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Backpage's CEO Carl Ferrer took a plea deal one day before the site got shut down:
The CEO and co-founder of the classified ad website Backpage.com cut a plea deal with state and federal prosecutors, admitting that he knew that the site had become a massive online marketplace for prostitution. Carl Ferrer, 57, agreed to plead guilty to charges in state courts in Texas and California and federal charges in Arizona in a bid to resolve an array of criminal investigations he was facing over his role in the site. The plea deal appears to limit Ferrer's total potential prison time to no more than five years.
"I have long been aware that the vast majority of these advertisements are, in fact, advertisements for prostitution services (which are not protected by the First Amendment and which are illegal in 49 states and much of Nevada)," Ferrer acknowledged in a written statement that was part of the plea bargain.
During a lengthy Senate investigation, Ferrer and other Backpage officials insisted they were policing the website aggressively to remove such advertising. However, Ferrer admitted in the plea deal that those efforts were just window dressing. "I worked with my co-conspirators to create 'moderation' processes through which Backpage would remove terms and pictures that were particularly indicative of prostitution and then publish a revised version of the ad," he said in the plea document. "It was merely intended to create a veneer of deniability for Backpage."
The Washington Post reports that Ferrer agreed to testify against co-founders Michael Lacey and James Larkin.
The organizers of the Women's March have tweeted their opposition to the Backpage shutdown. Some conservatives are not amused, but sex workers have been critical of the shutdown and the passage of the SESTA law:
"Girls are going back to the streets and they are going to die in the streets, and nobody cares," said Calida, a mother of two, who said she used to do street work and fears she will have to start again to make ends meet. "Everybody is terrified."
Texas Attorney General statement, California Attorney General statement, and DoJ statement. Also at LA Times, NYT, and Ars Technica.
"Yesterday, President Trump signed the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 (FOSTA), which gives both law enforcement officials and victims new tools to fight sex trafficking. Read more in today's 1600 Daily: 45.wh.gov/HHLb37"
9:02 AM - 12 Apr 2018" twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/984461642879643648
[takyon Note: SESTA is the U.S. Senate bill, FOSTA is the House bill, and the joint proposal is known as the "FOSTA-SESTA package".]
Previously: U.S. Congress Passes SESTA/FOSTA Law
FBI Seizes backpage.com and Affiliates
(Score: 3, Touché) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday April 13 2018, @10:23PM (3 children)
Assuming this isn't a troll, so I'll bite.
[Citations needed.] Who in this thread has defended trafficking of children? Where in the plea agreement does it indicate that child trafficking was fostered by backpage? Prostitution was, by their admission. While I'll readily stipulate child trafficking can occur in prostitution, first you show me where this is anything but your red herring.
No, they admitted to fostering prostitution by their own act in the plea agreement. A plea agreement secured without this act which compromises speech. Because this bill is holding the bulletin board owner liable for messages posted on the bulletin board. Just "on the Internet." Because that is WAY easier than actually doing police work to isolate and arrest the POSTERS, who committed the crimes.
Where Backpage IS guilty, as in the plea agreement, is that they intervened directly in the ad process - THEY edited the ads, which made them complicit.
So now Personals ads are gone. Because they were used for prostitution as well as hook-ups. That IS a chilling effect of speech whether you want to admit it or not.
And here's a hot flash: If you are worried about child trafficking - I really am too - how much child trafficking will be eliminated by SESTA-FOSTA? Answer: NONE. It will still happen. What just really happened was that law enforcement just lost a GREAT tool to go after the traffickers - the criminals instead of the publishers. (And again, if the publishers got invovled... well the Fed just showed you how it could be taken down without this law.)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 13 2018, @11:58PM (2 children)
How much child sex trafficking might be eliminated by eliminating politicians? They are after all one of the largest groups misusing their authority to abuse children, often having it covered up by federal authorities such as MI5, or the FBI in exchange for political favors involving law enforcement friendly laws or financial benefits. And since each branch of government is washing the other's hands, how are they to be held accountable except at the end of a rope, barrel or tip of a spear?
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Saturday April 14 2018, @12:09AM (1 child)
That sounds like something the Antichrist would say.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 14 2018, @10:12AM
Must be a nice guy.