#TIMESNOTUP? The EFF’s Unfortunate Defense of Sex Traffickers
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> knew that its website was being used to post ads for illegal prostitution and child sex trafficking, and directly edited such ads to make their illegality less conspicuous
From what I can tell, this is merely allowing stares to prosecute them, just like the federal.
Basic actions to make prostitution less dangerous, like "one prostitute rents an apartment and security guard, then splits the cost with a second prostitute" suddenly bring down facilitation charges on someone who would otherwise have been viewed as a victim. Similarly, there are a number of prostitutes who argue that Backpage has actually made them safer; they were going to work regardless but online arrangements have made it easier to screen clients.
(The child trafficking issue is very different, and I'm not really up to speed on Backpage's role in it.)
Reason has a good series on this whole mess; the short version is that good-looking laws end up incentivizing the most dangerous forms of prostitution like trafficking and streetwalking by punishing attempts at security, privacy, or client selection.
Obviously that's not the whole story; I'm also worried that 'facilitation' won't stay at the Backpage level and will eventually erode things like safe harbor laws. But even within the narrow domain of "helping prostitutes carry out their work", this sort of legislation has a history of harming innocents.
This is a mischaracterization of the legislation. This legislation does not change Federal criminal law (as the EFF has pointed out in several of their articles).
What this legislation does is clarify that Federal law in the specific area of sex trafficking does not preempt State law or provide any immunity for those who promote prostitution against civil suits by the victims of sex trafficking.
I would strongly encourage everyone to read the text of these bills. They are only a few paragraphs long and they are very clear and very narrowly focused.
All of the rhetorical grandstanding about sweeping erosions of civil liberties is very off base here and anyone who reads the bills will see that.
[...] the EFF acknowledges that “Backpage knew that its website was being used to post ads for illegal prostitution and child sex trafficking, and directly edited such ads to make their illegality less conspicuous” but argues that Backpage should not be held accountable for those actions.