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[FOSTA/SESTA]: Sex and Internet Censorship
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The Senate was literally one abstention, one against and one Rand Paul.
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Basically it's in the time honored tradition of using the false pretense of helping children to codify religious morals into a law that does outsize harm to those that are most at risk at the fringe of our society.
This bill basically most endangers women who have little economic opportunity.
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Wouldn't that be a total repeal of section 230?
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
No.
Section 230 was created to protect companies who could only act after an end user did something legally actionable - for example, these forums should not be held liable if someone posts something defamatory and the mods then remove said post. The problem is that Batzel then extended this protection to where the host was acting before the material is disseminated - in that case, you had the operator of a curated listserv being sent in tips on stolen art and museum pieces, determining which to forward on to the subscribers. This has led to an issue where you can have a website that is clearly set up to encourage a certain illegal behavior (for example, revenge porn), but because they set up their websites to be based on user submissions, they get indemnity; or where websites have carved out indemnity for following certain laws because they can point to end users (avoiding the Fair Housing Act by claiming that end users were responsible for posting the ads is a good example here.)
The blanket indemnification of Batzel - a ruling that is quite clearly tech-ignorant - was always an untenable position. It just sucks that it took a horrible law like SESTA to point it out.
I don't know about that. From what I've seen from excerpts from a summary of Batzel v. Smith, it appears that the 9th circuit was actually well aware of technological nuances that could complexify the issue:
It seems the fault still lies with the inadequacy of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to conform with the reality of the internet, and it should be threatened (along with all casual pornography on the internet) if we're going to resolve this problem.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
The problem is more that Microsoft is trying to look like they're on board with the new laws to avoid any possible future legal problems because of the vast population of shitlords that use their services, and they're doing this by throwing EVERYONE under the bus just to be safe because individual policing is too much work. Basically, the YouTube school of enforcement. There likely wont be that much consequences, but collective, preventive punishment isnt really a precedent you want to establish.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-backpage-justice/sex-marketplace-backpage-com-seized-by-u-s-justice-authorities-posting-idUSKCN1HD2QP
No direct connection to the law, but its pretty obvious this is related, and the press conference at 6pm will confirm it.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
yeah, like I said in chat they were not good actors in this at all, but the fact that the raid has happened is definitely news, and it will impact a lot of people in sex work who relied on the site to advertise.
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I saw a documentary about parents of teens who had been trafficked and pimped out on backpage, which is where they found them. They were all attacking backpage as the source of all their misery, and I was just sitting there going 'uhhh if it wasn't for back page, your kid would still be being pimped out on some random street corner or lesser known site that you'd never ever find'
It just feels like they're taking down something that, while it rightly should be taken down, was also an incredibly useful resource for law enforcement and watchdogs to search for kidnapped teens.
I've never been a big subscriber of "honeypot theory", and what we saw in 2016 (namely, that exposure without pushback results in normalization) has made me even more of a skeptic. Retreating to the shadows protects them, but at the same time also makes it harder to do business for traffickers, as it reduces access to their clientele. Furthermore, allowing a website that was openly aiding in trafficking (this is why they were going after Backpage, and why it was ultimately ruled that they were not protected by Section 230) to continue to operate says certain things, none of them good.
I'm not thinking about this clearly, but how is backpage different from harm reduction
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Erika G, anti-trafficking attorney (https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/sesta-sex-trafficking-act-craigslist-sex-workers?utm_term=.ix68dxY671#.ahGwpAl5Bq)
I don't know what the answer is on Backpage, I don't know much about it specifically. I'm not sure if our society really has a concept for "you're allowed to do this, but you really shouldn't."
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
At some point a sting operation has to end. Otherwise you are just saying "this activity is now not-illegal in practice".
Again, Backpage isn't being taken down because traffickers were using the website, but because they were actively assisting in trafficking, helping traffickers create ads designed to evade law enforcement. And let me point out that this investigation has been going on for five years, in large part because of concerns over Section 230 indemnifying Backpage.
SESTA is bad law. But it's bad law that got through in part because the other side refused to consider how untenable the situation had become for their position.
Can you back up the bolded claim?
Everything I've seen suggests that the owners of Backpage were insufficiently monitoring the ads there, but there's a difference between lack of diligence towards a crime and actively helping a crime.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
backpage started filtering out / refusing to run ads that used certain words, ignoring the content so long as easily searchable queries were not part of it.
This was used as legal justification that they assisted the market by making it clear HOW to post ads they would get less legal pain from, while not addressing the bad behavior.
I can see both sides on this. If people are going to post coded shit in your dating section, is it your responsibility to staff up in such a way to make sure that illegal activities are not being brokered there, or can you just make it harder to do it and not increase your operating costs?
The law seems very much on the side of it being your responsibility what people do in your virtual space, and even what people might be able to do in your virtual space.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
From this piece about the charges just filed:
Is it the responsibility of a website to report to the law when your content filter blocks a message talking about potentially illegal activities? If so, that has implications well beyond backpage.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
There's emails showing that Backpage was editing ads to remove these terms before letting them be posted. That's what got them in hot water.
No, what the article says is that they edited the ads and then posted them anyway, which is a completely different thing.
I think for the most part the closest thing to a consensus here is that no one has a problem with Backpage specifically getting the axe for their conduct but the fact that this method of advertising for this type of commerce (the lightly illegal kind, not it's abominable, slavery esque cousin) has negative consequences that are harmful to vulnerable folks.
Like traffickers are going to have no problem moving their victims to street corners or brothels. A lot of women are going to much less safe working on the street of their own accord.
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I am here as well.
Hmm.
I'll concede the point but I admit that I remain skeptical. Hopefully some independent corroboration (if not the emails themselves) is forthcoming.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
The basic problem is that adult and child prostitute are treated too similarly
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
This law is fucking terrifying.
That's one problem. The US's entire approach to sex work is completely disordered. I'm not talking about any broad-brush policy reforms like "legalize prostitution," but rather the lack of the outreach and support services necessary to handle sexual trafficking, involuntary prostitution, survival sex. Prostitution is an incredibly complicated, multifaceted phenomenon that requires far more nuance than the US criminal justice system is capable of. There isn't a single approach that works for all populations, even among adults.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Backpage is the only one that is gone, while others are considering closing or have blocked US users or specific sections of their websites is how it reads.
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No real way to verify the social media one's.
Maybe there was a specific section of CityMove that was closed, or maybe the tweeter is trying to spread fakenews sprinkled with truth. Either way, just the first three on that list being shut down over this law seems like a big deal.
They are monitoring for keywords and will report to authorities, is what I think it's implying.
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yes, they are monitoring content and closing accounts they've detected to be engaging in or adjacent to any sex work
Ah, the bit I seem to have missed is the USA part.
Craigslist personals is still available in Canada for example. As is fetlife.
They must have hosting outside the USA?
https://apnews.com/339ea77b33754375a3e21599888c971e
the law seems to me to be using trafficking as simply a cudgel to harass sex workers
I don't understand why some of these would be liabilities?
I get themed discussion boards and such, but content-agnostic, unmoderated Google services are clearly not operated or conceived of with the intent to facilitate illegal prostitution.
Isn't that the measure?