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posted by martyb on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the back-and-forth dept.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday temporarily blocked a congressional subpoena that seeks information on how the classified advertising website Backpage.com screens ads for possible sex trafficking.

The order came hours after Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer asked the high court to intervene, saying the case threatens the First Amendment rights of online publishers.

A federal appeals court ruled 2-1 on Friday that the website must respond to the subpoena within 10 days. Roberts said Backpage does not have to comply with the appeals court order until further action from the Supreme Court.

[...] The Senate panel has tried for nearly a year to force Backpage to produce certain documents as part of its investigation into human trafficking over the Internet.

After the website refused to comply, the Senate voted 96-0 in March to hold the website in contempt.

[...] While Backpage has produced over 16,000 pages of documents responding to the subpoena, Ferrer said documents relating to the website's system for reviewing ads are part of the editorial process protected under the First Amendment.

"This case presents a question of exceptional nationwide importance involving the protection the First Amendment provides to online publishers of third-party content when they engage in core editorial functions," Ferrer said in a brief filed to Roberts.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SUPREME_COURT_SEX_TRAFFICKING


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @08:11PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @08:11PM (#398850)

    Since they already handed over a LOT of documentation my guess is that they don't really bother to screen their ads for sex workers. It is very difficult to do without impacting legitimate ads.

    Another possibility, they don't want their algorithm outed since that would allow people to craft workarounds. "Just avoid these words / phrases and you're golden"