EFF Sues To Invalidate FOSTA, An Unconstitutional Internet Censorship Law (eff.org)

schwit1 quotes a report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation: We are asking a court to declare the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 ("FOSTA") unconstitutional and prevent it from being enforced. The law was written so poorly that it actually criminalizes a substantial amount of protected speech and, according to experts, actually hinders efforts to prosecute sex traffickers and aid victims. In our lawsuit, two human rights organizations, an individual advocate for sex workers, a certified non-sexual massage therapist, and the Internet Archive, are challenging the law as an unconstitutional violation of the First and Fifth Amendments. Although the law was passed by Congress for the worthy purpose of fighting sex trafficking, its broad language makes criminal of those who advocate for and provide resources to adult, consensual sex workers and actually hinders efforts to prosecute sex traffickers and aid victims. The EFF goes on to cite some examples of how FOSTA has already censored the internet. Most notably, two days after FOSTA was passed in the Senate, "Craigslist eliminated its Personals section, including non-sexual subcategories such as 'Missed Connections' and 'Strictly Platonic,'" reports the EFF. Reddit even removed some of its subreddits out of fear of future lawsuits.

Comments

Anyone know why Bernie

[rsilvergun]

voted for this? Was it really just that he feared the Repubs using it in a "think of the children" line of attack? I hate to say it but if that's true, well, he's not wrong... That's the trouble with these laws. It's just like all the post 911 crap. People over react. I can't tell you how many people will tell me with a straight face "everything changed after 9/11" and not realize it only changed because we let it...

Following the rules

[iMadeGhostzilla]

This kind of thing reminds me of what Jack Tramiel said to his assistant when asked how he could do business with Germans after having been through Holocaust:

"You know," he once told me, "it's hard to believe it really happened. But it can happen again. In America. Americans like to make rules, and that scares me. If you have too many rules you get locked in a system. It's the system that says this one dies and that one doesn't, not the people. That's why I don't hate the German people. Individuals, yes. Rules, yes. But not all Germans." He shrugged. "They just obeyed the rules. But that's why we need more Commodores. We need more mavericks, just so the rules don't take over."

Re:Massage therapist?

[thomst]

Forrest Cameranesi inquired:

I'm assuming the "non-sexual" part of "certified non-sexual massage therapist" is descriptive, just letting us know that they're not a "happy endings" kind of massage therapist, not that they're certified in something called "non-sexual massage".

But given that this is just an ordinary massage therapist, what is their connection to FOSTA and why are they part of this case?

At a guess, it's because the effects of FOSTA on classified advertising has made it difficult to impossible for them to economically advertise their services. Most solo massage therapists don't make enough money to afford TV or display advertising, and classifieds sections in local indie papers (the traditional - and least expensive - advertising venue for massage therapists) have already pretty much completely eliminated ads for massage of any kind in response to FOSTA.

Yes, it's an overreaction - but Americans in general are really good at panicking, and American businesses are even better at it ...

I'm not a prostitute but it's still affecting me

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to university for computer science and specialized in 3D graphics.

It took me about four years to slog through that program. I graduated and immediately got a job in the VFX industry, which was so insanely stressful that it burned me out in less than 2 years. I spent the next little while bouncing between interviews and bagging groceries at the local food store. All the jobs I applied for looked like they were going to be the same perma-crunch bullshit, so I gave up and went back to IT.

I spent the next year or so running some network at a dead-end job for a company that was in a state of perpetually going out of business.

Around the same time, I started to open up online about a few of my fetishes. They're nothing bad or illegal. Most people wouldn't even consider them R-rated, since there's zero nudity involved and absolutely no sexually explicit stuff. If a normal person saw the sort of thing I'm interested in, they'd probably just go "what?" and laugh. It's literally that harmless. I met a lot of people interested in the same thing (of which there's quite a few), and made some amazing friends along the way. They all told me the same thing- I should start up a Patreon account and put my 3D skills to use.

So I did.

Within 6 months, Patreon was my sole source of income, with more money coming in through Gumroad and direct PayPal payments through my artist website. I was making more than I ever did at either of my two former jobs. Everything was totally legit and legal- I marked all my content as NSFW whenever required, and followed the rules everywhere I could.

Recently, I got suspended for Patreon. To be fair, the Patreon folks were extremely helpful and had me up and running again within 24 hours. This is not about them though, it's about FOSTA/SESTA.

You see, I'm not even a US citizen. I live in Canada. However, FOSTA has made Patreon's payment processors paranoid to the point that they are all locking down everything to the point that they don't want to deal with anything even remotely considered NSFW, even if it's not actually pornographic in nature (which my content is not). Patreon has fought back to a certain point, but they're basically losing an unwinnable battle. The more the paypament processors torque down the screws, the more Patreon has to clamp down on "NSFW" content.

I got suspended over a banner showing a fully clothed 3D model sitting on a bar stool looking into the camera. I'll admit that the character in question was pretty curvy- but once again, I don't do nudity or anything even remotely considered sexually explicit. This wasn't anything worse than the sort of thing you'd see after spending 5 minutes on Instagram.

I had to remove that banner and replace it with something else. After I did that, my account was unlocked and I was back in business.

What I'm worried about, however, is that this is only the beginning, and that my entire online business may be threatened as a result of knee jerk reactions to FOSTA. I fear that one day, I may not be able to rely on this source of income anymore, despite the fact that what I'm doing is completely legal and something I'm actually good at. I know many other people who have run into similar issues in the past 2 weeks, all because everyone is getting super paranoid about the new laws. Some of them have resolved their issues, others are permanently screwed by the new tighter interpretation of the community rules.

This shit needs to stop.

FOSTA is having a HUGE impact in a ton of industries that have nothing to do with what the bill was originally designed to prevent. It was poorly thought out and needs to be taken out behind the barn and summarily put down. I sincerely hope the EFF succeeds here, or this turns into a huge legal battle for the US Government that results in them being put on the hook for a few billion dollars of lost e-commerce. I don't know how the fuck this bill crept up into service or why there was no major outrage over it, but it's clear that the only thing it's doing is damaging the online economies. Why nobody thought of this beforehand is beyond me, but I guess it's all about control and power in the end, and that's exactly what FOSTA is designed to provide.