sex workers – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Good News: Bill To Study The Impact Of FOSTA Reintroduced

from the a-small-step-in-the-right-direction dept

Back in 2019, Reps. Ro Khanna and Barbara Lee along with Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden introduced a bill to study the actual impact of FOSTA on sex workers. While that bill unfortunately went nowhere, the same group is now back and have reintroduced the SAFE SEX Workers Study Act (SSWSA). This is an important bill, especially at a time when many in Congress are looking to follow up FOSTA with a new bill, EARN IT, which takes the FOSTA playbook and goes even further with it. During the EARN IT markup, many Senators bragged about their support for FOSTA, even as the evidence has shown that it has made the problem they claimed they were solving much, much worse.

So it’s a tiny, tiny step in the right direction to get a bill that even aims to study whether or not the bill created real harms for sex workers — though, ideally we’d get a bill that studies all of the harms that FOSTA created (not just those to sex workers, even as they almost certainly faced the most harm by far), and one that set up a plan to repeal FOSTA once the study proves the underlying question.

Unfortunately, Congress has long shown that it doesn’t care about sex workers. Hell, it doesn’t really care about sex trafficking or CSAM or any other problems. It just wants to pretend to care about these issues so it can get headlines and go on TV to look serious about how it’s “solving” these problems. Whether or not they actually solve any problems is very much besides the point.

Hopefully this cynical take is proven wrong, and Congress can actually come together and pass the SSWSA bill and learn just how much harm they did a few years ago. I’m glad that Reps. Khanna and Lee and Senators Warren and Wyden have put forth this bill, but considering how few sponsors it has compared to things like EARN IT, I’m not holding my breath.

Filed Under: barbara lee, earn it, elizabeth warren, fosta, ro khanna, ron wyden, sex workers, study

John Oliver Explains How FOSTA (And Lots Of Other Policies To ‘Help’ Sex Work) Has Backfired Badly

from the john-oliver-the-resident-techdirt-tv-host dept

For not the first time, John Oliver is taking on topics we often cover at Techdirt, and doing a fantastic job of it. His latest show went deep on just how screwed up laws and law enforcement about sex work are, including a specific look at FOSTA.

The whole video is worth watching, and discusses how politicians, law enforcement, and sketchy “advocacy” groups repeatedly falsely try to conflate all sex work with sex trafficking. But, more importantly, it discusses how nearly all of the laws written about sex work and sex trafficking are done without talking to actual sex workers, and because of that it creates laws, such as FOSTA, that actually do a lot more harm than good, and often focus on punishing sex workers while pretending to “help” them.

The part on FOSTA doesn’t go that deep, but does make the key point (as we and others have been making for years) that (1) after insisting that FOSTA was “needed” the government basically never used it, and (2) that it actually has made it much, much, much more difficult for law enforcement to track down and arrest actual sex traffickers. In a clip I hadn’t seen before, Oliver shows a law enforcement official noting that Backpage used to work with law enforcement, but after it was shut down, overseas sites rushed in to fill the void, and none of them are willing to work with law enforcement at all.

Indeed, the episode provides even more support to leaked DOJ documents that showed that Backpage was actually a very helpful partner to law enforcement in helping to track down actual sex trafficking, but balked at… extending that to consensual sex work. In other words, the very point that Oliver tried to raise in this episode.

And, of course, as we see all of this, Congress still refuses to recognize how much harm that FOSTA has done and is, instead, still focused on passing a new law, the EARN IT Act, that is in many ways even worse than FOSTA.

Filed Under: earn it, fosta, john oliver, law enforcement, section 230, sex trafficking, sex work, sex workers

OnlyPrudes: OnlyFans, The Platform For Sexually Explicit Content, Says No More Sexually Explicit Content (Except For Nudes)

from the none-of-this-makes-sense dept

To some extent, it was only a matter of time until this issue came up. OnlyFans has grown massively over the last year (demonstrating, yet again, that the idea that the internet ecosystem is “settled” and that Facebook/Google control all is not necessarily true). However, as most people know, OnlyFans’ success is built on basically creating a paywall for adult content from fans willing to subscribe to certain individuals in order to gain access to paid-only pictures and videos. It has had a tremendous impact especially for sex workers who had their careers shattered by FOSTA a few years ago, which forced a bunch of platforms sex workers relied on to shut down.

But, because it involves sex and adult content, sooner or later people were going to complain. And, complain they did. On Thursday OnlyFans announced that it was banning “sexually explicit” content, though it said it’s still allowing nudity.

Effective October 1, 2021, OnlyFans will prohibit the posting of any content containing sexually explicit conduct. In order to ensure the long-term sustainability of the platform, and to continue to host an inclusive community of creators and fans, we must evolve our content guidelines. Creators will continue to be allowed to post content containing nudity as long as it is consistent with our Acceptable Use Policy.

What does that even mean? It’s extremely unclear. The “Acceptable Use Policy” doesn’t seem to define any difference between sexually explicit and nude content. Instead, it focuses on having the rights to the content you’re posting and not posting illegal content. I can’t wait for the content moderation case study exploring how OnlyFans distinguishes merely “nude” with “sexually explicit.” That’ll be a fun one.

Of course, there’s a lot likely happening behind the scenes here. Just two days earlier OnlyFans announced a separate app of non-adult content, while simultaneously noting that it was having difficulty finding investors, despite its overwhelming success.

It wouldn’t be a surprise for it to eventually come out that part of the issue is… FOSTA. The same law that created such a mess for sex workers since it was passed was likely always a potential risk for OnlyFans. The company is saying that many of its partners — especially in the financial world — were getting cold feet. According to Bloomberg, who broke the news:

The changes are needed because of mounting pressure from banking partners and payment providers, according to the company.

And, this shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Remember, payment and banking partners have long been a target for government officials when they want to crack down on things they don’t like — especially sex related things.

Sex workers are already speaking out about this. Cathy Reisenwitz, from Sex and the State put out a statement:

??OnlyFans was the most empowering way for adult creators to connect with our audience. I?ve benefited tremendously from OF personally. But at the end of the day I?ll be fine. I can?t say that about sex workers who depended on OF. Many of them are going to have to turn to in-person sex work, made all the more dangerous by SESTA/FOSTA, to make ends meet. I?m angry our deeply sex-negative, whorephobic society allows lying evangelicals and SWERFs to dictate the limits of our freedom of speech and put sex workers? lives and livelihoods in jeopardy for no benefit to anyone. Every problem, from CSAM to trafficking, that banning porn is supposed to solve is actually exacerbated by stigmatizing and criminalizing online porn.

There are many reasons why some of us think we should be moving to a world where the internet has fewer chokepoints where policymakers and moral panic purveyors can put pressure on just a small handful of companies to choke off speech. Yes, obviously, OnlyFans has every right to decide how it wants to manage its own platform, but the key point here is that this doesn’t seem to be OnlyFans doing this because it thinks it’s best for the site, or for its users (either creators or fans). Rather, it’s because of the intermediaries stepping in to tell them what is and what is not allowed.

Filed Under: adult content, financial services, sex workers, sexually explicit content, subscription services
Companies: onlyfans

DOJ Finally Uses FOSTA, Over Two Years Later… To Shut Down A Site Used By Sex Workers

from the worth-it? dept

For years leading up to the passage of FOSTA, we were told that Congress had to pass the law as quickly as possible because so many women were “at risk” due to trafficking. And when asked for evidence of this, people would point to Backpage, even though the site had shut down its “adult” section under pressure from Congress a year earlier. Of course, the actual stats that were provided turned out to be fake and Backpage was seized before the law was even passed. The charges against the founders did not include sex trafficking charges. Also, as the details have come out about Backpage, it’s become evident that rather than facilitating sex trafficking, the company was actively working with law enforcement to find and arrest sex traffickers. However, where they started to push back on law enforcement was when law enforcement wanted to go after non-trafficked sex workers.

However, with all of the moral panic around the need to pass FOSTA, we highlighted earlier this year that two years had gone by and the DOJ had not used the law a single time to go after any “sex trafficking” site. Instead, as we predicted, the law was being used in nuisance lawsuits, such as mailing list provider MailChimp and CRM provider Salesforce because Backpage had used those services.

Finally, last week, however, the DOJ made use of FOSTA in shutting down a website and arresting its operator. A site called CityXGuide.com (and some other sites that it ran — including one with a name similar to Backpage) were seized, and the guy who ran it, Wilhan Martono, was arrested in California. From the details provided, it does look like Martono saw an opportunity to jump into the market vacated by Backpage, and the charges claim that he brought in $21 million doing so.

The original indictment was done in early June, but it was only just unsealed with Martono’s arrest and the seizure of the various websites. It does seem clear that Martono sought to be the source for advertising sex work, but the DOJ conveniently mashes together sex work and sex trafficking, because that’s the kind of thing law enforcement likes to do.

Indeed, the immediate reaction to this appears to be that plenty of non-trafficked sex workers, who previously had relied on Backpage to remain safe and now relied on Martono’s sites, are again put in danger. The Hacking/Hustling collective — a group of sex workers who came together to advocate around issues such as FOSTA — put out a press release calling out what a stupid, counterproductive move this is:

?When we are re-envisioning public safety, this is a perfect example of why we can?t exempt human trafficking. Instead of resources going to real investigations or victim support, you have six agencies spending time and resources reading ads and looking for the word ?blow job?? said Lorelei Lee, a collective member of Hacking//Hustling.

I was going to link to another website that has a blog advocating for sex workers’ rights that explained in great detail how this puts sex workers at danger, but honestly, under a broad interpretation of FOSTA, linking to that website might violate the law. That’s because after reading the blog post, I saw that there was a link to a “find escorts” site associated with the blog, and while I think I should be able to link to such a blog post, with its cogent explanation for why this DOJ action puts women at risk… merely linking to it would put me at risk under a broad reading of FOSTA (a stupid, unconstitutional reading, but, alas, these are some of the chilling effects created by the law).

Either way, it’s difficult to see how this does anything to stop actual sex trafficking. Indeed, again, it’s likely to put victims at even greater risk — while also putting sex workers at greater risk. Studies have shown that when these sites go down, more women are put at risk. Even worse, as noted, Backpage actually helped law enforcement track down and arrest traffickers. But by making everything else such sites do illegal, it appears that (obviously) Martono avoided helping law enforcement at all (the indictment suggests he ignored various subpoenas).

Again, this is exactly as tons of people predicted. When these ads were appearing on places like Craigslist and Backpage, those companies worked closely with law enforcement to go after actual traffickers, and get them arrested. But now, with things like FOSTA, rather than do that, law enforcement can just… take down the best source to find and track down traffickers, pushing them to sites that are less and less likely to help law enforcement? How does that make sense. Indeed, we’ve covered a number of law enforcement officials saying that the shutdown of Backpage has made it more difficult to find actual traffickers.

And, if you want any more evidence of that: note that nowhere with this announcement is there anything about arresting any actual traffickers. I have a request in to the DOJ asking if they or any law enforcement have arrested any actual traffickers who used these sites — but at the time of publishing they have not responded. The indictment claims — somewhat salaciously — that the sites seized were used to identify “numerous victims of child sex trafficking,” including a “13-year-old Jane Doe.” Obviously, it’s horrific to find out about that Jane Doe or any victim of sex trafficking, but it does seem odd that there is no mention of any arrests of the traffickers.

Because… wouldn’t arresting actual traffickers be the goal here?

Either way, this story is getting buzz on Twitter from two communities: sex workers who are pissed off and angry that they’re now losing business and the ability to operate safely… and… believers in the ridiculous Q anon nonsense conspiracy theory, who believe that everything going on in the world is a plot to cover up child sex trafficking. To them, this is evidence that the big promised crackdown on sex trafficking rings has begun. Of course, the lack of any actual arrests for actual sex trafficking kinda suggests that’s not the goal here.

Still, this whole thing allowed FOSTA co-author Senator Rob Portman to take a victory lap. Someone should ask him why he’s celebrating putting women at risk — or at least ask him where the arrests are for actual sex trafficking.

Filed Under: doj, fosta, section 230, sex trafficking, sex workers, wilhan martono
Companies: backpage, cityxguide

New Bill Introduced To Study Impact Of SESTA/FOSTA On Sex Workers

from the good-to-see dept

A few months back, we were pleasantly surprised to see Rep. Ro Khanna announce plans to introduce a bill that would study the impact of FOSTA on sex workers. Earlier this week, he came through, introducing the SAFE SEX Workers Study Act, which he’s introducing with Rep. Barbara Lee in the House. On the Senate side, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden have introduced the companion bill. You can read the bill here. It would task Health & Human Services with studying the impact of FOSTA on sex workers, in coordination with the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute of Health.

The bill is quite clear in laying out the concerns these elected officials have about the overall impact of FOSTA:

?There has been a host of anecdotal reporting from sex workers and community health organizations that following the enactment of SESTA/FOSTA, sex workers have faced greater threats of physical and sexual violence, as they are increasingly pushed off on-line platforms and onto the streets to seek clients. Despite these reports, no national study has been conducted to assess the impacts of SESTA/FOSTA on sex workers,? said Rep. Ro Khanna. ?Sex workers have relied on such internet platforms to screen clients and negotiate boundaries for consensual, transactional sex services, including condom use and other harm reduction strategies. While SESTA/FOSTA was intended to curb online sex trafficking, by banning the ?promotion of prostitution,? a host of internet platforms relied on by sex workers have shut down. My bill would mandate the first national study investigating how the shutdown of websites in connection with SESTA/FOSTA impact the health and safety of people who rely on consensual, transactional sex. I?m proud to partner with Rep. Lee, Senator Warren and the many advocates on this critical issue.?

?For far too long, SESTA/FOSTA has demonized and harmed sex workers,? said Rep. Lee. ?Instead of preventing sex trafficking, SESTA/FOSTA made it harder for sex workers to access critical health and safety resources. We need the full picture ? that?s why I?m proud to work with Rep. Khanna and Senators Warren and Wyden on this legislation to study the full effects of SESTA/FOSTA. It?s imperative we ensure that everyone has the full picture when making reproductive health decisions.?

?As lawmakers, we are responsible for examining unintended consequences of all legislation, and that includes any impact SESTA-FOSTA may have had on the ability of sex workers to protect themselves from physical or financial abuse,? said Senator Warren. ?I?m glad to be working with Representatives Khanna and Lee, and Senator Wyden to do just that with the SAFE SEX Workers Study Act.?

?Last year I warned that forcing websites to take down any mention of sex work would remove agency from sex workers and put them at great risk of violence and abuse, all while making it harder to catch sex traffickers and aid victims of human trafficking. So far, initial reports from cities across the country show that violence against sex workers is rising dramatically and there?s little evidence that this law is helping victims. Representatives Khanna, Lee and Senator Warren are taking the common-sense position that HHS should study the impacts of SESTA-FOSTA on the most vulnerable members of society, so that Congress can make informed policy decisions, rather than chasing knee-jerk responses,? said Senator Wyden.

As some are noting, this study could be a first step to repealing FOSTA-SESTA (though the law is still being challenged in the courts as well).

The bill already has a bunch of co-sponsors — though I’ll note that there are no Republican cosponsors, so the bill at this point is not bipartisan. Also of note, one of the cosponsors (as far as I can tell, the only one where this is true), Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey, was also a cosponsor of FOSTA. Still, Senator Warren did vote for SESTA in the Senate, so it’s good to see her appear to recognize that may have been a mistake. It’s still not clear if this bill will go anywhere, but just the fact that some in Congress are recognizing that FOSTA may have put more people in danger (even as it was pitched as a way of “protecting” victims) is at least a good start.

Filed Under: barbara lee, elizabeth warren, fosta, health, ro khanna, ron wyden, sesta, sex workers, study

Rep. Ro Khanna To Introduce Bill To Study Impact Of FOSTA On Sex Workers

from the well,-look-at-that dept

FOSTA was sold to Congress and the public as a way to “protect women,” who (we were told) were being sex trafficked because of a “loophole” in the law. As we warned over and over again at the time, FOSTA would actually put women at even greater risk, and that has been supported by nearly all of the evidence we’ve seen to date. Beyond the fact that the number of women who are actually victims of sex trafficking has been greatly exaggerated or completely made up to the point of ridiculousness, so far there have been multiple reports showing that the actual impact of FOSTA was to increase sex trafficking by putting sex workers at much greater risk, driving them into the greedy arms of traffickers who promise protection. This has resulted in more women dead and even police admitting that the law has made it more difficult for them to catch traffickers.

That’s pretty much exactly what many of us predicted before the law was passed, but Congress likes to pass laws and then forget about ever bothering to check whether or not the law did what it promised. So it’s interesting to note that Rep. Ro Khanna is apparently planning to introduce a bill to study the actual impact of FOSTA, specifically on sex workers. This was buried in an article about Kate D’Adamo, a lobbyist representing the interests of sex workers on Capitol Hill.

?She is one of the most vocal and effective advocates on this issue,? said Rep. Ro Khanna of California?s Silicon Valley, who plans to introduce the bill in the next several weeks to study SESTA-FOSTA?s impacts after being approached by D?Adamo and her fellow activists.

?She?s really, I think, driving the conversation about the humanity of sex workers and the vulnerability of sex workers,? he said.

The measure, which has yet to be finalized, would call on the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health to study the fallout of SESTA-FOSTA.

[….]

The extent to which SESTA-FOSTA succeeded in its stated goal of shutting down sex traffickers is unclear, but Khanna said anecdotes have flooded in that the measure has forced sex workers to walk strolls to meet clients, causing ?more violence, more harm to the public.?

?It was a wrong vote,? said Khanna, who was one of just 12 Democrats to oppose SESTA-FOSTA. ?We need to now study it and understand the consequences, which I don?t think Congress fully considered. I can?t see any reason for opposing the collection of data.

The article notes that, even as many in the public now support decriminalizing sex work, most politicians are scared of even revisiting FOSTA, afraid that it will be spun that they’re interested in decrminalizing sex work — even as FOSTA has often resulted in more sex workers on the streets in their districts.

In his meeting with D?Adamo, the aide explained that since SESTA-FOSTA passed, there?s been an uptick of sex work on the district?s streets, leading to more 911 calls from constituents. ?That?s not to say that the Congress member wouldn?t vote in favor of this on the floor,? he explained. ?The people in our district are just very religious. Because of the taboo behind sex work, the Congress member doesn?t want to scare away supporters.?

What really gets me about all of this is: where are all the vocal supporters of FOSTA who insisted it was necessary to protect women? Where are they now that so far the evidence suggests it’s put more women at risk? Why have they all gone silent? Why aren’t they vocally supporting Khanna’s effort to study the impact of the law? It’s almost as if (as we noted) this was never actually about protecting women at all.

Filed Under: congress, fosta, impact, intermediary liability, ro khanna, section 230, sex workers

New Study Says The Removal Of Craigslist Erotic Services Pages May Be Linked To An Increase In Murdered Females

from the for-the-good-of-the-many-or-whatever? dept

Under the guise of targeting sex traffickers, FOSTA has both done damage to Section 230 protections and sex workers’ literal lives. The law has yet to result in any credible, sustained damage to human trafficking, but that hasn’t stopped the bill’s supporters from trotting out debunked numbers anytime they need a soundbite.

There will likely be no studies performed by the government to determine FOSTA’s actual impact on sex trafficking, but plenty of academics are offering evidence that pushing sex work further underground is endangering the lives of sex workers. This is just the icing on the stupid, life-threatening cake as multiple law enforcement agencies — including the DOJ itself — pointed out passing FOSTA would make it more difficult to hunt down traffickers.

A study released in 2017 showed the introduction of erotic services section on Craiglist tracked with a 17% drop in female homicides across many major cities. Craigslist spent a few years being publicly vilified by public officials — mainly states attorneys general — before dumping its erotic services section (ERS). This didn’t stop sex work or trafficking, but it did shift the focus away from Craiglist as everyone affected found other services to use.

A newly-released study [PDF] (via Sophie Cull) shows there’s been a corresponding increase in female homicides since the point Craigslist dumped ERS. Online services — enabled by Section 230 — helped sex workers stay safe by reducing or eliminating a few of the more dangerous variables.

In the context of prostitution, online clearinghouses have the potential to improve safety by redirecting exchange through the clearinghouse and replacing more risky outdoor face-to-face transactions and/or other intermediaries (e.g., pimps) with indoor, direct transactions (Bass, 2015a,b). Matching online through the clearinghouse enables both sides of the market to discern the quality of the match ex ante, through such activities as informal screening, circulated black and white lists, and online reviews (Cunningham and Kendall, 2011b; Grant, 2009). This may provide the ability for sex workers to identify and screen out violent clients, law enforcement, and scammers.

The wholly expected happens when you take these safeguards away by eliminating online services, like Craigslist did in 2010.

[W]e find evidence that ERS significantly reduced female homicide rates by as much as 10-17 percent. We do not find evidence that this was a more general reduction in homicide, as ERS is unrelated to male murder, females killed by an intimate partner, or manslaughters. This strengthens our assessment that ERS-driven changes in sex markets were the primary driver of the reduction in female murders.

The study pulls from a number of data sets (including the FBI’s annual crime reports), but notes there are still some limitations that prevent this from being an exact determination. For one, most homicide reports don’t note whether the person killed was a sex worker. For another, the data lags because homicide reports date from the time the body was found, rather than the time the person was actually killed. From this underreported and laggy data, some inferences can be drawn, even if it’s impossible to say for certain what percentage of female homicides involved sex workers. If anything, the buggy data may point to an even greater reduction in violence against sex workers via the introduction of online marketplaces.

Are these magnitudes plausible? It is difficult to answer this question given that the true incidence of prostitution homicides is unknown. Most datasets do not record whether a female victim of a homicide was a sex worker, and those that do suffer from severe underascertainment biases built into the data collection methods. To our knowledge there is only one study that has attempted to estimate the incidence of prostitution homicide as a share of female homicides (Brewer et al., 2006). The authors concluded that 2.7 percent of all female homicides are prostitution deaths by clients. But this study has significant limitations. It is based on select data only from Chicago, St. Louis, Washington state, North Carolina, the SHR, 33 urban counties for one cross-section, and Colorado Springs. The issue of underascertainment bias would conceivably hold, and maybe moreso, for this select sample. Thus we interpret their estimates to be, at best, a lower bound. Our estimate of a 10 percent reduction in female homicides does suggest, though, that ERS created an overwhelmingly safe environment for female sex workers — perhaps the safest in history.

This is not to suggest government officials and lawmakers pushing laws like FOSTA don’t care about people’s lives. But I’m not sure what counterargument they can provide for legislation that not only results in increased harm to (mostly) women, but also undercuts the immunity that has allowed the internet to thrive. I guess the old adage is being spun to read “It’s better for dozens of sex workers to die than for third-party service providers to go free.”

Filed Under: ads, fosta, homicides, murder, sex workers
Companies: backpage, craigslist

Another Pre-Super Bowl 'Sex Trafficking Sting' Busts A Bunch Of People Trying To Buy Sex From Cops Pretending To Be Teens

from the sex-trafficking-still-a-relatively-safe-profession dept

Every Super Bowl is greeted with the same breathless stories about sex trafficking. As thousands of visitors descend on the unlucky host of The Big Game™, local law enforcement agencies — sometimes accompanied by the DHS — are there to claim there will be a sex trafficking victim for every Super Bowl attendee. Hundreds of law enforcement officers perform sweeps costing taxpayers millions of dollars. And every year, it’s the same story: very little sex trafficking found, but a whole lot of sex buyers and sex workers are cited and/or jailed.

Prostitution may be the oldest profession, but it couldn’t have been far ahead of “law enforcement spokesperson.” Someone is always on the scene to spout meaningless numbers to press stenographers in order to perpetuate the myth that large gatherings = sex trafficking en masse. Few journalists dig into these claims.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown of Reason does perform the due diligence local journalists won’t. Following the 2017 Super Bowl, Brown obtained booking sheets to see if law enforcement had snagged dozens of sex traffickers in the 750+ arrests made pre-Super Bowl.

Super Bowl 2017 was held in Houston, which sits in Harris County, Texas. Each day, the county posts its previous 24-hours worth of arrests on the Harris County Sherrif’s Office (HCSO) website. The arrest report for February 6, 2017, contains more than 11 pages of arrests, including 12 for prostitution, a lot of DUI and driving-on-a-suspended-license charges, some marijuana possession, several assaults, theft, forgery, driving without a seatbelt, one “parent contributing to truancy,” and a few for racing on the highway. The February 7 HSCO arrest log shows three arrests for prostitution. But neither reveals a single arrest for sex trafficking, soliciting a minor, pimping, promoting prostitution, compelling prostitution, or any other charges that might suggest forced or voluntary sex trade.

Maggie McNeill, an actual sex worker, has also debunked victorious pre-Super Bowl claims delivered by police hype men. According to law enforcement, more than “42” victims of sex trafficking were “contacted” during prostitution sweeps prior to the 2016 Super Bowl. But there’s not 42 of anything in this mess:

42 potential human trafficking victims were contacted during the three weeks leading up to the big game…More than half of the victims were put in direct contact with an advocate or support group and…the task force arrested or cited 30…alleged clients of possible prostitutes…one “girl” was arrested for prostitution and resisting arrest…another “girl” was cited for prostitution…four people were cited for aiding in prostitution, two were cited for loitering with intent for prostitution, one potential victim disclosed other sex crimes and kidnapping, and two human trafficking cases involved a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old from Sacramento which resulted in a human trafficking arrest…one arrest for violation of a domestic violence restraining order and three arrests for other warrants…

As McNeill points out, the 15-year-old was a runaway with mental health issues — a far cry from the panicked claims sex traffickers are lurking everywhere to poach teens off the street. As for the 17-year-old, she was apparently being “trafficked” by a slightly-older friend, who was also arrested.

As even McNeill notes, sex trafficking does happen. It just happens far less frequently than government officials claim, even as they use it to justify sweeps that do nothing more than temporarily inconvenience a few johns or, worse, punch holes in legal protections for third-party service providers. None of what’s detailed above justifies all of the following, as summarized by McNeill and her inimitable prose:

Vast amounts of hype, blanketing an entire metropolis with pigs, spooks and g-men, millions wasted, thousands of words of anti-whore propaganda bloviated out, and for what? 21 women were given a phone number, 30 guys were tricked by cops with fake ads, two adult and two underage sex workers were arrested, six other people were arrested on bullshit charges, and four people arrested on warrants. The other 21 women were essentially just made up; “potential trafficking victims”? Really? Yeah, well every sex worker in the Bay Area is a potential police brutality and police rape victim, but I don’t see them counting that statistic.

Last year’s Super Bowl featured the same stories. Law enforcement officials claimed they had busted 94 men in a “sex trafficking sting.” In reality, all they’d done is arrest 94 men for trying to solicit sex from law enforcement officers pretending to be underage girls. Again, a couple dozen “potential victims” were “contacted” and referred to outreach groups, but nowhere in the arrest records will you find an actual sex trafficker, despite 57 officers putting in “20 hour days” for 11 straight days prior to the Super Bowl.

This year’s stories have arrived and the numbers delivered by law enforcement again suggest two possibilities: either sex trafficking isn’t nearly as prevalent as they believe it is, or the business model has some serious flaws.

Days before the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams are set to face off in Atlanta, 33 people were busted for sex trafficking in the lead-up to the big game, federal law enforcement officials announced Wednesday.

In a press conference outlining Super Bowl LIII safety measures, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced the arrests, adding four victims have been rescued.

33 traffickers and only four victims. Sure, the ratio’s never going to be one-to-one, but you’d think it would be a lot closer than that. It’s unlikely any trafficker is trafficking only one victim. In order for it to be the multi-billion dollar industry alarmists claim it is, traffickers most likely have at least a few victims each just to ensure profitability. Even if these traffickers are cut-and-run experts, you’d think the ratio would be more like three-to-one at worst, rather than ten-to-one.

The narrative about mass sex trafficking — probably involving large numbers of underage victims — is already falling apart. The DHS is being willfully vague about the arrests, but statements from local law enforcement agencies point to a bunch of cops sitting at desks pretending to be teenagers. And there appears to be a lack of underage victims, which kind of undercuts the usefulness of playing internet dress-up with pervs around the country.

On Jan. 23 and 24, Homeland Security assisted in a joint operation in Douglas County using undercover officers, social media sites and local hotel rooms, the Douglasville Police Department said Wednesday. Sixteen people were arrested, according to police, and the youngest person involved was 17. The timing of the crackdown was related to the Super Bowl, police said.

I not so boldly predict this narrative will collapse on itself just like it has following every other Super Bowl. The Big Game may draw big numbers. But it’s not a sex trafficking mecca, nor is it an almost invisible symptom of a supposedly-billion dollar problem.

Filed Under: dhs, exaggeration, ice, moral panic, overhype, sex trafficking, sex workers, super bowl

Six Months Later, People Are Finally Realizing That FOSTA Actually Is Putting Lives At Risk

from the we-kinda-warned-you dept

Before FOSTA became law, plenty of experts in the space tried to warn everyone that a bill that was frequently promoted as being necessary to help “save the lives” of vulnerable women involved in sex trafficking, would actually put more lives at risk. And we’ve already had some evidence to support that this prediction was entirely accurate. Various law enforcement officials have been complaining that it’s now more difficult to catch sex traffickers.

And, now the Associated Press has a big article looking at the impact of FOSTA and it’s not pretty. The closing down of various online forums for sex workers has driven more sex workers into the street, where their lives are at significantly higher risk:

Law enforcement in San Antonio arrested 296 people for prostitution between March 21, when the Sex Trafficking Act passed Congress, and Aug. 14, according to a public records request ? a 58 percent increase from the same span the year before, when police made 187 arrests.

Phoenix police said they experienced a surge in street-prostitution arrests in 2018 but did not provide figures. In Houston, levels have remained constant, but more 14- to 17-year-olds have been working outdoors since May, said James Dale, a police captain.

Police in Sacramento, California, noted three street-prostitution arrests between March 21, 2017, and mid-August of that year. During the same period in 2018, they recorded 15.

The stories from women who have shifted from using the internet to the streets are pretty harrowing:

Kara Alexander, who lives in Florida, advertised her services on Backpage, Craigslist and other sites before April. When media companies closed down sections hosting adult services ads, she said, she started working on the streets.

In May, she said, a client raped her and poured alcohol in her body in an attempt to destroy evidence. Alexander, 29, said she had faced violence while working online, but never on this scale.

?It?s a different kind of danger,? she said.

A sex worker who goes by Quinn and didn?t want her real name used because she feared arrest and other repercussions said that in the age of the trafficking act, she hasn?t been able to rack up enough jobs. Near the end of April, she started selling herself outdoors in Boston for the first time since she was a teenager, she said.

?There?s no backup plan for people like us,? said Quinn, who said she was raped and beaten in August but could not afford treatment.

There are more stories and information in the full AP piece.

And, again, none of this should be a surprise. Before FOSTA became law, we (and many others) pointed to a recent study that showed how adult ads on Craigslist “reduced the female homicide rate by 17.4%” when it was available. And, to put some context on that number, that’s the overall female homicide rate, not just “the female homicide rate of sex workers.” Forcing more women into the street is, literally, leading to people dying.

And it is infuriating that this was done by Representatives like Ann Wagner and Mimi Walters who insisted they were doing it to save women’s lives, when the reality is that they have only served to put more women in potentially mortal danger.

The AP article also highlights another point that we had mentioned previously: FOSTA is enabling much more trafficking by empowering pimps, while online sites allowed sex workers to avoid needing to use pimps:

Alexander said a friend of hers was attacked by pimps who were incensed she was working without them, and Quinn said pimps have become much more aggressive now that they see a market.

It would be nice if some reporters actually ask Representatives like Ann Wagner and Mimi Walters, or Senators like Rob Portman and Richard Blumenthal how they feel about the fact that the bad law that they pushed for, claiming it was necessary to save young women, has now created a situation where those women are placed in significantly more danger? In the business world, if you push for a proposal, once it’s implemented, people check to see whether what you claimed would happen would — and if it didn’t, you’re often asked to explain why not. It’s incredible that Congress can pass a law insisting it will do one thing, and when it does the exact opposite, no one seems to care.

Filed Under: fosta, law enforcement, police, sex workers

FOSTA Supporters Come Out Swinging Against Critics

from the is-there-a-point-in-here-somewhere? dept

You may not have heard the phrase “bootleggers and baptists,” in regards to how strange bedfellows join forces in favor of certain regulations, but it’s a useful concept. From a 1983 paper by Bruce Yandle, it discusses the odd realization that many people in industry often hope for regulation in a certain area knowing that the regulations will actually limit competition and benefit themselves. More importantly, it notes that those industry forces seeking to support such regulations will often hide behind those espousing moral reasons for the regulations. For the industry folks, it’s a win-win: they get the regulation they want, without it appearing to be for their own benefit, but rather for the benefit of some righteous moral cause. Here’s how Yandle describes the concept:

Indeed, the pages of history are full of episodes best explained by a theory of regulation I call “bootleggers and Baptists.” Bootleggers, you will remember, support Sunday closing laws that shut down all the local bars and liquor stores. Baptists support the same laws and lobby vigorously for them. Both parties gain, while the regulators are content because the law is easy to administer. Of course, this theory is not new. In a democratic society, economic forces will always play through the political mechanism in ways determined by the voting mechanism employed. Politicians need resources in order to get elected. Selected members of the public can gain resources through the political process, and highly organized groups can do that quite handily. The most successful ventures of this sort occur where there is an overarching public concern to be addressed (like the problem of alcohol) whose “solution” allows resources to be distributed from the public purse to particular groups or from one group to another (as from bartenders to bootleggers).

This concept can be seen in many places. Indeed, the Econtalk podcast recently had on Dick Carpenter who discussed his book “Bootleneckers” which looks into a number of similar examples.

Paul Matzko has recently written an essay that specifically applies the “bootleggers and baptists” concept to FOSTA, the law that was recently passed overwhelmingly that claims to be about stopping sex trafficking, but as we’ve explained ad nauseum is actually putting victims’ lives in danger. As Matzko notes, it’s a classic bootleggers and baptists scenario:

Anti-sex trafficking activists play the ?Baptist? role, earnestly contending for reforms that they believe will help women and children enmeshed in a web of sexual exploitation. While internet content providers like Facebook and Amazon are not ?bootleggers? themselves, since they operate within the law, they are roughly equivalent to the licit producers of alcohol during Prohibition, who benefited from a competitive moat created by the new rules.

As we’ve been pointing out the problems with the law, and the fact that police are now admitting the law is making it harder for them to find victims of sex trafficking, while actual sex traffickers are finding the law has made their job easier, we’ve wondered about what happened to all of those “Baptists” who had been pushing for the law all along. They seemed mighty quiet in the face of reports of women literally dying because of the law they passed.

Last week, a group of FOSTA supporters finally released an opinion piece attempting to defend the law, while brushing off the concerns of those who actually see how it’s putting victims’ lives at risk. The opinion piece is incredible and incredibly dishonest.

Recently, there has been widespread confusion surrounding SESTA/FOSTA, the new legislation that enhances the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (?CDA?). In short, SESTA/FOSTA closed the loophole that gave blanket immunity to internet service providers who failed to take measures to prevent people from being sold for sex through their websites.

First off, during debates on the law, we were told by the bill’s supporters that the new standard was not that it applied to those who “failed to take measures to prevent.” Indeed, we were told that SESTA/FOSTA did not require active measures — just responding to knowledge of sex trafficking or prostitution. So, just as an opening, this opinion piece is either admitting that they don’t know what’s in the bill or what it’s supporters said during the run up to the bill, or they’re admitting that the bill really does do exactly what many of us worried the bill would do and were mocked for saying as much.

Now, rather than trying to meaningfully understand the legal impact of SESTA/FOSTA, self-proclaimed ?sex worker advocates? have used the flurry of misinformation to their advantage, perpetuating a false narrative about the law?s supposed effects.

The “flurry of misinformation” seems to be reports from the ground from people who are actually living the effects. To brush them off is fairly astounding.

The very text of § 2421A (a) reveals that the law was intended to apply to websites, and not target the people who post on them. In fact, those who post were never subject to the protections of Section 230(c) of the CDA in the first place. Yet sex worker advocates proclaim SESTA/FOSTA infringes on their ability to sell sex.

This paragraph is almost totally bullshit. It creates a strawman, and then knocks down something entirely different. Yes, FOSTA/SESTA applies to websites rather than users (that’s why we’ve pointed out it’s so mis-targeted in the first place, since it does nothing to target sex traffickers). The complaints from sex workers is not that it “infringes on their ability to sell sex.” The complaint from sex workers is that by putting liability on websites who “facilitate” any form of prostitution is that it then prevents the many ways in which sex workers and victims of sex trafficking communicate and get information to protect themselves or get help. Because the law targets websites, those websites who provide ways for sex workers and/or victims of sex trafficking to communicate, are at a huge risk of criminal liability. And thus, they are shutting down or blocking the ability to use them. And, the problem is not that this “infringes on their ability to sell sex,” but rather it makes it much more difficult for them to stay safe or to get help if they are victims.

Sex workers who post their own commercial sex advertisements were always (and still are) subject to applicable prostitution laws. SESTA/FOSTA did nothing to change this. Instead, the law is fundamentally concerned with websites who intend to facilitate ?the prostitution of another person.? Therefore, individual people can continue to use the internet to discuss and advertise commercial sex on various websites, subject to the same applicable prostitution laws.

Again, this is discussing something else. Yes, the laws on prostitution are not changing, but by blaming websites, those websites are no longer letting these people who are at an extraordinarily high risk of violence, trafficking or death to better protect themselves. And FOSTA/SESTA forces those websites that they relied on to protect themselves to shut down. That’s the problem, which these “advocates” refuse to acknowledge.

Simply put, SESTA/FOSTA holds internet service providers accountable for allowing their websites to serve as springboards for sex trafficking. Yet, sex worker rights advocates continue to push an alarmist agenda, mangling what the law actually says. They argue that it will increase the deaths of prostituted people everywhere because it will prevent screening efforts, ?force? them ?back out? on the street, and prevent them from earning a ?livelihood? from this ?empowering? career choice. These vain arguments were made bolstered by the fictitious proclamation that ?survivors? said so.

Prostitution is incredibly dangerous. The admission by sex workers who claim to use certain websites to screen violent and homicidal sex buyers acknowledges the inherent danger of commercial sex. The passage of SESTA/FOSTA does not make prostitution more dangerous, because unless the websites used for screening were intended to promote or facilitate the prostitution of a person other than the one posting on the site, the screening websites and the users remain in the same legal position as they were prior to the passage of SESTA/FOSTA.

What?!? This is either ignorance or willful blindness on the part of the FOSTA advocates. The law is written so broadly, that any tool where sex workers communicate may be seen as a tool for “facilitating” some aspect of prostitution, and thus would be criminally liable under FOSTA. How can they say with a straight face that those websites “remain in the same legal position” when a ton of them are already shutting down?

Furthermore, this argument relies on the premise that the information shared about commercial sex online is completely accurate. Meaning, all sex buyers use their real names and provide truthful information during transactions, that the people who sell sex always feel safe to use their identities to critique their customers, and that people who solicit sex via the figurative cover of the internet are inherently more trustworthy than those who do it in person. These presumptions are ludicrous.

None of the argument relies on this totally made up assumption. Instead, it relies on actual empirical data, like the fact that when Craigslist introduced its “Adult Services” section, female homicide rates across the board dropped by over 17% (not just the homicide rate of sex workers). In other words, here’s actual data proving these FOSTA advocates wrong, and the best they can do in response is make up a nonsensical claim that sex workers are saying everyone is truthful online.

Now that websites are no longer immune from legal action for their part in facilitating sex trafficking, some have smartly opted to remove content that could trigger violations. Craigslist promptly deleted its personal ad section;. Backpage.com was shut down by the government in early April following indictment of the site?s founders on criminal charges including facilitating prostitution.

What an odd thing to note. First off, Backpage was shutdown before FOSTA was passed. So it makes absolutely no sense that these advocates are taking credit for it. Second, just moments ago, they were claiming that most sites shouldn’t be impacted by FOSTA/SESTA, yet here they’re excited about Craigslist taking down its regular dating site (i.e., not a hotbed of sex trafficking). And, I’ll note that they don’t bother to mention the fact that Cloudflare shut down a social network for sex workers called Switter. It’s a convenient one for them to ignore, because earlier in the article they insisted that such sites would not be impacted by the law.

Once again, the FOSTA advocates seem to be living in a fantasy world where they can pretend they can just ignore reality.

SESTA/FOSTA won?t stop trafficking. But, it is an incredible blow to the commercial sex industry, – an industry that not even sex worker rights advocates can claim is fundamentally safe. To say otherwise is incredibly disheartening and politically distracting.

The “Baptists” have had their say here, but they can only make their point by outright misrepresentation and ignoring the facts.

Filed Under: fosta, morals, myths, prostitution, sesta, sex workers