Hearing is today on Portman's sex bill
Proposed measure targets online trafficking in U.S.
The group representing Facebook, Google and dozens more of the largest internet companies will testify in opposition to Sen. Rob Portman’s bill
intended to curb online sex trafficking, according to an advance copy of the testimony given to
the Dayton Daily News before today’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing.
Internet Association says Portman’s well-intentioned Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act would
hold internet sites potentially liable for sex trafficking on their
sites, even if the website has no knowledge it is doing so or any practical way of stopping it.
Portman, R-Ohio, says the group’s opposition is “ridiculous” and called the bill “the only way” to stop sex trafficking on websites
such as Backpage, one of the world’s largest classified advertising websites.
Backpage is not a member of the Internet Association, but has successfully defended itself in a spate of lawsuits from parents of children trafficked on the site. Backpage successfully argued that they are protected by a provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that protects internet publishers from content created by users.
“We have to say that there will be, under what’s called the Communications Decency Act, a change that says if you knowingly facilitate, support or assist sex trafficking, you are liable,” Portman said Monday in an interview at the Dayton Daily News’ offices. “The tech companies will be testifying there saying they’re concerned about this law because they’re worried about internet freedoms. I think that’s ridiculous.”
“In fact, we have a Good Samaritan provision that says if you’re trying to clean up your own site, you’re protected as a Good Samaritan,” Portman said.
But Internet Association calls sections of Portman’s bill “broad,” citing certain phrases in particular.
The group says the term “knowing conduct,” which is included in the bill, “could include the fact that a platform simply knows that users communicate on its site.” The group encourages clarifying the phrase “assists, supports, or facilitates” to require knowledge that sex trafficking is taking place. The group also said the term “facilitate” is defined by courts as “to make easier or less difficult.”
“This means that a prosecutor could simply allege that the use of a platform for coded communication connected to trafficking, without knowledge by the platform, facilitated sex trafficking; because the platform knows that users communicate generally on the site, a prosecutor would have to go no further in introducing cause for liability,” wrote Abigail Slater, the group’s general council.
Backpage did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this article.
In January, Backpage’s chief executive, Carl Ferrer, three times cited his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to not answer questions asked by Portman, R-Ohio, during a Senate investigations subcommittee meeting.
Portman subpoenaed Ferrer in 2015 to address the subcommittee; when he ignored that subpoena, the Senate passed a civil contempt resolution to authorize a vote against Backpage — the first time such a legal action had been taken in 20 years.