> At least when it was semi-public coordinated police efforts could have tackled some of these prostitution rings.
It's generally accepted among researchers that the Internet makes life easier for people trafficking sex, and harder for law enforcement to investigate those crimes.
This is especially the case in something like Backpage, where they had a policy to not report to law enforcement, and to provide incomplete information to law enforcement.
Backpage was claiming to be a dumb pipe. They weren't. They were giving advice to advertisers about which words to use or avoid. They knew advertisers were selling rape of children, they told those advertisers how to do it. And so when they made reports to law enforcement they had to withold some information - the bits where they'd helped the pimps - because that showed they were not dumb pipes.
It's generally accepted among researchers that the Internet makes life easier for people trafficking sex, and harder for law enforcement to investigate those crimes.
This is especially the case in something like Backpage, where they had a policy to not report to law enforcement, and to provide incomplete information to law enforcement.
Backpage was claiming to be a dumb pipe. They weren't. They were giving advice to advertisers about which words to use or avoid. They knew advertisers were selling rape of children, they told those advertisers how to do it. And so when they made reports to law enforcement they had to withold some information - the bits where they'd helped the pimps - because that showed they were not dumb pipes.