Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Senate bill takes aim at online sex ads and trafficking
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday introduced a bill to amend a law that protects the hosts of websites from liability for content posted by others, trying to narrowly tailor the changes to target sites such as Backpage.com, which have been criticized for facilitating child sex trafficking.
The legislation, along with a similar bill in the House, sets the stage for a battle between Congress and some of the Internet’s most powerful players, including Google and various free-speech advocates, who believe that Congress shouldn’t regulate web content or try to force websites to police themselves more rigorously.
The bill, titled the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of 2017, would amend the Communications Decency Act. It is sponsored by Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and 19 other senators from both parties, some of whom served on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which focused on Backpage.com in its probe of online sex trafficking. The subcommittee, chaired by Portman, issued a report in January saying that Backpage “knowingly facilitated the criminal sex trafficking of vulnerable women and young girls” by editing ads posted by pimps to remove offensive language.
Backpage has fended off many civil and criminal actions aimed at shutting down its sex-related ads by citing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which states that no website “shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Backpage has argued that it merely hosts ads created by others and so has no liability.
The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Backpage uses a contractor in the Philippines to solicit sex ads from other websites.
After The Post published its articles, Portman and four other members of Congress called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to pursue a criminal investigation of Backpage.
The proposed law would clarify that Section 230 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.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has reported an 846 percent increase in reports of suspected child trafficking from between 2010 TO and 2015, which it found “directly correlated to the increased use of the Internet to sell children for sex.” The center said that 73 percent of the 10,000 child sex trafficking reports it receives each year involve ads on Backpage. The Senate report said that more than 93 percent of Backpage’s ad revenue in 2011 came from its adult section, reaping $135 million in gross revenue in 2014, with projected revenue of nearly $250 million by 2019.
“Stopping trafficking is one of the great humanitarian and human rights causes of the 21st century,” Portman said in a statement introducing the bill. “For too long, courts around the country have ruled that Backpage can continue to facilitate illegal sex trafficking online with no repercussions. The Communications Decency Act is a well-intentioned law, but it was never intended to help protect sex traffickers who prey on the most innocent and vulnerable among us. This bipartisan, narrowly-crafted bill will help protect vulnerable women and young girls from these horrific crimes.”