Tagged: Communications Decency Act Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Geebo 9:29 am on March 21, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Chris Cox, Communications Decency Act, , Section 230   

    Author of Section 230: 230 was not to facilitate people doing bad things on the internet 

    Author of Section 230: 230 was not to facilitate people doing bad things on the internet

    With Congress about to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, a number of pundits in tech circles have decried the amendment as the end of free speech on the internet and various other reasons why the sky is falling. However, one of the section’s authors says that Section 230 is not being used the way it was intended. Former Congressman Chris Cox recently said that Section 230 “was to help clean up the Internet, not to facilitate people doing bad things on the Internet.”

    Cox helped wrote the legislation back in 1994 when a financial company tried to sue the platform Prodigy for libel when one of its users had accused the financial company of fraud. Since Prodigy moderated its content for language the courts ruled against Prodigy. Cox wanted protection for platforms like Prodigy from third-party users. The fact that we’re talking about Prodigy, a long dead internet portal, should show you how antiquated Section 230 truly is.

    As you may know, Section 230 is about to be amended to include language that would help prosecute websites and platforms that knowingly facilitate human trafficking such as Backpage is accused of doing. Congressman Cox even says that websites connected to unlawful activity should not be protected by Section 230. Let’s also not forget that we’re talking about real human lives that are being peddled through Backpage and if Backpage would be forced to curtail its activities it would greatly reduce the number of women and children being sold as slaves in the US. Without Backpage, we wouldn’t have every two-bit wannabe pimp thinking they can make themselves some money just by getting some girls and advertising them on Backpage. While it wouldn’t solve the trafficking crisis completely, it would go a long way in keeping a lot of people safe from the life that Backpage gets rich off of.

     

  • Geebo 8:59 am on March 20, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Communications Decency Act, , , ,   

    Anti-Backpage trafficking bill on track to become law 

    Anti-Backpage trafficking bill set to become law

    Late last month, the US House of Representatives passed the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017, or FOSTA. Yesterday, the US Senate voted almost unanimously to advance their version of the act known as the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, or SESTA. It’s expected to be passed by the Senate later today and then signed into law later this week. SESTA/FOSTA would allow the victims of online sex trafficking to seek damages against sites like Backpage who allegedly knowingly assisted in the trafficking trade.

    As has been mentioned before, SESTA/FOSTA amends section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 which Backpage has used to claim that their role in the sex trade is protected free speech under the law. A number of opponents to SESTA/FOSTA claim that this amendment will mean the death of free speech on the internet as we know it, however, that is simply not true. As this piece on political blog The Hill points out, “the legislation requires proof that a website “knowingly” assisted, facilitated, or supported sex trafficking when it entered into a venture with a sex trafficker.”

    All the evidence that has been uncovered by journalists and a congressional investigation seem to point out that Backpage knowingly engaged and assisted sex traffickers by advising them on what to put in their ads. This is and has never been an issue about free speech, but rather the freedom of the women and children who have been trafficked on Backpage. Most arguments against the purported legislation are just fear-mongering and histrionics.

     

  • Geebo 9:58 am on February 28, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Communications Decency Act, , , ,   

    Major bill passed to help fight online human trafficking 

    Major bill passed to help fight online human trafficking

    Yesterday, the US House of Representatives passed the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017, or FOSTA as it’s better known. This act would allow prosecutors and victims of online trafficking to either prosecute, or seek damages against websites that knowingly assisted in the trafficking of women and children. To be more specific, FOSTA is designed to allow sites like Backpage, who allegedly worked with traffickers to make the ads of trafficked victims appear more legitimate, to stop hiding behind the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

    As you may know, the CDA was the statute that Backpage hid behind for many years claiming that the ads on their website for ‘adult services’ were protected speech and that they had no control over what appeared in these ads. Time and again prosecutors and trafficking victims were stymied in seeking justice against Backpage because of the outdated terms of the CDA. However, after the House overwhelmingly passed FOSTA yesterday, Backpage became one major step closer to losing that protection that has afforded them to make millions of dollars from the sales of women and children into slavery. What’s next is for the bill to be approved by the Senate which has its own version of the bill called “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” or SESTA.

    While many tech pundits and insiders claim FOSTA and SESTA are potential internet censorship laws, they have no one to blame but Backpage. It shouldn’t have had to come to this, but Backpage insisted on making their millions in one of the most unethically ways possible. Had Backpage not blamed everything on third parties and used the CDA as it was not intended, further legislation would not have been needed. Not to mention that many of these pundits and insiders complain when the law has not caught up to technology when it comes to innovation, but use a 22-year-old law to defend the practice of online trafficking as free speech. 22 years ago, the internet was a far cry from what it is today. Why shouldn’t the law be allowed to reflect that?

     

  • Geebo 9:00 am on September 8, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Communications Decency Act, ,   

    When it comes to ‘Don’t be evil’, Google gives Backpage a pass 

    When it comes to 'Don't be evil', Google gives Backpage a pass

    Nicholas Kristof, of the New York Times, is one of the few nationally known journalists who has continually reported on the transgressions of Backpage when it comes to Backpage’s part in the sex trade. In one of his recent columns, Kristoff goes after an even bigger fish in the polluted waters of internet sex trafficking, Google. The Mountain View, California, search king opposes the proposed amendments to the Communications Decency Act that would remove the protections from prosecution that sites like Backpage have been hiding behind, otherwise known as the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act.

    Kristoff claims that Google has an unfounded fear when it comes to their argument of a slippery slope with Google claiming the new amendment to the CDA could open them up to frivolous lawsuits. However, a spokesperson for the National Center for Missing and Exploited children points out the new legislation is crafted in such a way that it only applies to those sites which are directly receiving money from traffickers.

    “This bill only impacts bad-actor websites,” notes Yiota Souras, general counsel at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. “You don’t inadvertently traffic a child.”

    Yet the majority of Silicon Valley is opposing the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act mostly out of fear that it will somehow affect their right to free speech, which couldn’t be further from the truth. There is no slippery slope here. There is no downside. I think what the mostly insular tech community forgets is there are actual people being trafficked and sold into sexual slavery on sites like Backpage and aren’t just faceless pixels.

    Instead of worrying about Backpage’s ‘freedom of speech’ these tech companies should be more worried about the fact that many of the women and girls being trafficked on Backpage have no freedom at all in a country that prides itself on liberty.

     

  • Geebo 9:03 am on August 2, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Communications Decency Act, ,   

    Senate submits amendment to CDA to go after human trafficking websites 

    Senate submits amendment to CDA to go after human trafficking websites

    Yesterday, the Senate submitted a bill that would add an amendment to the Communications Decency Act of 1996 that would specifically remove the protection sites like Backpage have hidden behind so they could continue to facilitate the trafficking of women and children in their ads. The bill, sponsored by Ohio Senator Rob Portman, is called the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of 2017 and would essentially leave the CDA intact as it is except for websites who knowingly engage in sex trafficking. In the Senate’s own investigations, they believe Backpage knowingly edited ads sent to them in order to avoid further scrutiny by law enforcement and the government.

    This couldn’t come soon enough as the victims of sex trafficking have been blocked multiple times from seeking justice against Backpage by the outdated CDA. The Communications Decency Act is 21 years old. The CDA was passed during a time when most of us weren’t even on the internet and the only way you could access it was over a dial-up connection on an expensive PC. Since that time, the internet has grown exponentially and the technology used to access it has vastly exceeded any expectations we had of it in 1996. Yet the CDA has largely remained the same, failing to advance along with the times.

    Those who think this new amendment may restrict free speech on the internet couldn’t be further from the truth. The new bill has language in it which specifically targets sex trafficking sites. According to the Washington Post…

    The proposed law would clarify that Section 230 [of the CDA] does not preclude prosecution of state or federal criminal laws dealing with sex trafficking of children; does not prohibit civil suits related to sex trafficking; and ensures federal liability for publishing information designed to facilitate sex trafficking.

    So yes, we can have a free and open internet where the rights of trafficking victims are recognized and their facilitators are punished.

     

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