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Craigslist Personals, Some Subreddits Disappear After FOSTA Passage (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the cause-and-effect dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In the wake of this week's passage of the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) bill in both houses of Congress on Wednesday, Craigslist has removed its "Personals" section entirely, and Reddit has removed some related subreddits, likely out of fear of future lawsuits. FOSTA, which awaits the signature of President Donald Trump before becoming law, removes some portions of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The landmark 1996 law shields website operators that host third-party content (such as commenters, for example) from civil liability. The new bill is aimed squarely at Backpage, a notorious website that continues to allow prostitution advertisements and has been under federal scrutiny for years. In a bizarre turn of events, the Department of Justice also warned the House in February 2018 that the bill "raises a serious constitutional concern," as it would apply retroactively -- a seeming violation of the Constitution's ex post facto clause. Congress passed it anyway. The Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote in a blog post: "It's easy to see the impact that this ramp-up in liability will have on online speech: facing the risk of ruinous litigation, online platforms will have little choice but to become much more restrictive in what sorts of discussion -- and what sorts of users -- they allow, censoring innocent people in the process."

8 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. Government shooting itself in the foot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If they really wanted to reduce traficking, they just made it harder. It wasn't terribly difficult to suss out potentially bad CL ads. Guys looking for you to be "generous", and for the DEA guys, "let's go skiiing"... in Florida. By getting rid of this stuff, they just shut down a source where people were providing them with leads. Or maybe they were just embarrassed that they couldn't follow up on all that stuff.

    1. Re:Government shooting itself in the foot by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly -- the ideal situation would be legalization between consenting adults so the industry is in the open and can be monitored for offerings that don't involve consenting adults. Harm reduction, same as with drug legalization -- let the people have their fun while rooting out the real bad actors.

      But American Puritanism (from both parties!) won't let such a rational policy be enacted.

    2. Re:Government shooting itself in the foot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When the effect of a bill differs greatly from what the bill's proponents are saying, that leaves us with only one conclusion: the bill's proponents are lying about their intent. It is popular to think of congressmen as stupid. They are NOT FUCKING STUPID. They know exactly what this bill will accomplish, and that is exactly what they want. Everything else is bullshit to win hearts and minds.

      They want to reduce Internet filth. There are too many websites with this kind of content all over them, and that garbage needs to be taken down!

      The potential harm to legitimate content that wouldn't qualify as filth is worth it, in their minds.

      Fairness and what-not are not considerations here. It's all about "cleaning up" then Internet, and that's it.

    3. Re:Government shooting itself in the foot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      How dare you support the exploitation of Womyn! Womyn's bodies belong to them, and it is purest misogyny to think that a Man can control that with money.

      captcha: cringe

    4. Re:Government shooting itself in the foot by ArtemaOne · · Score: 4, Insightful

      are things this Republican Party are against.....

      Republican and Democrat Parties, you mean. Only person who voted against this is a Republican.

  2. The death of Web 2.0 is here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The transition of the Web from "Wild West" to "cable TV" continues.

  3. Re:I'd like to see UBI too by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You're free to pay for the basic living expenses of as many of them as you care to help.

    And even if you could be as virtuous as you'd like with everyone else's money, it wouldn't ultimately matter anyway. There are going to be enough men that want sex who are willing to pay for it that some women will engage in prostitution not out of necessity or for their survival, but because it allows them to earn extra money. This may surprise you, but some women like sex as much as most men, especially if they can be discerning in who they're hopping into bed with. If they can get paid for doing what they enjoy, who the hell are you to tell them what they're allowed to do with their bodies?

    Legalizing prostitution will do a lot of prevent the kinds of horrible conditions and abuse that many women find themselves in just as repealing prohibition meant that no one had to get shot or poisoned over bootleg liquor.

  4. Deliberately misleading terminology by K.+S.+Van+Horn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've noticed that the term "prostitution" has been replaced by the term "sex trafficking" lately. This strikes me as deliberately misleading terminology, aimed at making people think that human trafficking -- that is, slavery -- is what is being targeted, when in reality it is certain voluntary transactions that are being targeted.