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Amazon and Microsoft employees caught up in sex trafficking sting
The tech industry has a clear history of sexism and misogyny, but a recent Newsweek report highlights another problem. The publication got its hands on a slew of emails sent to brothels and pimps between 2014 and 2016 that document the industry's patronage of brothels and purchasing of services from trafficked sex workers. Among the emails, which were obtained through a public records request to the King County Prosecutor's Office, were 67 sent from Microsoft employee email accounts, 63 from Amazon accounts and dozens more from companies like Boeing, T-Mobile, Oracle and local Seattle tech firms.
Some of the emails were collected during a 2015 sting operation that targeted sex worker review boards and resulted in the arrest of 18 individuals, including high-level Amazon and Microsoft directors. Two opted for a trial, which is currently set to begin in March.
Seattle's sex industry has grown right alongside its tech industry and the city's authorities have said that some men spend up to $50,000 per year on sex workers. Brothels are even known to advertise how close they are to tech offices. Alex Trouteaud, director of policy and research at the anti-trafficking organization Demand Abolition, told Newsweek that the tech industry is a "culture that has readily embraced trafficking."
Newsweek: Tech Bros Bought Sex Trafficking Victims by Using Amazon and Microsoft Work Emails
Related: "Pimping" Charges Against Backpage Executives Dismissed
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:37AM (16 children)
I was about to submit this myself before I noticed Fnord beat me to it. Newsweek clickbaited the headline to what I'm sure will be hilarious effect but the story looks solid. Here are some choice bits from the original source:
Don't use your work email to solicit sex. Looks like Microsoft is not going to be of much help to those caught:
But do they actually know the women are trafficked? Maybe so:
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:45AM (2 children)
Some seem's
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:25AM (1 child)
Use your big words, bro.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:59AM
It's wrong because it's illegal. You need to decriminalize the most of the wholesome aspects.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:22AM (2 children)
A "brother"? Is that M$ internal terminology, like "Cast Member" for a Disney employee?
Interesting too that many of the high flying rockstar tech bros at M$ and Amazon can't get free nookie.
(Score: 2, Informative) by legont on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:59AM
Free is almost always more expensive.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:18AM
To get free nookie on a regular basis, you have to invest time and effort and usually money into getting to know potential partners and/or making oneself attractive to those that enjoy casual nookie, and then of course invest time and effort and usually money into getting particularly close to a partner. That time and effort is something that rich and powerful men don't have in abundance, so for them investing just straight up cash for a prostitute is much easier.
Also, part of the attraction of prostitutes for a lot of high-powered men is precisely that it's not free, and thus a transaction in which their partner(s) has no power to refuse them when they request a particular act. So even if they could get free nookie, they choose hookers instead.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:22AM (9 children)
God fucking damn it. I do anti-trafficking work and seeing this makes my blood fucking boil. These are human beings we're talking about here, and THESE overprivileged fucking d00dbr0 sociopaths...they're not just saying they don't care about the exploitation, the horror and fear and pain and suffering, they're saying they get off on it! People who "buy sex" are shit. End of story. Sex trafficking is commercial rape. These fucking johns are doing it because they get off on the power differential.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Entropy on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:37PM
Not every sex worker is trafficked. They just focus on the ones who are because more people think of that as wrong.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:58PM (2 children)
I'm with you. There ought to be a way to teach oafs like this a lesson. Maybe we should bring back the pillory.
There are places where prostitution is legal, such as Nevada or Amsterdam. I've seen stories done on brothels there and the women seem like they choose to do that work. Is that all bullshit? Is it advanced play-acting for the cameras? Are the same criminal dynamics and exploitation at work there too?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Informative) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:59PM
Surely there's still some exploitation there, but generally far less. Legalization can do a lot of good. As with any market, if it's illegal, it cannot be regulated. Even laws against murder and assault don't necessarily apply since everyone involved is already a criminal by default. In a city/state where prostitution is legal, you can report and prosecute abusive customers, and any brothels or pimps can be held to local labor laws. You'd still have some who break the law and get away with it, just like you still have people illegally selling stolen goods on the street...but if the market is legal, then it's easier for any victims to get help without fear of being prosecuted themselves.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:23PM
I've been told one of the major crime families, the Bonnanos IIRC, run most of Vegas' prostitution. There's always going to be an element of criminality here because of how intimate this is; you simply cannot give up your body and control thereof to a perfect stranger without experiencing some kind of soul tarnish. And the "free market" being what it is, and Americans' fucked-up attitudes about sex being what they are, you can bet there are all kinds of perverse incentives and weird, shady arrangements with the law even in Vegas.
A good friend of mine, a now 50-year-old survivor who was trafficked from 12-16 during the Reagan years, told me her "worse dates" (her phrasing, not mine) were cops, professors, clergy, and judges.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:39PM
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday December 30 2017, @01:38AM (3 children)
God fucking damn it. I do anti-trafficking work and seeing this makes my blood fucking boil. These are human beings we're talking about here, and THESE overprivileged fucking d00dbr0 sociopaths...they're not just saying they don't care about the exploitation, the horror and fear and pain and suffering, they're saying they get off on it!
"
100% yes. I won't say it makes my blood boil, but by god it creeps me out - they sound subhuman. (Ironic as what they're saying makes others subhuman to them.) You're at +5 already, if not, and you'd have stopped there I'd be flinging another +1 your way.
" People who "buy sex" are shit. "
Can we agree to disagree on that matter? I think there's a lot wrong with the industry as many instances of it end up, I don't think there's anything *intrinsically wrong* with fully consentual and safe sex work.
Would you like to explain to this person why sex work is intrinsically a bad thing:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1866249/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_16
And for a more real-world story, albeit delivered in a less realistic fashion, the final segment (25+ minutes) of this is another case where sex works is a moral and kind solution to a fairly hard problem:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1935828/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_7
" Sex trafficking is commercial rape. These fucking johns are doing it because they get off on the power differential. "
Again, 100% agree that it's as bad as groomed rape. I'm tempted to word the second part more as "because they can get away with it", but effectively that's "because they have the power to, and know they'll get away it", which is beginning to converge with yours. (I miss out the "get off" part as I don't know if that's a certainty.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday December 30 2017, @04:10AM (2 children)
All the women (and the men, this happens to men too!) who suffered from this and survived that I've met told me their johns were getting off on the power differential. I still see this. The latest exhibit was some asshole who fucking posted his location data at some brothel with the status "Finally, someplace where women can't complain about being sexually harassed on the job!"
These are not good people.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday December 30 2017, @07:08PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday December 30 2017, @08:18PM
You aren't wrong, but personally I think it should be limited to things done solo behind a webcam. There's too much danger inherent in close contact like that, and most men are overwhelmingly more powerful physically than most women. This may be a good niche for teledildonic peripherals, interestingly...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...