Metafilter And The Russian Sex Slaves That Never Were | Hacker News Reader

Metafilter And The Russian Sex Slaves That Never Were

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67 pointspdx33 comments

Just for the record; I have a couple of friends in New York who also went to the club after I showed them the thread (of their own volition).

Their report is pretty similar to this guys; except to conclude it is very much a place to pick up girls for sex as well. One of them is of slavic origin, can speak Russian and was at one point offered a girl (he believes because he passed as Russian - the others were not offered at any point).

Once it was clear they were American and were not there after girls they were treated like it was a normal club.

They point out it wasn't particularly seedy; it was upmarket but definitely "gang" owned/affiliated (these are guys I know through work; one of them works on trafficking and prostitution in his professional capacity, so it's a reasonably expert opinion).

Their conclusion: that the girls were on the edge of one of the lighter "trafficking" scams, where girls voluntarily go over for short spell with the promise of work (and often the "nudge wink" suggestion that they could skip immigration and stay longer if they stay below the radar). What usually happens is they either get the job promised them, or it "falls through" (like in this case) and they get given a waitress job for the visa period at a club like this. All above board.

Then when the visa is almost up it is suggested very strongly that if they wanted to stay they probably could, but not in a normal (legal) job...

(note: this is all second hand information. I trust my friends experience but as with anything over the internet.. treat it as unconfirmed :))

Probably the most balanced and rational sounding explanation I've seen yet. The problem is, it's not very exciting, so everyone ignores it.

While it's always good to critically examine information, Bingo, the author of the linked post, repeatedly adopted a combative, hyperbolic tone that only served to further derail the conversation, rather than restore moderation and critical thought. After finding few sympathizers in the Metafilter threads, he moved his critiques off-site and onto his own blog.

That's all well and good, but it's worth knowing that his perception of the events represents an extreme minority amongst the site's regular readership. Suffice to say, both the NYPD and an employee of the State Department directly involved in human trafficking cases believed that the situation was sufficiently dubious to warrant intervening.

If you're looking for a more moderate summary of events, Newsweek had a fairly decent overview: http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/the-human-condition/2010/05/21...

If you have the time, I'd highly recommend reading the original Ask Metafilter and Metatalk threads. Both were developing concurrently, so it's best to alternate reading a few posts in each. Just watch the timestamps to stay synchronized.

"Suffice to say, both the NYPD and an employee of the State Department directly involved in human trafficking cases believed that the situation was sufficiently dubious to warrant intervening."

Before or after it became A Thing?

If they were involved before anybody on MeFi heard about it, I'll accept that as evidence. If it occurred after, unfortunately it is completely plausible that these agencies decided they must be seen to Do Something (TM). I mean these "ifs" because I honestly don't know which is which, and am curious, because if it is established that they were interested first than that's pretty strong evidence.

Pollomacho is a MeFite who works at State in the human trafficking department. He was involved in the case as soon as he heard about it, and stated quite clearly that it was nice to be able to help somebody in this situation before two or three months had passed. Bingo omits this entirely, because Bingo thought it would be cool to visit this club and come back and say how histrionic MeFites were being.

Now, from what Pollomacho said later, he talked to the girls and there was information he didn't feel free to share (personal in nature) that indicated very, very strongly to him that this was in fact a human trafficking case, and as he is not known to be a twit in other instances, I'm inclined to take him at his word.

It's also worth noting that many trusted members of the site have vetted the story, and the members involved. Part of that trust is evident in the willingness of folks to let Fake stay at their place, sight unseen, as he drove from WY to CA. And I'll actually be meeting up with one of those hosts this Sunday for brunch.

So there's a little more context behind the members involved than in a normal interweb forum. Imagine if epi0Bauqu had a friend in a weird situation, patio11 stepped in to help out, and pg was frequently posting updates and coordinating communications. Meanwhile, cperciva and a number of other major names were also doing what they could to mobilize aid. And now imagine if a large portion of the site's posters had some sort of real-world connection to at least someone involved.

Thank you. That is a compelling argument.

I, too, am not a big fan of vague "smart authorities of an unspecified nature are on it, shut up" assertions, so if you heard a note of skepticism in my original post, yes, it was there. But specific "this specific experienced authority with years of experience in this field was concerned and directly replied that it was a problem" can be compelling. I am particularly impressed by the fact this person fed back directly, and not through a press release.

Well, the fact that the specific experienced authority is a well-known poster on Metafilter (by which I mean, I already knew his name and associate it favorably with well-considered commentary) helped a lot. I'm not convinced the NYPD was really in control of the situation, for instance. Pollomacho, though, I trust. I had no idea he did this for a living. That was a pretty cool bonus.

The guy from the State Department is a long-time member of Metafilter in good standing, and got involved quite early on of his own volition.

In his own words, "For future reference in situations exactly like this please contact the US State Department at jvisas at state dot gov. We (and by that I me my coworkers and I) will get this situatuation rectified imediately upon learning of such situations. We cannot take action to ensure that women like fake's friend here are not exploited unless we know about these situations!" and "Usually I get these cases weeks or months after they've stepped off that bus."

While it is plausible that the involvement was for PR reasons, I think it's unlikely. Media coverage didn't really kick in until well after we had the "happy ending" of IFDSS#9 picking up K and S.

>While it is plausible that the involvement was for PR reasons

backtrack a bit-

>The guy from the State Department is a long-time member of Metafilter in good standing

This is like your friend with the pick-up truck hearing you might have to move.

Ugh this guy has developed a very selective reading of the thread in question and refusing to accept things told to him by the people actually involved because they couldn't "prove" what they were saying. At this point for this version of what happened to be true it would require active conspiracy on the part of all involved to keep it going. Knowing when to admit you were wrong and let go is truly a blessing.

Exactly. I'm happy he went to the club, because I think real-world triangulation makes this a better story. But I get the impression he expected to see women in chains right in front of him there, and when he didn't, he said, "Ha, those silly MeFites!" The fact that he really wanted to feel like it was all blown out of proportion surely had nothing to do with his rational take on it.

I am rolling my eyes.

The line between active conspiracy and everyone just going along with something because they're easily lead or prefer to believe something a certain way is probably thinner than you imagine.

Is The Bible a conspiracy? Is everyone in Christianity secretly in on it? Or are they just going along with it because they like the idea? I don't know about you, but I go for the free cookies & coffee after the service.

The situation, as presented, was sufficiently dubious as to warrant the attention of both the NYPD and the State Department. I'm willing to trust their judgment.

Remind anyone of this?

>Dear Reddit: Yesterday a user posted soliciting donations for a users wifes cancer treatment. I (and others) claimed it was fake. I was wrong, she does have cancer and now users are harassing the family.

http://en.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/bup53/dear_reddit...

Not about this article in particular, but at a meta-level, I want to give an up-vote to the media criticism, both postings and dissections in the comments on HN; of which, this post and the comments is a good example. Some may say it clutters-up the news postings and is off topic (and they have a point). It might be good if postings could be divided into three categories, "pure" HN, media, and other general.

I'd say that the narrative that the women knew what they were getting themselves into, given their behavior in the original story, does seem to make more sense to me. However, that doesn't make it any less commendable that they may have been given an at least temporary reprieve from the abuse of human trafficking and prostitution. What they choose to do with it is now their decision to make.

Oh, come on, they're like 18 years old and are going to the United States! They still think they're immortal, and even if they anticipate that there might be some sex involved, they think they'd be glamor stars.

Instead, they'd be crack junkies for a couple of years, and thrown out into the alley when they were used up, and there is no way in hell that any 18-year-old - or 30-year-old - would "know what they were getting themselves into". If that were the case, this would never happen to anybody. That's the pernicious nature of human trafficking in the first place.

The post's author was implying that they may have grown up in an environment where they really did know what to expect, and I'd agree that it is a possibility, as uncomfortable as that may be to ponder. Who knows what these particular 18-year-olds were expecting; just because you may have been naive about the world's seedy underbelly at 18 doesn't mean everyone else must have been. It's easy for us to fall into a cultural narrative specific to our community, and believe that it must be the same for everyone else.

Sure, because Russian chicks always expect to be crack whores by the time they're 22. Right. They knew exactly what they were getting into, so you don't need to worry about it - they're only Russian, after all, where this sort of thing happens every day.

WiseWeasel, the post's author is wrong. My wife is Eastern European, and I can assure you that Russian 18-year-olds are just as stupid when it comes to life risk as anybody else.

Re: Vivtek: I'm just saying that there's a decent chance that they knew they were at high risk of ending up working as strippers at the very least when they agreed to the deal, and either they chose to go through with the "job interview" with the intention of joining that line of work, or they were just looking for something temporary with other plans. The fact that they're Russian has nothing to do with it, but the fact that they're willing to travel that far to another country for a dubious job position, and then actually go through with some weird interview in a nightclub at midnight, does seem more questionable to me than the possibility that they were at least somewhat aware of what they were doing. Maybe that's just my cynicism for media coverage, and naive hope for human intelligence.

I'm absolutely sure they knew there was sex and stripping involved, and I'm equally sure they have no idea what that actually means. They probably know there's no future in stripping in Moscow, but I would guess they think everybody in New York shops on Fifth Avenue, and if sex gets them that, what's the harm?

I think you're sadly underestimating how shocked Eastern Europeans can be when confronted with the reality of America. Especially 18-year-olds. And even if they "knew what they were getting into" in terms of there being sex, that still doesn't touch what human trafficking is about, which is a slow and steady process of degradation. They'd give up their passports, they'd never see actual money, and the first hit of crack or heroin is always free at some rich guy's party - but pretty soon, it's not free, they're increasingly in debt, they feel trapped (and are trapped) and they think there's nobody in hell who will help an ugly, crack-addicted, no-longer-so-pretty woman.

So either you think Russians, or non-Americans, or whoever, "know what they're getting into" in that situation, and it's just fine, or you haven't thought it through. I'm banking on the latter.

This is not a question of human intelligence. We've all gotten into situations where a flashy fast talker got us into something that trapped us - ever had a cubicle job with a software consulting shop? Our monkey brains always fall for that crap, which is why this particular story was so heartening - somebody actually stopped it before it started, and that's fantastic.

As I said earlier, Bingo's attitude was half humorous, half assholery - I wish he'd stopped at just the humorous half. Sure, maybe this particular nightclub with sex ads where a mysterious guy wanted two 18-year-olds without much English to meet him at midnight for an interview after another job "fell through" and they were in another city wasn't a human trafficking situation. Given the preponderance of flashing red flags, though, I'm damn happy we didn't give this benefactor the benefit of the doubt, even if the club itself had lots of prosperous young people attending.

I think human trafficking is a lot more diverse and complex than the one-dimensional narrative you're describing. From one of the MetaFilter threads, http://articles.sfgate.com/2006-10-10/news/17314668_1_massag... is the last in an excellent series of articles on a young woman who was tricked into a year of prostitution in the US by human traffickers. She didn't give up her passport, she did see actual money (in fact, she paid off tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt she had accrued in Korea, before working prostitution for a bit longer to make some money she could keep), and she's living with one of her former clients.

She's apparently very ashamed of what she did, and there was one occasion on which a violent client put her in fear of her life (and got away with it), so this is not some kind of Happy Hooker outcome. But she also didn't end up "never seeing actual money" or "an ugly, crack-addicted woman," nor is it reported that the other prostitutes handled by the same trafficking ring ended up in such a situation.

I'm bingo. Just curious: which half did you see as the humorous half?

I thought it was pretty cool to go to the club and check it out. I thought it was pretty uncool to disparage the possibility of danger, especially given that people who do in fact follow up on human trafficking for a living were taking the matter seriously.

I have nothing against rationality, and I agree that Metafilter can take on some serious pile-on momentum, but really - if my 18-year-old daughter had been in the progress of doing something as colossally stupid as this in Moscow, and a bunch of online Russians headed it off at the pass, I would not at all be pleased if one of them went to the club and said, "Hey, this is a perfectly cool club and I didn't see any actual sex slaves in residence, so you should all get over yourselves."

Going to the club, though, especially after they were all, "OMFG don't mess with the mafia, bingo!" - that bit, I really liked. I mean, it's a club; if they regularly offed their clientele it wouldn't stay open long.

As an American in Europe, I can tell you that people -- educated people -- have no clue what America can really be like.

As a famous movie put it once:

"There are no cats in America, and the streets are filled with che-eeese"

I like to qualify this statement: some educated people. And not no clue, but a bit naïve.

But this was a trafficking issue. And I think that most Europeans and Americans at this age would have realized this. No hard data on this, just personal experience.

Disclaimer: I am from Europe. Already visited the United States.

How can you know that you know what the US is like?

My (now) husband had done a 2-month roadtrip with his family in an RV across the northern US and Canada, and when he came to stay with me for 3 months in southern Maryland, he was shocked, and appalled, by too many things to count.

I know many Europeans who have been all over different parts of the US, and still don't know a lot of things, like how easy it is to fall through the cracks, how badly you can fall, and how hard it is to get seen by a doctor.

Maybe you are right -- is see what you mean.

But no idea is a bit too much for me. And I don't like the nationalist approach. Yes, it is always shocking for me to realize that universal health care is not seen as a basic human right. But I can also understand this, based on the history of the United States.

I would go as far as to say, that it is very difficult for an American to see why Europe is acting so strange sometimes.

But to the point: commenting the Europeans have no idea, is discriminating.

To be more general, then: nobody really gets the reality of other countries until they've left theirs - but since America makes most of the world's blockbuster movies, everybody has an "America of the mind" that is an internally consistent model. I hasten to add that Americans have the same model - even though we live here and see reality all the time.

Europeans and the Japanese, for instance, think that society naturally agrees that education is a good thing. After all, educated people have created everything worthwhile in life, right? Doctors are educated, government administrators are educated, engineers are educated - stands to reason! Americans, on average, mistrust educated people, to such an extent that education can actually be a liability for anyone proposing public policy.

And yet this is not reflected in movies, where scientists or engineers may be goofy, but they're always respected. So the America of the mind is profoundly out of synch with real America, in ways that flummox anyone who tries to live here in the blithe assumption that America is a first-world nation.

That's just one example off the top of my head. This is in no way discriminating against Europeans - everybody thinks America is movie-America. It's just that it really, really isn't.

I'm basing this on Europeans who've lived here for an extended time (really mostly my wife) and have come to realize how truly jarring is the discord between movie-America and the reality of how we think.

Thank God there were no nazis, terrorists or pedophiles involved.

This whole thing sort of reminds me of when all those Everquest (I think) players stood around online to form a virtual flag after September 11th...

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