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DoJ Lets Cops Know SESTA/FOSTA Is For Shutting Down Websites, Not Busting Sex Traffickers

posted by takyon on Sunday June 17 2018, @05:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the easy-targets dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

DOJ Lets Cops Know SESTA/FOSTA Is For Shutting Down Websites, Not Busting Sex Traffickers

[SESTA/FOSTA] is in force and all it's doing is hurting efforts to track down sex traffickers and harming sex workers whose protections were already minimal. Sex traffickers, however, don't appear to be bothered by the new law. But that's because the law wasn't written to target sex traffickers, as a top DOJ official made clear at a law enforcement conference on child exploitation. Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan's comments make it clear SESTA/FOSTA won't be used to dismantle criminal organizations and rescue victims of sex traffickers. It's there to give the government easy wins over websites while sex traffickers continue unmolested.

In April, Backpage.com – the internet's leading forum to advertise child prostitution – was seized and shut down, thanks to the collective action by CEOS and our federal and state partners. The Backpage website was a criminal haven where sex traffickers marketed their young victims. The Backpage takedown – and the contemporaneous arrests of individuals allegedly responsible for administering the site – struck a monumental blow against child sex traffickers.

But other sites inevitably will seek to fill the void left by Backpage, and we must be vigilant in bringing those criminals to justice as well. With the recent passage of the SESTA-FOSTA legislation, state and local prosecutors are now positioned to more effectively prosecute criminals that host online sex trafficking markets that victimize our children.

"Criminals" that "host sex trafficking markets." That's the target. That's any website that might be used by actual sex traffickers to engage in actual sex trafficking. There's no dedicated web service for sex trafficking -- at least not out in the open where Section 230 immunity used to matter. This is all about taking down websites for hosting any content perceived as sex trafficking-related. It wasn't enough to hang Backpage and its execs. The government will be scanning sites for this content and then targeting the website for content posted by third parties it seems mostly uninterested in pursuing.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Sunday June 17 2018, @07:18PM (12 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Sunday June 17 2018, @07:18PM (#694324)

    So, in short, this was to make happy some killjoys angry about the fact that some people are using the Internet to find sexual fulfillment, because sexual fulfillment is bad. Probably said killjoys were at least in part religiously motivated, since the viewpoint of those sorts tends to be "It's OKish for a man to bang his wife, just so long as nobody enjoys it and no precautions are taken against her getting pregnant and having a kid from it. Everything else is not OK!" Or, in other words, "My sex life is terrible, so everyone else's should be too!"

    Of course, this is the same political party that nominates pimps [latimes.com] and teen molesters [newsweek.com] for political office, and are led by a a guy who likes to have affairs with porn stars. But hypocrites are easy to find everywhere.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @07:52PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @07:52PM (#694332)

    Also, everyone knows that pimps like backpage should be protected from anything posted on their site. Particularly any postings that they got paid to publish. You know, sexual freedoms and all that stuff.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @02:33PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @02:33PM (#694518)

      Yep, the only people who would have a problem with this law are misogynist incels.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @09:18PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @09:18PM (#694351)

    Sounds like a violation of freedom of speech. If bribing politicians can be "freedom of speech" then so should ads for adult romance services.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by stretch611 on Sunday June 17 2018, @10:01PM

    by stretch611 (6199) on Sunday June 17 2018, @10:01PM (#694359)

    It's OKish for a man to bang his wife, just so long as nobody enjoys it and no precautions are taken against her getting pregnant and having a kid from it. Everything else is not OK!" Or, in other words, "My sex life is terrible, so everyone else's should be too!"

    This is not so much as forcing everyone to have a terrible sex life as much as it is the easy way to gain church members.

    The easy way to increase the size of a congregation is for their members to have kids.

    Sex outside of marriage leads many times kids with only one parent, which is generally unaffiliated with a church and less likely to force kids to go every week. (not to mention a smaller chance of being able to afford large donations to the church; being a single parent and all.)

    Homosexual couples can not conceive so many churches frown upon gays. The lack of conception is the same reason why many churches frown on contraceptives.

    --
    Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P

  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 18 2018, @02:14AM (7 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 18 2018, @02:14AM (#694392) Journal

    Maybe you can help us out here, Thexalon. You make some religious connection, and apparently you want to blame Christians for this law. But, who lobbied for this mess? FBI? TBH, I don't even know who lobbied for it. A search reveals that Amy Schumer supported it. The same article has a passage

    The protesters also called for a boycott of celebrities who lobbied for the legislation and were set to perform at Comedy Central’s Clusterfest, held at San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Center Plaza, this weekend.

    So, who are these celebrities? Oh, Jon Stewart and members of Saturday Night Live. http://www.sfexaminer.com/sex-workers-protest-amy-schumer-support-sesta-fosta-laws/ [sfexaminer.com] Lemme look around some more . . .

    http://thefreedomstory.org/whats-so-controversial-about-sesta [thefreedomstory.org]

    Not all companies have voiced opposition to this bill. Oracle Corp. and 21st Century Fox Inc. have come forward in recent days publicly endorsing SESTA. Though many believe these public endorsements are strategic digs aimed at the behemoth Google.

    Ohio’s Republican Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Connecticut’s Democratic and resolute former Attorney General Richard Blumenthal are the leaders of the bipartisan coalition sponsoring this bill, and

    https://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=1FF6DB17-B7A2-4E70-B901-CA07E43065CB [senate.gov]

    Senators Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Hold Backpage Accountable, Ensure Justice for Victims of Sex Trafficking

    This is kind of an interesting sidenote on SESTA/FOSTA: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/23/17237640/fosta-sesta-section-230-internet-freedom [vox.com]

    In September, Oracle wrote a letter supporting FOSTA-SESTA, saying the state of technology today makes monitoring content easier than it was in the 1990s and expressing surprise at the debate over the legislation. “Your legislation does not, as suggested by the bill’s opponents, usher the end of the internet,” wrote Oracle senior vice president Kenneth Glueck. “If enacted, it will establish some measure of accountability for those that cynically sell advertising but are unprepared to help curtail sex trafficking.”

    The Internet Association, an internet industry lobbying group, initially lobbied against FOSTA-SESTA but backed off in September and then came out in support of the Senate bill, citing “important changes” made to the legislation. (It is worth noting it did so days after officials from Facebook, Google, and Twitter testified on Capitol Hill about Russian meddling in the 2016 election.)

    What’s next for Section 230 is up in the air

    There’s no question that Section 230 is one of the pillars of the open internet. Along with net neutrality, it helps level the playing field in tech by allowing new entrants to get into the market without huge barriers.

    Eroding Section 230 and increasing companies’ liabilities for content shared on their platforms by their users is likely to ding small players and new startups — not the mega companies such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter. They have billions of dollars, lobbyists, and extensive legal resources behind them.

    “Laws that require automated filtering of content and other types of moderation at scale might be something a giant platform could handle, but it could make it very difficult for a smaller competitor or startup to be successful,” Llanso, from the CDT, told me.

    I see a huge power grab here, by the usual suspects, but I don't see any religious involvement.

    Can you point to any church involvment, or are you merely expressing your long term hardon for anyone and everyone with religious beliefs?

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday June 18 2018, @02:31AM (5 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Monday June 18 2018, @02:31AM (#694397)

      Can you point to any church involvment, or are you merely expressing your long term hardon for anyone and everyone with religious beliefs?

      1. The bill's Senate sponsor, Rob Portman of Ohio, made a big deal about support for the bill coming from faith-based organizations.
      2. Some of its biggest advocacy groups, such as Shared Hope International [sharedhope.org] and Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition [ffcoalition.com], are explicitly Christian organizations.

      I'm perfectly fine with religious beliefs existing. Heck, I have some religious beliefs myself. The problem here is that the religious beliefs in question are leading to government regulation that appears to stop casual sex (which harms basically nobody but is seen as a serious problem by Bible-thumpers) rather than actually stopping sex trafficking (which is a heinous crime that harms millions of people worldwide). And the bi-partisan set of legislators who overwhelmingly voted for it knew full well that's what was going on.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @02:51AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @02:51AM (#694400)

        The real problem is that this law is blatantly unconstitutional since it violates free speech rights. If our courts actually did their job - which I'm not entirely sure they will - they would throw this law out as soon as it's challenged.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 18 2018, @04:15AM (2 children)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 18 2018, @04:15AM (#694423) Journal

        So, basically, we have a power grab, bipartisan in nature, and one of the righties points to support from a couple of Christian groups? Said Christian groups are more than balanced by corporate interests, right? And, who gains power - the Christian tools, or the corporate interests? I can see that a whole bunch of tools, religious or not, might be suckered in by "think of the children" arguments. But, don't blame Christians for being tools any more than you might blame ignorant lefties for being suckered in. Over and over, I see that support was bipartisan. Lefties and righties alike fell for the power grab.

        Bottom line, gubbermint is willing to ignore the constitution, because they like POWER. Prostitutes have traditionally been ready victims of those in power, and those in power have been terribly upset that prostitutes had the audacity to move up in the world. Religion doesn't really fit into the story.

        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @09:59AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @09:59AM (#694461)

          Some of the biggest names in the U.S. entertainment industry have expressed a recent interest in a topic that’s seemingly far away from their core business: shutting down online prostitution. Disney, for instance, recently wrote to key U.S. senators expressing their support for SESTA, a bill that was originally aimed at sex traffickers. For its part, 20th Century Fox told the same senators that anyone doing business online “has a civic responsibility to help stem illicit and illegal activity.”

          https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/how-fosta-will-get-hollywood-filters-theyve-long-wanted [eff.org]

        • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday June 18 2018, @02:57PM

          by Thexalon (636) on Monday June 18 2018, @02:57PM (#694527)

          Part of the reasoning behind the power grab was "Are you in favor of this, or do you support sex trafficking?" The brave congresscritter that can stand up to that is rare.

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @03:21PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @03:21PM (#694537)

        "Heck, I have some religious beliefs myself. "

        -
        -
        -

        In other words you are a dumb shit.

        You are immediately disqualified from all discussions.

        Do not breed, the world doesn't need any more proles like you.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @04:39PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @04:39PM (#694574)

      In September, Oracle wrote a letter supporting FOSTA-SESTA, saying the state of technology today makes monitoring content easier than it was in the 1990s and expressing surprise at the debate over the legislation. “Your legislation does not, as suggested by the bill’s opponents, usher the end of the internet,” wrote Oracle senior vice president Kenneth Glueck. “If enacted, it will establish some measure of accountability for those that cynically sell advertising but are unprepared to help curtail sex trafficking.”

      someone should exterminate that sob