The latest development in the legal battle of Backpage.com, an online marketplace for sex and, apparently, trafficking in women and children, has resulted in the closing of the site.
On April 6 2018 the content of the site was replaced with a notice beginning “backpage.com and affiliated websites have been seized as part of an enforcement action by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Service Inspection Service, and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, with analytical assistance from the Joint Regional Intelligence Center.”
The accompanying indictment (https://www.justice.gov/file/1050276/download )suggests that the proprietors of Backpage.com may have helped write the site’s content, and thus not be protected by the 1996 Communications Decency Act.
In a parallel development, in March (of 2018) the Senate passed (by a vote of 97 to 2) and forwarded to the President for signature the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017, as previously passed by the House of Representatives. It amends the Communications Act of 1934, “to clarify that section 230 of such Act does not prohibit the enforcement against providers and users of interactive computer services of Federal and State criminal and civil law relating to sexual exploitation of children or sex trafficking…” https://www.congress.gov/115/crpt/hrpt572/CRPT-115hrpt572-pt1.pdf .
On April 6 2018 the content of the site was replaced with a notice beginning “backpage.com and affiliated websites have been seized as part of an enforcement action by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Service Inspection Service, and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, with analytical assistance from the Joint Regional Intelligence Center.”
The accompanying indictment (https://www.justice.gov/file/1050276/download )suggests that the proprietors of Backpage.com may have helped write the site’s content, and thus not be protected by the 1996 Communications Decency Act.
In a parallel development, in March (of 2018) the Senate passed (by a vote of 97 to 2) and forwarded to the President for signature the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017, as previously passed by the House of Representatives. It amends the Communications Act of 1934, “to clarify that section 230 of such Act does not prohibit the enforcement against providers and users of interactive computer services of Federal and State criminal and civil law relating to sexual exploitation of children or sex trafficking…” https://www.congress.gov/115/crpt/hrpt572/CRPT-115hrpt572-pt1.pdf .
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