
#TIMESNOTUP? The EFF’s Unfortunate Defense of Sex Traffickers - saas_co_de
https://medium.com/@ersun.warncke/timesnotup-the-effs-unfortunate-defense-of-sex-traffickers-cd64a1d898ee
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chomp
I'm with the EFF on this one. A law that among other things, can bring federal
charges for mere facilitation of violating federal sex trafficking laws?
"Facilitation" is a very broad legal standard that you'd be trusting the
government to not abuse. The ends don't justify the means, and just because
the law's intentions are virtuous does not mean we should trust the government
by allowing laws that are overly broad and can be abused.

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yzmtf2008
Uh, how is this “overly broad”? I’m not against prosecuting anything like
this:

> knew that its website was being used to post ads for illegal prostitution
> and child sex trafficking, and directly edited such ads to make their
> illegality less conspicuous

From what I can tell, this is merely allowing stares to prosecute them, just
like the federal.

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Bartweiss
In the past, 'facilitation' charges have frequently been used to bypass
guidelines of "prosecute johns and pimps, not prostitutes".

Basic actions to make prostitution less dangerous, like "one prostitute rents
an apartment and security guard, then splits the cost with a second
prostitute" suddenly bring down facilitation charges on someone who would
otherwise have been viewed as a victim. Similarly, there are a number of
prostitutes who argue that Backpage has actually made them safer; they were
going to work regardless but online arrangements have made it easier to screen
clients.

(The child trafficking issue is very different, and I'm not really up to speed
on Backpage's role in it.)

 _Reason_ has a good series on this whole mess; the short version is that
good-looking laws end up incentivizing the most dangerous forms of
prostitution like trafficking and streetwalking by punishing attempts at
security, privacy, or client selection.

Obviously that's not the whole story; I'm also worried that 'facilitation'
won't stay at the Backpage level and will eventually erode things like safe
harbor laws. But even within the narrow domain of "helping prostitutes carry
out their work", this sort of legislation has a history of harming innocents.

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msla
This is a very... optimistic, let's say... view of a law which could be abused
horribly were it to pass.

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dtornabene
Quite the screed. Unfortunately it doesn't try with any seriousness to address
the actual harms the EFF states the law would cause. Not only that, given the
regularity with which ostensibly Noble Laws With Pure Names Out To Save the
World are, in fact, authoritarian or hand outs to the donor class, it would do
well for people to be sceptical( Patriot Act, SOPA/PIPA, etc)

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matt4077
Money quote:

 _[...] the EFF acknowledges that “Backpage knew that its website was being
used to post ads for illegal prostitution and child sex trafficking, and
directly edited such ads to make their illegality less conspicuous” but argues
that Backpage should not be held accountable for those actions._

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originalsimba
Where do these people come from, they contribute nothing of real value to the
world, and they attack some of the greatest champions of the people that we've
ever known.

