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posted by martyb on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the looking-for-love-in-all-the-wrong-places dept.

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


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  • (Score: 5, Touché) by unauthorized on Wednesday December 27 2017, @09:18AM (4 children)

    by unauthorized (3776) on Wednesday December 27 2017, @09:18AM (#614668)

    Of course those people are going to have a high level of sexism and misogyny.

    Bullshit, introversion is not causative to sexism or misogyny.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:54PM (2 children)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:54PM (#614786) Journal

    It's not introversion directly (or entirely), but that is one component. The main component is thwarted "desires". (Desire is a bit too weak, but anything else that I can think of is too active.) This doesn't always lead to blaming the focus of desire, but often does. If you doubt this, watch the fans on the losing side of a football game.

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    • (Score: 2) by unauthorized on Thursday December 28 2017, @10:18AM (1 child)

      by unauthorized (3776) on Thursday December 28 2017, @10:18AM (#615055)

      It's not introversion directly (or entirely), but that is one component. The main component is thwarted "desires". (Desire is a bit too weak, but anything else that I can think of is too active.) This doesn't always lead to blaming the focus of desire, but often does.

      I'll have to call bullshit on that too. Can you support your claims with any evidence?

      If you doubt this, watch the fans on the losing side of a football game.

      Why football specifically? Why not the losing side of a game of Chess or Warhammer or Starcaft? Why not people who die in a tabletop RPGs? This is blatant cherry-picking. In fact, the more a certain activity seems to appeal to introverts and intelligent people, the more measured people tend to deal with loss. Reality seems to contradict your narrative.

      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday December 28 2017, @05:30PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 28 2017, @05:30PM (#615172) Journal

        Foot ball specifically because there are large numbers of fans, and they tend to make obvious actions. I have observed similar reactions at chess matches. Nationally it was readily observable in Bobby Fischer vs. Borris Spassky. You can also observe it at tennis matches, and anywhere else there are fans and matches.

        Please note, these aren't the only places that this "blaming" happens, they're just places where it's easy to observe. When someone wants something and is prevented from getting it there's a strong tendency to blame the party that denied the desire. Or those who supported that party. This is readily observable all over the place if you look.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 28 2017, @01:56AM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday December 28 2017, @01:56AM (#614954)

    He's making no such claim, just like he isn't claiming that simply being male is causative to sexism or misogyny. Tech workers aren't the only introverts in the world, you know; introverts comprise (IIRC) roughly 30% of the population. And plenty of introverts have no trouble getting dates, are outgoing enough to approach women, etc. It's not some rare, crippling disease, it's very common and just describes a psychological mindset that a significant fraction of the population has, and which differs from the other rough grouping of the population that prefers more time with social contact.

    It's just that tech workers tend to overwhelmingly be introverted, just like they overwhelmingly tend to be male. The group he's describing is a small subset of the intersection of those two groups.