Feds seize Backpage.com, raid home of co-founder

from state attorneys general, organizations that fight child sex trafficking and victims of the prostitution business who have tried to sue the company for damages. California prosecutors filed state criminal charges against Backpage last year, but that case and others foundered because of protections in the federal Communications Decency Act, written to protect free speech on the internet.

That shield was stripped away late last month when Congress, urged on by Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, passed a measure that made an exception in the communications law. The new law allows states to proceed against websites that knowingly assist or support sex trafficking.

Silicon Valley trade groups and free-speech advocates like the American Civil Liberties Union fought the new law, warning that it would create havoc by forcing companies to try to control wild online speech.

But those arguments were overwhelmed by stories from teenagers about being sold for sex on Backpage. A letter from attorneys general across the country said they had evidence of teenagers being trafficked on the site.

Advocates for victims of trafficking said the takedown of Backpage was long overdue — especially since the Communications Decency Act never restrained federal prosecutions, only state ones.

A report last year by the Senate Homeland Security Committee found that the website employed software to automatically strip language in ads that pointed to underage girls, including “lolita,” “little girl” and “amber alert.” The ads were then published without those stripped words, the report found.