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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
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:08PM
This story reminds me of the cobalt mining one and smacks of a PR or journalist hit piece designed to make a splash. Oh, so the Wall Street banker bros and salespeople in any industry out partying on the company dime aren't the ones blowing money on coke and hookers? It's actually the quiet nerdy guys banging out code in their cubicles building platforms for fake news that are to blame?
Give me a fucking break. I would buy that if I didn't know good and well that a geek would go with internet porn and robots over hookers every time, because they are too uncomfortable with women to even pay for sex with them; they'd be mortally afraid the girl would laugh at their equipment or how clumsy they are.
I call bullshit x 10^7.
Washington DC delenda est.