Backpage.com has been seized by the FBI as of April 6, 2018, and their website is shut down.
The government is attacking our rights! More bans! Well yeah, it’s been that way, but this case has some merit.
The indictment states that they were allowing girls under 18 to be featured in prostitution ads. Putting money before humanity, the proprietors of Backpage accrued over $500 million in “prostitution-related revenue.”
Victims of human trafficking were funneled through the site. One case specifies that a victim was sexually violated with a gun by her captor, and that she was forced into prostitution.
Underage girls would appear in ads, and the staff was told to simply approve them.
A case in Texas ended with a young victim killed by a customer. Backpage continued running ads for the dead girl, and did not comply when the father requested that the ads be removed.
At any rate, it sounds like any other corporate monster who lost its soul along the way. The allegations are serious. If true, it seems that greed got in the way of their decency.
Many pimps will be affected, and their sex worker employees.
Sex workers like “Extra horny sexy newbie,” whose pimp was tried in the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Sources: Indictment, NPR
Legitimate sex workers and customers will be affected by this site outage as well.
There are benefits to having an easy-access online board for managing such consensual acts. With the new FOSTA law though, better platforms must come along that prohibit and report child abuse and human trafficking. We also need more state and federal funding to help the victims and track down the cretins who are harming others. We need to take a serious look at our prostitution laws, which are punitive and perpetuate arrest after arrest for profit. These are things we should be talking to our representatives about.
Other sites like Craigslist are already affected. There could be more.
How will this affect you?
Comment below and remain Anonymous.
In 30 days or so, I am resurrecting Backpage … Without the Personal sections. I am not affiliated in any way with it’s previous incarnation and although I have seen their personals, I really didn’t realize the rag was a Hub for human trafficking … I don’t generally consider that hookers ( who “volunteer” ) … are victims of slavery or human trafficking, although I suppose it’s possible. Let’s not forget that Craigslist also, refused for years, to shut down it’s own “Personals” section.
In spite of it’s dubious reputation, Backpage ( being much larger than its personals ) provided a platform for the sale and trade of regular, every day items and was nearly the only serious Classifieds competition for Craigslist. That competition must continue to exist, unabated, particularly in the Southwest.
For that reason, I have acquired the domain: Backpage.us.com which should go Live in about a month as a classifieds service in the USA, but with heavy filters and without out any personals, health, events, gigs or blog sections.
We will follow the Craigslist Model, with NO required registration, Free listings … with paid listings ONLY for commercial enterprises, real estate and job listings … at about half the Craigslist rate. The site will also encourage, support and promote crypto currency trades like Bitcoin, Etherium, Litecoin and others.
2dissimilarity