Senate Passes Controversial Online Sex Trafficking Bill (thehill.com)

The Senate today gave final approval to a bill aimed at cracking down on online sex trafficking, sending the measure to the White House where President Trump is expected to sign it into law. From a report: The legislation, called the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), but also referred to as SESTA, would cut into the broad protections websites have from legal liability for content posted by their users. Those protections are codified in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act from 1996, a law that many internet companies see as vital to protecting their platforms and that SESTA would amend to create an exception for sex trafficking.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the most outspoken critic of SESTA and one of the authors of the 1996 law, said that making exceptions to Section 230 will lead to small internet companies having to face an onslaught of frivolous lawsuits. EFF expressed its disappointment, saying, "Today is a dark day for the Internet. Congress just passed the Internet censorship bill SESTA/FOSTA. SESTA/FOSTA will silence online speech by forcing Internet platforms to censor their users. As lobbyists and members of Congress applaud themselves for enacting a law ostensibly tackling the problem of trafficking, let's be clear: Congress just made trafficking victims less safe, not more. Sex trafficking experts have tried again and again to explain to Congress how SESTA/FOSTA will put trafficking victims in danger. Sex workers have spoken out too, explaining how online platforms have literally saved their lives. Why didn't Congress consult with the people their bill would most directly affect? [...] When platforms choose to err on the side of censorship, marginalized voices are censored disproportionately. SESTA/FOSTA will make the Internet a less inclusive place, something that hurts all of us. This might just be the beginning. Some of these groups behind SESTA / FOSTA seem to see the bill as a mere stepping stone to banning pornography from the Internet."

Comments

Why didn't Congress consult with the people...

[XxtraLarGe]

Why didn't Congress consult with the people their bill would most directly affect?

Is that a rhetorical question? Government acts like passing a law automagically fixes everything, but ultimately most laws answer to the law of unintended consequences. As much as I think human trafficking is horrific, you can always expect the government to take exactly the wrong approach to fixing it.

Re:Why didn't Congress consult with the people...

[SuricouRaven]

Because the people the bill would most directly affect are prostitutes, and no politician wants to be seen as acknowledging prostitutes have any rights at all. As far as politics goes, there are only two valid images of prostitutes: Sinful harlots who need to be locked up for the good of society, and innocent victims who need to be saved from their pimp... and then locked up if they don't reform.

Re:Why didn't Congress consult with the people...

[gweihir]

In this specific instance, I also think that the driving forces behind this law actually wanted a censorship law (finally getting that pesky "free speech" problem under control...), but since that would never fly if done openly, they used one of the four horsemen of the infocalypse. Hence they did not consult with the people that actually understand what this law will do, because they are perfectly aware of these consequences and _want_ them.

"Trafficking"

[thomn8r]

..is the new "terrorism" which replaced "think of the children"

Re:"Trafficking"

[Rick Schumann]

Human trafficking is a real thing, and it's no laughing matter, but this is a misguided attempt at best, and at worst, as alluded to above, something to be leveraged into censorship of pornography on the internet -- and, no doubt, censorship of anything else they can twist the wording around to also include. Since it's a moral issue, it's difficult for anyone to challenge it without being accused of supporting and approving of human trafficking and the sex trade, and for a politician on either side of the aisle that would be political suicide, especially these days when everyone is so completely and totally polarized. Someone will challenge it, if it's actually going too far, and the courts will no doubt hear it. Also, like most attempts (emphasis on attempts) at censoring the Internet, it likely won't be enforceable anyway; if the content they want to censor is located on a hard drive outside U.S. borders, then there's not a damn thing they can do about it. Not all that difficult these days to get hosting anywhere you need to, and not difficult to move your content to the new hosting.

Re:"Trafficking"

[Anonymous Coward]

(1) If the content is outside the US, they can place liability on US ISPs that don't censor it.
(2) Human trafficking is a problem because it involves coercion. But what's wrong with approving the sex trade among consenting adults? What adults do in their own bedrooms, money exchanged or not, should be none of the State's business.
(3) How is prostitution different from many traditional marriages, where the male is expected to give money to the female partner in exchange for marital "services?"

It's cute, fun, and traditional when people spend a lot of money on a wedding and the state stamps its approval, but when it's done by the poor without the state's sanction, it's automatically a terrible thing.

Re:"Trafficking"

[the_povinator]

Trafficking is a very real problem, despite some of the negative legislation that may result in the name of stopping it.

My problem with "trafficking" is that it is an umbrella term that people principally seem to find useful as a way to conflate various issues and advance agendas that they don't want to state outright. Consider that "trafficking" covers such diverse situations as:

• Teenage girls being coerced into sex work
• People who make it easier for Chinese women to come to the USA on tourist visas to give birth.
• The coyotes who guide people central America across the US border
• The gangs in Libya who either help Africans cross the sea to Europe, or rip them off as they attempt to get to Europe.
• Simple prostitution
• People being brought illegally from abroad as domestic workers (or brought legally but exploited).

The usefulness of ``trafficking'' is that it allows a person who is opposed to one of these forms of trafficking (typically prostitution or illegal immigration) to point to one of the forms that *everyone* can agree is wrong (typically underage children being forced into sex work) and use it as an excuse to crack down on the form of ``trafficking'' that is their real target.

Re:"Trafficking"

[Sarten-X]

Gee, if only someone would define it clearly...

The key element in human trafficking is that it involves coercion. No, visa facilitators don't necessarily fall into the "human trafficking" bucket, because they aren't forcing the Chinese women to come against their will. The gangs in Libya, if they don't rip off the immigrants but instead serve only as guides and charge only fees that are known up front, are also not human traffickers. The honest coyotes also aren't in the business of human trafficking, though they are typically breaking other laws.

The problem is that all of the situations you describe are very often involved in actual human trafficking, to the extent that it's very difficult to tell the difference. A very common tactic is that a migrant makes a deal with a guide (or facilitator) to smuggle (or otherwise move) them somewhere, but the smuggler instead takes them somewhere else (usually several hundred kilometers away), confiscates their passport and other documentation, and says that due to some unexpected bribes/fees/expenses/whatever, the migrant now owes more money, and has to work to pay off the debt. The migrant thinks they can't go to the police, because they'll get sent back with no documentation. They're usually threatened with violence if they even try to escape.

The other broad category you describe is prostitution, either underage or "simple" (whatever that means). Again, the act itself isn't the problem, but the circumstances around it. A prostitute who is not coerced in any way (including not being able to consent due to being underage) is not involved with human trafficking. Any exploitation, though, becomes a separate matter of human trafficking, completely independent of the (potentially legal) prostitution itself.

In short, It's fine for "sex" to be your product, or "relocation", or "assistance", but once your product is "unwilling people", that's human trafficking. Sure, it'd be great if we could limit discussion to only the bad folks in each of those roles you describe. While we're at it, let's make gun laws that only apply to bad folks, too. Conversely, let's only let good people have drivers' licenses, solving the problem of road rage completely!

moral majority

[b0s0z0ku]

This isn't about limiting "trafficking". This is limiting all sex for pay among consenting adults, which is made easier/safer via peer-to-peer platforms. Someone who advertises on Backpage doesn't need a middleman (aka a pimp).

i.e. it's a law not created to help victims, but rather by marching moral majority morons, to control what consenting adults are allowed to do in their own bedrooms. Same deal as with alcohol and marijuana prohibition laws.

Throw the book at pimps who force people into prostitution or use children. But consenting adults should be able to decide for themselves. Nevada, Amsterdam, and Berlin are good examples of how the business should be treated.

Good luck with that.

[fahrbot-bot]

Some of these groups behind SESTA / FOSTA seem to see the bill as a mere stepping stone to banning pornography from the Internet."

Dr. Cox: "I’m fairly sure if they took porn off the internet, there’d only be one website left, and it’d be called, 'Bring Back the Porn!'”

This is why it doesn't matter who you vote for

[SuperKendall]

From the article:

"The bill was approved overwhelmingly in a 97-2 vote."

If Hillary had won, she'd be signing something just as egregious into law.

While the two sides argue over frivolities, real freedoms are inexorably crushed by both "sides".

Short-sighted...

[Theaetetus]

But some lawmakers and anti-sex trafficking advocates think the law has gotten in the way of efforts to go after online trafficking suspects like Backpage.com.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a co-author of SESTA with Portman and a former prosecutor, called Section 230 "outdated and obsolete" during Wednesday's press conference.

They were talking about this on NPR this afternoon - apparently, sex traffickers were posting classified ads on Backpage.com with keywords like "lolita" and "fresh" to indicate underage girls - and the Senator wants to be able to go after Backpage...

... so that it no longer posts these ads...

... making it much more difficult for investigators to go undercover as buyers and find the victims.

Wouldn't it have been much smarter to quietly make a deal with Backpage to forward this info to the FBI as soon as they get it?

Drugs have nothing to do with moral majority

[rsilvergun]

See here. It's identity politics, regular politics and racism. Not sure about prostitution but it wouldn't surprise me. A huge part of our legal system is about voter disenfranchisement. e.g. Nailing poor people with a conviction that strips voting rights.

Right wing ideas don't really survive on their own. Supply side economics, Military Industrial complex, lax environmental regulations and worker protections. None of these are high enough in the polls to make it. But our two party system means if you combine a bit of voter suppression, gerrymandering and the impact of our Senate & Electoral College you can get unpopular policies through despite the polls.

This is why Congress has a 13% approval rating but incumbents. It's also why the Dems have won not just the popular vote for POTUS but even gotten more votes for the House and somehow managed to have fewer representatives. All these shenanigans add up to us barely being a democracy...

The MPAA did it

[gavron]

This isn't about sex trafficking. This is about US representatives paid off by the MPAA to remove CDA Sec 230 protections so that they can go after people who share content, require ISPs to censor or block postings, and enforce permanent takedown ("staydown") instead of merely providing a notice that ISPs may or may not send the end-users.

It's a dark day for the Internet. It's a dark day for freedom of expression. It's a dark day for open discourse and discussion. ...and it will make things worse for sex trafficking victims...

Everybody loses. Except congress reelection campaign donation funds.

Ehud