removes clearly illegal ads and refers violators to the police.
The discovery could be a turning point in the years-long campaign by anti-human trafficking groups, and Congress, to persuade Backpage to stop hosting prostitution ads, which many teenage girls have claimed were used to sell them for sexual exploitation. Lawsuits and criminal prosecutions of Backpage in the United States have nearly all failed because Backpage cites in its defense the federal Communications Decency Act, which grants immunity to websites that merely host or screen content posted by others.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I for one think it's great that sex workers have a strong advocate and role model as First Lady.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Nothing you quoted in that reply says anything about "running an underage prostitution ring" so that claim remains unfounded. The only uses of the word "underage" are in your own text and the text you quoted from my question. Referencing youth is not the same thing as "underage." If you don't believe me, see the search results for yourself and start clicking those "report" buttons.
Those are very good points. We should expect to see many "think of the children" demands. tied to any such laws.
Nothing you quoted in that reply says anything about "running an underage prostitution ring" so that claim remains unfounded.
Ok how about "they made aggressive moves to break into the underage prostitute ad market". Are happy with that wording?
As far as the underage thing consider
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the majority of child sex trafficking cases referred to NCMEC involve ads on Backpage. Backpage says that it blocks about a million ads per month, mostly suspected of child sex trafficking or prostitution. Of those, they report around 400 ads a month to NCMEC which in turn notify law enforcement. Content submitted to Backpage is surveyed by an automated scan for terms related to prostitution. At least one member of a team of over 100 people also oversees each entry before it is posted.
Backpage has had continued issues with credit card processors, who were under pressure from law enforcement to cease working with companies that allegedly allow or encourage illegal prostitution. In 2015 Backpage lost all credit card processing agreements, leaving Bitcoin as the remaining option for paid ads.
In an amicus curiae brief, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says the efforts of Backpage are inadequate and their reporting lacked in several areas. They say Backpage does not report all ads that have been flagged as being underage, does not report when someone tries to advertise children under 18 years of age, and does not respond to requests of parents to have ads of their trafficked children removed. They also say Backpage "encourage[s] dissemination of child sex trafficking content on its website". They say Backpage is much slower in removing ads that advertise children than ads placed by authorities aimed at trapping traffickers, guides traffickers in creating false pages for underage children, instructs traffickers and buyers on how to pay anonymously, and makes it easier to make adult posts than other posts. They said "To all intents and purposes, Backpage has instituted no effective procedures to prevent child sex trafficking ads from being created on its site." They say that they do not use obvious techniques to identify traffickers, such as using the same phone number, email address or credit card of a known trafficker, or reusing the same picture of known victim of human trafficking.
They were clearly turning a blind eye to people advertising underage prostitutes, rather like Pirate Bay did to people posting torrents that violate copyright.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
If you look at the site: they turn a blind eye to prostitution hosted at www.backpage.com. Picking and choosing which prostitutes are under-age, lying about their age, or are undercover police is a burden for any website which would be a legal nightmare to undertake. There are many others that have carefully turned a blind eye to such traffic: Craigslist used to do so, and withdrew from the business after a notable murder of a prostitute found on craigslist. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... for more details.
I see nothing to substantiate that claim either. Trying to get market share for prostitution ads is not the same thing as trying to get market share for underage prostitution ads. Also, look at the thing you quoted: a team of "over 100 people" have to review each entry before it's posted for a website that receives so many posts that "about a million ads per month" are blocked. Scrutinizing ad wording is a subjective task and they've got a staff in the hundreds on a website that's receiving posts in the millions per month. None of what's in that Wikipedia article quote is a surprise with that kind of context. They remove fake law enforcement ads faster than they remove ads advertising "children?" (Note: teenagers are not children as in "pedophilia" so there's already some seriously loaded wording by describing underage post-pubescent adolescents this way.) Why is this a surprising thing to anyone? The poster for "jailbait" prostitutes only needs to convey "I'm REALLY young, yo" in a coded way and as one code-word is grey-listed a hundred more euphemisms can be created to replace them, whereas the law enforcement official making shit up will be using up-to-date well-known code words that are on the list of phrases that raise red flags. If Backpage is using data analysis akin to spam email scoring to assist in moderation and they don't know who is and isn't law enforcement, doesn't it make perfect sense that LE posts get red-flagged sooner?
As for TPB, they don't turn a blind eye to torrents that violate copyright. TPB outright doesn't give a damn about copyright. That's kind of their schtick.
They want to crack down on hookers but in this day and age it'd look like they're wasting their time so they'll conflate prostitution with sex trafficking and crack down on it that way.
Maybe my tinfoil hat is too tight, but my first thought is that Google and Facebook are setting up a way to take down Craigslist, in order to take over local online classifieds.
Note: teenagers are not children as in "pedophilia" so there's already some seriously loaded wording by describing underage post-pubescent adolescents this way.
Someone quibbling about the distinction between ephebophiles and pedophilia seems to be inevitable in these sorts of discussions.
I wonder why...
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Probably because "children" implies something very different from "teens" and is an implicit logical fallacy of appeal to emotion. Hmm, I wonder why someone would want to have a discussion where the facts are clearly stated instead of implied...how odd...wait, no, that's how rational discussion works.
Well, I guess the #MeToo movement stops when the OP can't get any under age nookie.
And trying to poke fun at the 2nd Amendment too while you're at it. Classy.
Note this bill is NOT about trafficking. There *was* a bill that dealt with trafficking. Then there was an amendment which replaced *all* of the text of the original bill. It's now about prostitution, not trafficking. An example of the current wording of the bill:
--
a defendant may be held liable, under
this subsection, where promotion or facilitation of prostitution activity
---
Only if, you know, you offered any sort of proof they were doing that. Hell, to the fact that it's claimed they were scrubbing underage ads, from the US Senate report in a footnote:
'Ferrer also personally supervised multiple “deep cleans” of
previously published Backpage ads to scrub them of suspect words. At his direction, words
indicative of underage prostitution and other crimes were stripped out from all ads. See App.
000754; App. 000213. On February 4, 2011, for example, Ferrer directed DesertNet to go through
“all adult and personal ads and remove” words including “innocent, tight, fresh” and “schoolgirl,
school girl, highschool, high school, cheerleader.” Id.; see also App. 000145; App. 000195. 138 App. 000156. Ferrer initially debated whether to “ban or strip out” the word “lolita.” Padilla’s
December 1, 2010 email and accompanying Strip Term From Ad spreadsheet confirms that
Backpage did, in fact, strip the term from ads. See App. 000157.'
This just in: people looking for sex lie about their age and even go as far as invoking underage references to describe their appearance. However, also reported:
'Backpage Employee B further stated that she deleted
“Banned terms” from ads before their publication.208 A long list of words referring
to prostitution and youth comprised Backpage’s “banned terms” list from 2010
through 2012.209 Backpage Employee B further explained that, beyond the banned
terms list, moderators used their judgment to delete other terms that in “context”
“show[] any sort of prostitution.”210 “[I]f there’s, you know, money signs, stuff like
that, I would delete it,” she explained, and then the ad would post.211 She testified
that even a phrase as literal and explicit as “‘sex for money’” “would be deleted” by
moderators before posting the ad,212 elaborating that “[a]s long as [the terms in an
ad were] not anything underage, if it had anything of illegal activity, we could
remove it.”213 Backpage Employee B repeatedly stated that she entirely deleted ads
that she believed were for an underage person,214 but she also stated that she would
not know if a word had been removed by the Strip Term From Ad filter before it
reached her screen.215
Later in her deposition, Backpage Employee B sought to “clarify” her
testimony on several points. Specifically, she stated that while she edited out words
suggestive of prostitution, her practice was to remove an entire ad “[i]f anything [in
the ad] was like blatantly, like, ‘I’m going to have sex for money’” or “‘I am a
prostitute, I am going to have sex with [sic] money.’”216 She stated that this was her
personal approach to moderation but she could not speak for other moderators.217 '
IE, they banned underage and prostitution ads, but when it became clear that their word list wasn't good enough, they went through and scrubbed ads more. They also auto-scrub out words. Even if they're keeping ads in that are gray area, the actions go against the act of encouraging underage or prostitution. This isn't "turning a blind eye to people advertising underage prostitutes".
It's "we want to offer this service for people to hook up" and no amount of trying to censor content is going to prevent people from coming up various ways to beat the filters.
Generally the kind of people get really worked up about pedophilia, are themselves pedophiles. The rest of us just don't care very much because it's both unsavory and vanishingly rare.
What about this?
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
A contractor for the controversial classifieds website Backpage.com has been aggressively soliciting and creating sex-related ads, despite Backpage's repeated insistence that it had no role in the content of ads posted on its site, according to a trove of newly discovered documents.
The documents show that Backpage hired a company in the Philippines to lure advertisers -- and customers seeking sex -- from sites run by its competitors. The spreadsheets, emails, audio files and employee manuals were revealed in an unrelated legal dispute and provided to The Washington Post.
Workers in the Philippine call center scoured the Internet for newly listed sex ads, then contacted the people who posted them and offered a free ad on Backpage.com, the documents show. The contractor's workers even created each new ad so it could be activated with one click.
Workers also created phony sex ads, offering to "Let a young babe show you the way" or "Little angel seeks daddy," adding photos of barely clad women and explicit sex patter, the documents show. The workers posted the ads on competitors' websites. Then, when a potential customer expressed interest, an email directed that person to Backpage.com, where they would find authentic ads, spreadsheets used to track the process show.
If they really were making a good faith effort to remove ads but didn't have enough people that would be one thing. Actively soliciting ads is quite another.
Now you'll say 'well soliciting sex ads isn't illegal'. However what they're accused of is worse than that
An investigation by a Senate subcommittee revealed earlier this year found that Backpage was editing ads to remove language indicating underage girls were available, rather than removing the ads. "Backpage has been righteously indignant throughout our investigation," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a subcommittee member, "about how we were infringing on their constitutional rights, because they were a mere passthrough." She noted, however, that Backpage was not only changing ads but also was also guiding posters in how to conceal their true intentions.
"But that's nothing compared to this" new information, McCaskill said after The Post described the data. "This is about as far from passive as you can get. This is soliciting. This is, really, trickery. .â.â. So I hope this opens the floodgates of liability for Backpage. Nobody deserves it more."
And it's not just online sex ads either - Backpage executives were accused of pimping and money laundering and involvement in the prostitution and death of a minor -
"This is the commercialization of this crime against children," said Yiota Souras, the center's general counsel. "And it's what businesses do -- they grow internationally; they have marketing plans to beat the competition and offer incentives to get more clients; they seek legal protections for their business interests. This is a traditional business model, but here the transaction too often is selling children for sex online."
In January, Backpage's top officials appeared before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Chief executive Carl Ferrer, co-founders Michael Lacey and James Larkin and general counsel McDougall all invoked their Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate themselves and declined to answer any questions.
Ferrer, Lacey and Larkin are facing criminal charges in California for pimping and money laundering, though a court there threw out similar pimping charges last year. And among eight civil suits filed against Backpage this year is a wrongful-death action in Chicago by the mother of 16-year-old
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
> Having sex with anyone under the age of consent is wrong and illegal. It doesn't matter whether they're 1 year under the AOC or 5 years.
And to extrapolate, it also doesn't matter whether they're 1 hour, 1 minute, 1 second, 1 millisecond, ..., 1 zeptosecond, ...
OTOH, to someone who blithely conflates "wrong" with "illegal", maybe you actually believe this.
Right now the media is full of crying kiddies demanding the 2nd Amendment be abolished.
Sounds like you're the one crying. The 2nd amendment is already limited (no guns on planes), just like the 1st and all the rest. For the record, nobody wants to take your guns away, they just want their kids to be safe when they go to school.
Having sex with anyone under the age of consent is wrong and illegal. It doesn't matter whether they're 1 year under the AOC or 5 years.
And to extrapolate, it also doesn't matter whether they're 1 hour, 1 minute, 1 second, 1 millisecond, ..., 1 zeptosecond, ...
OTOH, to someone who blithely conflates "wrong" with "illegal", maybe you actually believe this.
How about you just away from the kids?
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Are you saying it's morally ok to have sex with a 16 year old when your on holidays in Alabama but not ok when your on holidays in Colorado?
Your appeal to authority makes no logical sense on this issue.
Maybe if they just legalized prostitution nationwide we wouldn't have to worry about underage prostitution anymore because it could be regulated better? Ever notice whenever we ban something people still do it and seem to want it more? Not saying throw out all laws, but they tried to make alcohol illegal nearly 100 years ago and look how that turned out? Just saying if consenting adults want to have sex and get paid for it why does the govt have to get involved?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Because in many jurisdictions there is no legal distinction between the teenager who has sex with their girlfriend* just one year younger than themselves and the thirty-year-old who rapes a toddler. This is something of an injustice.
*Funnily enough it's less likely to prosecute the other way around.
Having sex with anyone under the age of consent is wrong and illegal.
Who decides what's "wrong"? What happens when the abritrary age chosen as "age of consent" is wrong? Because the age of concent in America, 18, is one of the highest in the world. Most of the world uses 14-16 as the age of consent. So who's right and who's wrong? Is the world wrong? Or is America wrong?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Maybe if they just legalized prostitution nationwide we wouldn't have to worry about underage prostitution anymore because it could be regulated better?
Selling/buying sex in private isn't illegal in the UK, and the UK hasn't solved the underage prostitution problem. Or the sex trafficking problem.
In fact UK regulations are pretty sensible and the UK still had chronic problems with those.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Are you saying it's morally ok to have sex with a 16 year old when your on holidays in Alabama but not ok when your on holidays in Colorado?
Your appeal to authority makes no logical sense on this issue.
Or Italy or most of Europe where it's 14. And what if they are legally 18 but still child sized? Like 4'8", 80 lbs? Isn't it just as bad as a pedophile?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Sex ads. Not prostitution ads. And again, all the references are "little angel" and "young babe" which is precisely the same language used by tons of 18+ porn and just 18+ people in general.
No doubt. They also didn't say they weren't soliciting sex ads. They said they weren't responsible for the content of the ads--ie, they weren't guiding the language to use to attract views. One could argue they were lying because they WERE removing content from ads because it was too gray area.
Further the excerpt "Backpage was not only changing ads but also was also guiding posters in how to conceal their true intentions", it sounds like there's a conflation of what other posters were doing and what Backpage employees were doing. Such guides were being posted, remove, and undoubtedly being posted on other sites. Seriously, you can google for such things, so while they should be removing such guides from their own sides, it's obvious such guides exist regardless. Unless they've got evidence employees were posting these guides, though... It doesn't sound it, though, from skimming the Senate report.
So you charge them, arrest them, and try them. If guilty, they go to jail. You're now attacking Backpage by attacking its executive for non-work stuff? Or worse, conflating stuff that happened on Facebook?
So, imply Backpage is supporting prostitution, then go after Backpage executives for pimping? Or are there more substantial, direct proof? And seriously, is the money laundering because they presume illegal pimping being "washed" by going into Backpage ledgers? Fuck if I know. Sounds pretty dicey at best.
Sorry, but that's a bullshit comparison. Take Craigslist as a better example. Simple fact is that regardless of how you try to regulate it, if you have an adult section prostitutes and pimps will use it to sell sex. That will drive revenue, so you'll be flush with cash. Silk Road was, fundamentally, about committing the crime of buying/selling drugs. Nothing about the venture is ever safe precisely because it's all illegal. But "personals" and "sex" aren't inherently illegal.
You want to argue that Backpage took up the space Craigslist used to take because they really cracked down hard, fine--although people still use Craigslist for that. You want to argue that Backpage skirted more towards the gray area because they're a lot more liberal in their support of sex ads, fine. You want to argue this is a recipe for prostitution, no matter the regulation, fine. You can even argue that this inherently leads to pimping, human sex trafficking, and child sex trafficking.
But everything about what Backp
So lying for a good cause is okay? You might be right, most people aren't really paying enough attention to spot your lies and those who call you on your BS are quickly labeled as pedophiles. Nice angle.
Because the age of concent in America, 18, is one of the highest in the world.
The age of consent in America varies by state. The most common state AOC in America is 16.
I don't think I am wrong or lying. I've been reading up on Backpage and found things like this
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...
And this
https://www.portman.senate.gov...
So you've got a company whose whole business model was ads for underage hookers. And they used CDA S 230 against anyone who impeded that model
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
* Backpage.com v. McKenna, et al., CASE NO. C12-954-RSM
* Backpage.com LLC v Cooper, Case #: 12-cv-00654[SS1]
* Backpage.com LLC v Hoffman et al., Civil Action No. 13-cv-03952 (DMC) (JAD)
The court upheld immunity for Backpage in contesting a state of Washington law (SB6251) that would have made providers of third-party content online liable for any crimes related to a minor in Washington State. The states of Tennessee and New Jersey later passed similar legislation. Backpage argued that the laws violated Section 230, the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, and the First and Fifth Amendments. In all three cases the courts granted Backpage permanent injunctive relief and awarded them attorney's fees.
Backpage.com v. Dart., CASE NO. 15-3047
The court ruled in favor of Backpage after Sheriff Tom Dart of Cook County IL, a frequent critic of Backpage and its adult postings section, sent a letter on his official stationary to Visa and MasterCard demanding that these firms "immediately cease and desist..." allowing the use of their credit cards to purchase ads on Backpage. Within two days both companies withdrew their services from Backpage. Backpage filed a lawsuit asking for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Dart granting Backpage relief and return to the status quo prior to Dart sending the letter. Backpage alleged that Dart's actions were unconstitutional violating the First and Fourteenth amendments to the US Constitution as well as Section 230 of the CDA. Backpage asked for Dart to retract his "cease and desist" letters. After initially being denied the injunctive relief by a lower court, the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed that decision and directed that a permanent injunction be issued enjoining Dart and his office from taking any actions "...to coerce or threaten credit card companies...with sanctions intended to ban credit card or other financial services from being provided to Backpage.com." The court cited section 230 as part of its decision.
At which point Congress passed SESTA which stops people doing that.
And this thread is full people criticizing the notion of the age of consent, pointing out that pedophile != ephebophile and so on.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
So you charge them, arrest them, and try them. If guilty, they go to jail.
Multiple jurisdictions passed laws that criminalized them and when people did that they hid behind CDA S 230. And they won.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
* Backpage.com v. McKenna, et al., CASE NO. C12-954-RSM
* Backpage.com LLC v Cooper, Case #: 12-cv-00654[SS1]
* Backpage.com LLC v Hoffman et al., Civil Action No. 13-cv-03952 (DMC) (JAD)
The court upheld immunity for Backpage in contesting a state of Washington law (SB6251) that would have made providers of third-party content online liable for any crimes related to a minor in Washington State. The states of Tennessee and New Jersey later passed similar legislation. Backpage argued that the laws violated Section 230, the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, and the First and Fifth Amendments. In all three cases the courts granted Backpage permanent injunctive relief and awarded them attorney's fees.
Backpage.com v. Dart., CASE NO. 15-3047
The court ruled in favor of Backpage after Sheriff Tom Dart of Cook County IL, a frequent critic of Backpage and its adult postings section, sent a letter on his official stationary to Visa and MasterCard demanding that these firms "immediately cease and desist..." allowing the use of their credit cards to purchase ads on Backpage. Within two days both companies withdrew their services from Backpage. Backpage filed a lawsuit asking for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Dart granting Backpage relief and return to the status quo prior to Dart sending the letter. Backpage alleged that Dart's actions were unconstitutional violating the First and Fourteenth amendments to the US Constitution as well as Section 230 of the CDA. Backpage asked for Dart to retract his "cease and desist" letters. After initially being denied the injunctive relief by a lower court, the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed that decision and directed that a permanent injunction be issued enjoining Dart and his office from taking any actions "...to coerce or threaten credit card companies...with sanctions intended to ban credit card or other financial services from being provided to Backpage.com." The court cited section 230 as part of its decision.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Selling/buying sex in private isn't illegal in the UK, and the UK hasn't solved the underage prostitution problem. Or the sex trafficking problem.
They haven't solved it completely, but they mostly do better than America. The goal of reform is improvement, not perfection. Countries that have liberalized sex laws tend to see less commercial sex related violence, disease, and coercion.
Prudes hate to hear it, but people actually do better when left to decide for themselves what to do with their penises and vaginas, without excessive government regulation.
More lying. Jody Bruchon has refuted your distortions and outright lies several times, yet you keep on going. None of the links you cite support your claims.
You are positively Trump-like in your ability to shrug off the truth.
For the record, nobody wants to take your guns away
For the record, plenty of people think guns should be completely banned.
They haven't solved it completely, but they mostly do better than America.
1400 girls in Rotherham would probably disagree
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Plus of course the UK has just passed the Modern Slavery Act because sex trafficking is such a problem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And then there's this inquiry which keeps losing its chairperson and is frankly unlikely to ever report anything. The reason for that is most likely that some very powerful people would be implicated either in abuse or a cover up and they don't want that to happen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I.e. it's almost like the UK has serious problem with the authorities covering up sex trafficking/sex slavery or something.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
It's not true. A shotgun to protect your home? Almost nobody has a problem with that. Just like almost nobody has a problem with reasonable background checks. The agitators who want to create partisan divide make it seem a huge partisan issue when it's not.
So this could, ultimately have very negative repercussions for large social media sites.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
They were certainly making aggressive moves to break into the underage prostitute ad market
You're quick to quote Bezos' CIA disinfo rag but I don't suppose it occurred to you that the "underage prostitute ad market" that Backpage wanted so badly to "break into" doesn't fucking exist?? "Ad market..." (rofl)
For the record, nobody wants to take your guns away
You, sir, are a liar or a moron; I suspect the latter...
I think a better way to look at is to look at this case
http://www.miamiherald.com/lat...
When a 13-year-old runaway threatened to leave a Miami pimp, police say, he forced her to a Liberty City flea market tattoo shop to ink his street name, "Suave," on her eyelids.
The vicious twist to a human trafficking case surfaced this month when Miami police arrested Roman Thomas III, 26, who was already on probation after serving four years in state prison for having sex with a minor.
Thomas was wearing a state corrections GPS monitor when Miami police arrested him on March 18.
The girl, dubbed "Sparkle," was pimped through the classified advertising website Backpage.com, police say. Thomas and a woman plied the girl with liquor, marijuana and the drug Molly as she had sex with men at the Miami Shores Motel.
https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/...
Now suppose it was a newspaper? I think they'd refuse to run the ad. And if a newspaper run ads like this they would not be protected by safe harbor protections.
I don't see why a website should be allowed to run ads like this, profit from them, and then claim those protections.
And if you look at the law you find it only applies to sex trafficking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) is a United States bill introduced by Senator Rob Portman. It seeks to clarify the country's sex trafficking law to make it illegal to knowingly assist, facilitate, or support sex trafficking, and amend the Section 230 safe harbors of the Communications Decency Act (which make online services immune from civil liability for the actions of their users) to exclude enforcement of federal or state sex trafficking laws from its immunity. Portman had previously led an investigation into the online classifieds service Backpage (which had been accused of facilitating child sex trafficking), and argued that Section 230 was protecting its "unscrupulous business practices" and was not designed to provide immunity to websites that facilitate sex trafficking.
I.e. it's not 'the end of the internet', or anything like it. It's basically an 'anti Backpage law' that adds an exemption for sex trafficking.
And look at this
https://www.dallasnews.com/new...
For many of us, gift cards are presents for hard-to-please family members who want to pick out their own gadgets at Best Buy.
For pimps and prostitutes, gift cards have become a currency to pay for sex ads on Backpage.com, anti-prostitution activists say.
Dallas-based Backpage, a classified-ad site similar to Craigslist, is the leading online marketplace for sex, according to government investigators and federal prosecutors who have been struggling for years to shut it down. The U.S. Justice Department says more than half of sex-trafficking victims are under 18.
Credit card companies stopped doing business with the website two years ago. People could still buy Backpage ads, but it became more difficult: They had to mail in checks or use complicated digital currencies like bitcoin.
But now, Backpage has begun accepting gift cards from major retailers, The Dallas Morning News has confirmed. That means a pimp could walk into any local grocery store and pick up a convenient, untraceable way to pay the site to post ads selling women, critics say.
So more than half the victims were under 18. That's not a failure of moderation, that's a business model. Them hiding behind safe harbor protections was bogus from the start.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
https://www.dallasnews.com/new...
For many of us, gift cards are presents for hard-to-please family members who want to pick out their own gadgets at Best Buy.
For pimps and prostitutes, gift cards have become a currency to pay for sex ads on Backpage.com, anti-prostitution activists say.
Dallas-based Backpage, a classified-ad site similar to Craigslist, is the leading online marketplace for sex, according to government investigators and federal prosecutors who have been struggling for years to shut it down. The U.S. Justice Department says more than half of sex-trafficking victims are under 18.
Credit card companies stopped doing business with the website two years ago. People could still buy Backpage ads, but it became more difficult: They had to mail in checks or use complicated digital currencies like bitcoin.
But now, Backpage has begun accepting gift cards from major retailers, The Dallas Morning News has confirmed. That means a pimp could walk into any local grocery store and pick up a convenient, untraceable way to pay the site to post ads selling women, critics say.
So more than half the victims were under 18. That's not a failure of moderation, that's a business model. And Backpage made a fortune - around $45 million dollars.
https://www.azcentral.com/stor...
The criminal case brought by the California Attorney General's Office against Backpage was two-fold.
One set of charges accused the website's operators of profiting from sex trafficking and setting up elaborate schemes that allowed the site to take in money from illegal prostitution transactions. That part of the case stayed intact on Wednesday.
The other part accused the website of acting as a virtual pimp. Those charges were tossed out because the judge ruled that the website did not have a hand in actually writing the ads that sold the services; it merely hosted the ads.
The judge said the allegations of financial crimes are not subject to protection by the Communications Decency Act or the First Amendment.
"Indeed, the money laundering charges based on bank and wire fraud on their face, are not based on publication of third party speech at all," the ruling says. "Rather, they are based on the purported illegality of Defendants financial operations."
From August 2013 through October 2016, according to the prosecutors, the website raked in more than $45 million in illegal transactions.
Backpage, according to the indictment, was told by American Express that it would not long process payments because of the website's "overtly sexual content and questionable practices."
Backpage then created, according to prosecutors, a string of companies that could shield the fact the money was involved with Backpage.
According to prosecutors, Ferrer, the Backpage CEO, told employees to remove the name Backpage from descriptions that would show up on transactions. He told another employee, according to the indictment, to tell a credit card company that one of the companies had no relation to Backpage; instead, it helped truck drivers find jobs.
The dismissed counts of pimping suggested that the Backpage executives received prostitution earnings from 12 individuals from California who advertised on the website. According to the indictment, six of those people were under the age of 18.
Once again you see that half of the prostitutes were under age. And Backpage's vast earnings came from them. And the executives got off the pimping charges because of the CDA. Only the money laundering charges stuck.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
as it happens, yeah, I do.
It's illegal because society deems it to be wrong. Sure, it's an arbitrary cut off but it's very clearly stated and extremely easy to remember.
Being attracted to a woman capable of bearing a child is biologically programmed. Choosing whether to fuck her is a conscious choice.
a company whose whole business model was ads for underage hookers
That's just hyperbole.
At which point Congress passed SESTA which stops people doing that.
Unfortunately it stops a lot of other things too. It's a shitty law, badly written, ill thought out and should not have been fucking passed.
See https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/... as a simple example.
Target sex traffickers and people fucking children but do so in a proportionate and sensible way. SESTA is not the answer.
Morally the issue is if that person can really consent. So age isn't as important as their mental state/capacity.
I'd feel worse if I thought that person hadn't been given proper sex education, for example. Or if they had some kind of mental illness / disability. Age isn't really relevant, even if they are over what the local age of consent is that doesn't affect the moral factors.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
FTFY
(Most of the rest of the world disagrees).
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Careful; the age of consent in most places in Europe is 14-16 if you are that age too; if you're older, (typically older than 20) then it pops up to 18...(and quite right too).
It's not "hiding behind" the law. If someone is protected by the law, they're acting within the bounds of the law which is what we all should be doing. You are saying that they have committed no crime when you say they're "hiding behind" the law; you're also saying that you don't want what they're doing to be legal which is an ENTIRELY separate issue from what the statutes currently say and whether or not the law as written at the time of alleged offense was violated.
They won because they were not violating the law. What's the problem with not violating the law and having a court find that you didn't violate the law and that vigilante actions taken by public law enforcement officials when you weren't violating the law were not okay? That's what the courts are for. The cops can't try to shut your business down "by any means necessary" just because they dislike your business, all while operating your business lawfully. That's the kind of shit that you'd expect in Soviet Russia, not in the United States.
As much as I wish sex traffickers would be thrown into a volcano...SLOWLY, I more worry about the tinkering with the Constitution. The minute they start placing restrictions on something, they will come back to take more and more and more. Most of the crap on the web, I don't care for, but, I just ignore it. Sex trafficking is a sick perverted thing and needs to be stopped, but this isn't the way to do it.
Gotcha. So except for the shotgun . . . you're looking to take the rest away.
It's the equivalent of banning private communications on the internet and television but still claiming that you're fine in regards to the first amendment because you're leaving them newspapers.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Careful; the age of consent in most places in Europe is 14-16 if you are that age too; if you're older, (typically older than 20) then it pops up to 18...(and quite right too).
Not true, 14-16 no matter what the age is of the other person. For example, Italy is 14, and could be as low as 13 if the other person is less than 3 years older. It's 16 if the other person has some sort of authority over the 16 year old which must make high school very interesting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
That "gun free" zone thing around schools works really well, doesn't it?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
If people are running a prostitution ring where half of the prostitutes are underage and they use the CDA to avoid getting prosectued, it's not that surprising that the Congress would eventually do something to change that. Which is that SESTA is.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Except Backpage is not running a prostitution ring. You said they were but you have provided nothing to substantiate that claim. You even refute your own claim with your own citations in that post; the charges of pimping where dismissed, so the legal system has already tossed out that claim completely.
A shotgun to protect your home? Almost nobody has a problem with that.
You need to get out of your bubble. Plenty of people have a problem with that. After the Florida shooting, gun control has been discussed frequently where I work, and I estimate that 20-30% of those who have expressed an opinion believe that all private ownership of guns should be banned.
This may not be a totally representative sample, but it is certainly far beyond "almost nobody".
Just like almost nobody has a problem with reasonable background checks.
Wow. Double bubble. You really need to talk to people. PLENTY of people are vehemently opposed to any further gun control measures. Obama ran into a brick wall of opposition when he failed to extend background checks to gun shows after Sandy Hook. You really think that would have happened if "almost nobody" had a problem with it?
You even refute your own claim with your own citations in that post; the charges of pimping where dismissed, so the legal system has already tossed out that claim completely.
Bullshit
https://www.azcentral.com/stor...
The criminal case brought by the California Attorney General's Office against Backpage was two-fold.
One set of charges accused the website's operators of profiting from sex trafficking and setting up elaborate schemes that allowed the site to take in money from illegal prostitution transactions. That part of the case stayed intact on Wednesday.
The other part accused the website of acting as a virtual pimp. Those charges were tossed out because the judge ruled that the website did not have a hand in actually writing the ads that sold the services; it merely hosted the ads.
The judge said the allegations of financial crimes are not subject to protection by the Communications Decency Act or the First Amendment.
I.e. there were two sets of charges. Financial ones and virtual pimping. The virtual pimping ones were tossed because of the CDA and First Amendment but the financial ones were not.
I.e. with SESTA in place they would not have been able to use the CDA as a shield. Which meants they would have been prosecuted for both sets of charges. Without SESTA in place they could only be prosecuted for the financial crimes.
I.e. the CDA blocked them from being prosecuted for the virtual pimping.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
You don't get it. *SEX* is wrong. It's a dirty, nasty, hideous thing that must be eradicated from the earth before it kills us all. /puritan
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
There is no such thing as "virtual pimping." Either you're pimping or you're not. They weren't pimping, or if they were it was not illegal to do so. The allegations even went in front of a judge and the judge said that they didn't violate the law. People not breaking the law is a good thing. I don't see why you have such a big problem with lawful conduct.
So you concede that they successfully used the CDA to get off one of the two sets of charges?
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I didn't "concede" anything. You presented a situation where people were charged with a crime and a judge said they were not in violation of the law. There is nothing to "concede." The facts are plain: the law was not violated.
You have still failed to substantiate your original claims many, many posts back. This part of the discussion is an attempt to distract from that so you don't have to provide proof that those claims are truthful and not just something you made up.
This is all a red herring to avoid substantiating your claims of "Backpage running an underage prostitution ring" but I'm going to thoroughly stomp it down anyway.
You cited the definition of ephebophilia so you know that referring to teens below the statutory age of unlimited sexual consent in some jurisdictions as "children" to imply that any desire to have sex with them is "sex with children" is dishonest. You have no other way to win this argument than to fire off ad hominem attacks and appeals to your own personal morality. You know that the paraphilia discussion is a giant red herring because the post you responded to was calling you out for trying to insert "underage" into the discussion without substantiation. You still haven't substantiated any of those claims.
You still have not supported your assertion that "[Backpage was] running a[n] underage prostitution ring" nor your curiously revised version "[Backpage] made aggressive moves to break into the underage prostitute ad market" (emphasis mine) so you're pushing really hard to play the "b-b-b-but if I call you a pedo apologist and swing my moral nuts in the air I can automatically win!" card instead. We're not talking about the difference between paraphilias (red herring) and we're not talking about the political support for bill in question (appeal to popularity and appeal to authority); we're talking about your assertions regarding Backpage and underage prostitution and how you have posted a lot of junk that has nothing to do with supporting those statements.
Plus, you keep trying to push for older teens to be regarded as equivalent to five-year-olds. These model twins are 16 years old, one year beyond the age of consent in Denmark where they are from and above the age of consent in the U.K. as well as several U.S. states. You are asserting that they are "children." Psychology and the law both say otherwise. It doesn't matter how many times you say the phrase "pedo apologist," it won't make you any less incorrect. Don't like it? Petition to have the laws changed to raise the legal age of sexual consent in those jurisdictions.
Don't like the models as an example? Fine. Here's Angelina Jolie at age 16, modeling underwear, published on a major U.K. website. The age of unlimited sexual consent in many parts of the world floats around 16 while the United States (where Backpage is operated) has a lot of states with a minimum age of 18, meaning they're illegal in those states but 100% legal in other states and several European countries. These older teenagers are within the age of consent in huge chunks of the modern Western world, are capable of bearing children, have developed secondary sex characteristics, have strong sexual drives, are already expected to take "correct" actions that will put them on career paths and shape their entire futures, yet you're attempting to liken them to five-year-olds.
I wonder how hard your panties will twist over [super NSFW] tiny and petite (but adult and legal) porn stars that are petite enough to have the Feds go after viewers for "child pornography" even though the photos are watermarked with an 18 USC 2257 compliant company's name and the photographed model is in their early 20s.
Support your original assertions with some facts or toss off. You've been given several opportunities and chosen not to substantiate your arguments thus far. I'm not letting you worm your way out of substantiating your original claims no matter what you try to use as
You're a liar and a pedo apologist.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Pedophilia is the attraction to youth which DO NOT present sexual secondary characteristic, and is recognized as a mental illness. Whereas hebephilia and otehr associated preference, usually look for people which do HAVE secondary sexual characteristic, and are also interrested into sex. This is also not a DSM IV mental illness. This *MAY* be recognized both as being immoral, which is fine, but confusing a mental illness with a (potentially) amoral sexual preference is wrong. Pedophilia is one thing, a mental sickness, hebephilia and other associated preference are not, especially that most of the time it isn't a preferential choice.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Ouch. Hal is clearly an idiot with an agenda. His name is an anagram for "Harlot Rep", so I think he has some unresolved sexual issues.
It is clear that Backpage knowingly facilitated prostitution by seeking out advertisers and helping them with their ads. It's likely that they turned a blind eye to underage prostitution, but it's unclear if they didn't want to do the job of policing for legal or moral reasons or if they just wanted the extra revenue.
BTW, while the age of consent is lower in much of the world, in most of those places the age of consent for prostitution is significantly higher, usually 18, I believe. This is a reasonable compromise between the reality of sexual relations and protection of adolescents. This has nothing to do with the issue here, just wanted to clarify.
Interfere with gun business? Never!
Interfere with sex Business? Always
Interfere with Russian Trolls? Never
Interfere with citizens peacably assembling to request redress of grievances? Always
You mean this?
In November 2014 Fiona Mactaggart MP added an amendment to the bill concerning prostitution, aimed at criminalising the purchase of sex. In the bill's debate in the House House of Commons, John McDonnell MP argued against the amendment. He highlighted the lack of evidence for any correlation between the Swedish sex purchase ban and a reduction in numbers of sex workers or their clients, and cited findings "that not only do such measures not work, they actually cause harm". McDonnell quoted Reverend Andrew Dotchin, a founding member of the Safety First Coalition: "I strongly oppose clauses on prostitution in the Modern Slavery Bill, which would make the purchase of sex illegal. Criminalising clients does not stop prostitution, nor does it stop the criminalisation of women. It drives prostitution further underground, making it more dangerous and stigmatising for women." The amendment was subsequently dropped.
The Modern Slavery Act is aimed at stopping people being trafficked - some of whom end up forced to work as sex workers.
It doesn't criminalise buying or selling sex, and nor should it. It's the people being forced to work in the sex industry who are the problem.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I take it that all the first amendment supporters got shot by the second amendment supporters.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"