Website continues to attract prostitution, Atlanta police say

Backpage.com is still a marketplace for prostitution in metro Atlanta, according to a Channel 2 Action News investigation.

When prostitution first migrated from streets to smart phones, both Craigslist and Backpage were under pressure to stop online adult advertising, Channel 2’s Mark Winne reported. Craigslist stopped in 2010. Backpage pulled its escort page this January.

But undercover vice detectives said that didn’t stop the problem of prostitution as the ads only moved to a new part of the website, vice commander Lt. Curtis Williams told Winne.

“It’s under the dating site at this point,” Williams said.

DeKalb County police arrested 16 people over three days and at least one woman involved with Backpage. com told Channel 2 she was beaten and raped.

A woman believed by police to have advertised on Backpage.com, Ashley Mays, was killed in November 2016, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.

Mays, who was nearly nine months pregnant, was found hog-tied and strangled.

Terique Hall, 24, of Atlanta, is facing rape and murder charges in connection with Mays’ death.

Michael Mays told The Atlanta JournalConstitution his late daughter was a promising young woman but adrift. He tried to talk to her, but Ashley Mays believed past blemishes on her record made prospects of legitimate work few.

Backpage says it’s protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which says: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”