Feds seize classifieds site Backpage.com
Co-founder’s home raided; DOJ keeps silent on details
WASHINGTON — Federal officials have taken down Backpage.com, a major classified advertising website that has been repeatedly accused of enabling prostitution and sex trafficking of minors.
“Backpage.com and affiliated websites have been seized,” a notice on the website says.
Backpage has been under increasing pressure in recent years, in part because it featured ads that included what child advocates said were code words for underage girls, including “Amber Alert.”
In January 2017, the site shuttered its “adult services listings” section under mounting criticism from law enforcement groups and senators. But many of the adult listings were simply rerouted to sections of the site dedicated to dating.
Revenue at Backpage increased to $135 million in 2014 from $5.3 million in 2008, according to a Senate report in 2017. More than 90 percent of the earnings came from adult ads, the California Department of Justice found.
The federal seizure notice appeared on the website Friday afternoon. Earlier that day, according to news reports in Arizona, the FBI raided the Sedona home of Michael Lacey, a founder of Backpage. An FBI spokesman in Phoenix confirmed that there was “law enforcement activity” there and referred further questions to the Justice Department.
While the notice on the Backpage site said the Justice Department would provide more information at 6 p.m. Friday, a department official declined to comment, saying the matter remained sealed by a judge for now.
The site’s founders, Lacey and Jim Larkin, have said that Backpage notifies law enforcement officials whenever it becomes aware of illegal activity. They have also maintained that the site is protected from criminal charges by a federal statute, the Communications Decency Act. That law protects internet platform providers from being held legally liable for what others post on their websites.
That protection will be weakened by a bill Congress passed last month, the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, also known as FOSTA. It makes it easier for states to prosecute, or for victims to sue, internet companies they accuse of hosting content that facilitated sex trafficking.
While President Donald Trump has not yet signed FOSTA into law, Craigslist has already responded to the bill’s passage by taking down its personal ads section.
Internet firms and advocates for free speech online had opposed FOSTA, arguing that it would lead to censorship and was not necessary because the federal government already had the ability to prosecute people who used the internet to facilitate prostitution.