Backpage.com Shut Down by FBI

Megalith

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The FBI has seized and shut down classified advertising website Backpage.com for being an alleged facilitator of sex trafficking: according to the DOJ, the site has earned $500 million from prostitution since its inception. Founder Michael Lacey was charged with a 93-count indictment after his home was raided by authorities.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) says almost every single sex trafficking case involves online ads, mostly from Backpage.com. According to the DOJ, the biggest issue with these websites is that it facilitates sex trafficking for people who would have been to sheepish to pursue sex on the streets, especially to look for children.
 
and I had only just figured out it wasn't a dating site

who knew?
 
that is completely false!

They are pushing it underground where "good people" will never see it happening. Thus, if you cant see it it doesnt exist... thus they have stopped it.

Hooray for saving us!!!

Not to soap box this but what are they supposed to do? Allow it to continue openly? I have no problem with legal prostitution but child prostitution. I'd take a scorched earth policy to that - as long as you can be CERTAIN you are right, you set a furious example of anyone who even KNEW anything. I'm talking deploy Doom Marine in there. At least some crazy Jihadists think they are doing God's will, these shitheads know it's wrong but still do it.
 
I never get why these site operators simply don't move themselves and their servers overseas. Silk road had their servers overseas but the dude still lived in the states. Why?

Why not simply move yourself and your servers to a country that isn't influrnced by the US or where prostitution is otherwise legal. Go hang out on weekdays with Assange and your piles of money, hookers & blow.
 
Dang, another site I didn't hear about until too late. I do wonder what they consider "sex trafficking" is it just any pay for sex thing, or are we talking sex slaves? And did anyone consider, like simply issuing them a warning first, give 'em a chance to clean up their act? Finally is maybe not a such a site useful to leave up (if it's doing what they say it is) and, ya' know, catch the pimps and other bad guys, who will now simply move on to some other site. (And yes, I haven't read the article, post first read later is my motto...but I always wonder if reading these stories puts you on a "watch list"...lead lined hat firmly in place ;) )
 
So when are they going to actually do something that helps prevents sex trafficking? Like shutting down 99% of the "massage parlors" in and around Asian communities?
 
Just legalize prostitution already. As soon as the baby boomers whither away and die, I bet we will see this change finally come about. That generation has really held back progress in the US.
 
Dang, another site I didn't hear about until too late. I do wonder what they consider "sex trafficking" is it just any pay for sex thing, or are we talking sex slaves? And did anyone consider, like simply issuing them a warning first, give 'em a chance to clean up their act? Finally is maybe not a such a site useful to leave up (if it's doing what they say it is) and, ya' know, catch the pimps and other bad guys, who will now simply move on to some other site. (And yes, I haven't read the article, post first read later is my motto...but I always wonder if reading these stories puts you on a "watch list"...lead lined hat firmly in place ;) )

The "dating" section was nearly all local junkies whoring to pay for drugs. All law enforcement had to do to make some arrests was pick up a phone and make some calls (and not be idiots on the phone). They could bag a soliciting charge and probably a bonus drug charge. Now they are going to have to do some actual work as this activity is pushed back underground.
 
Dang, another site I didn't hear about until too late. I do wonder what they consider "sex trafficking" is it just any pay for sex thing, or are we talking sex slaves? And did anyone consider, like simply issuing them a warning first, give 'em a chance to clean up their act? Finally is maybe not a such a site useful to leave up (if it's doing what they say it is) and, ya' know, catch the pimps and other bad guys, who will now simply move on to some other site. (And yes, I haven't read the article, post first read later is my motto...but I always wonder if reading these stories puts you on a "watch list"...lead lined hat firmly in place ;) )


sex trafficking includes consensual sex.

The government doesn't want you to pay for sex, unless you pay through marriage/divorce.
 
Just legalize prostitution already. As soon as the baby boomers whither away and die, I bet we will see this change finally come about. That generation has really held back progress in the US.

nope. the current generation of future american politicians is just as close minded as the current crop.

America will never legalize it universally. Here it will always be seen as immoral. America is too Christian, and americans keep putting these incompetent dumbasses in office.
 
I never get why these site operators simply don't move themselves and their servers overseas. Silk road had their servers overseas but the dude still lived in the states. Why?

Why not simply move yourself and your servers to a country that isn't influrnced by the US or where prostitution is otherwise legal. Go hang out on weekdays with Assange and your piles of money, hookers & blow.

So you're OK with forcing adults and children into sex slavery?
 
As I stated in my post, I'm ok with prostitution, ie victemless consenting adults.

Go peddle your nontolerant Christian views elsewhere.

You mean Muslim views? Jewish views? Hindi views?

Prostitution isn't a completely "victimless" crime. A prostitute does everlasting damage to her psyche by being a whore. Men and women are not biologically programmed the same and it takes a toll on women having sex with multiple, random partners. Even for regular whores who aren't hookers, the statistics show that the more sex partners you have, the more likely you are to not have successful relationships going forward.

But hey, keep peddling that worldview that gets you easier pussy, amirite? Gotta fight against daddy's religion and be that cool guy rebel, huh?
 
oh for fuck's sake

as if women have no agency in the matter

he said elsewhere, I second the motion
 
Craigslist removed the "therapeutic" section yesterday. I thought that was odd because they left the personals there but if you actually click on the personals it takes you to the following message:


"US Congress just passed HR 1865, "FOSTA", seeking to subject websites to criminal and civil liability when third parties (users) misuse online personals unlawfully.

Any tool or service can be misused. We can't take such risk without jeopardizing all our other services, so we are regretfully taking craigslist personals offline. Hopefully we can bring them back some day.

To the millions of spouses, partners, and couples who met through craigslist, we wish you every happiness!"
 
Honestly ive known a few prostitutes in my life. All participated in the lifestyle to pay for drugs. So... I'm impartial.
 
To those saying that we should just legalize prostitution; there have been a number of studies in Europe showing that legalizing prostitution increases the amount of human trafficking going on; the expanded market for prostitutes overwhelms the number of women doing it voluntarily. The effect is worse the richer a country is, since wealthier country = fewer women willing to do it voluntarily. This is why France decided to make prostitution illegal in 2016 (well, made it illegal to buy, but not illegal to sell; they want trafficking victims to be able to come forward without being worried about being charged with a crime) after it had been legal for decades.

Here is one of the studies showing legal prostitution leads to more human trafficking.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X12001453
 
To those saying that we should just legalize prostitution; there have been a number of studies in Europe showing that legalizing prostitution increases the amount of human trafficking going on; the expanded market for prostitutes overwhelms the number of women doing it voluntarily. The effect is worse the richer a country is, since wealthier country = fewer women willing to do it voluntarily. This is why France decided to make prostitution illegal in 2016 (well, made it illegal to buy, but not illegal to sell; they want trafficking victims to be able to come forward without being worried about being charged with a crime) after it had been legal for decades.

Here is one of the studies showing legal prostitution leads to more human trafficking.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X12001453
Don’t let facts get in the way of a good narrative.
 
To those saying that we should just legalize prostitution; there have been a number of studies in Europe showing that legalizing prostitution increases the amount of human trafficking going on; the expanded market for prostitutes overwhelms the number of women doing it voluntarily. The effect is worse the richer a country is, since wealthier country = fewer women willing to do it voluntarily. This is why France decided to make prostitution illegal in 2016 (well, made it illegal to buy, but not illegal to sell; they want trafficking victims to be able to come forward without being worried about being charged with a crime) after it had been legal for decades.

Here is one of the studies showing legal prostitution leads to more human trafficking.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X12001453

this article is completely useless as it just uses third party stats, which is extremely inaccurate itself and rely on government data (always making itself look good to fit their politicians which are mostly prudes), NGOs (self serving NGOs whom think they are doing God's work. And also funded by the church or similar prudes. No of actual prostitute run NGOs is 1% of the picture), or the press ( wtf. no credible academician would use the press as a source on levels of prostitution) .

hence why there's only 3 authors. Three! On matters as extremely complicated as this, three!!! ridiculous.

and no correlation on immigration , border control, and economic status ( yup, there are stories in Europe where prostitutes just work for food because the population cannot even afford to pay. or just left for a neighboring richer country which would strike as a count of human trafficking even if is just going from Greece to Germany, or Spain to France. Even state-to-state would strike as trafficking in the US.)

next up , some academician will ask for funding to write a piece about the correlation of cheaper travel fare to increased human trafficking. (easy hypothesis) Then some politician will use that as an excuse to slap an additional tax on cheap fares.
 
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Prostitution isn't a completely "victimless" crime. A prostitute does everlasting damage to her psyche by being a whore. Men and women are not biologically programmed the same and it takes a toll on women having sex with multiple, random partners. Even for regular whores who aren't hookers, the statistics show that the more sex partners you have, the more likely you are to not have successful relationships going forward.
Is it really any different than a stripper? Daddy issues, or whatever the problem decides to show her goodies to whomever is willing to throw dollar bills at her. And to go with your statistic, what about people who do act "slutty" woman or man, I mean while yeah a prostitute might have an order of magnitude (or more) more partners presumably that 99th percentile of no successful relationships occurs WAAAAAAAAY sooner than prostitute level of sexual partners. And is it really a crime to be unable to have a successful relationship? I mean hell statistically speaking most relationships are not successful in some way, so add another log to the fire.

Mind you I'm not saying to legalize it, but I would say to decriminalize it a bit two adults having consensual sex should not be a crime, one person does it on film it's "art", another does it for a raise it's a trip to HR, another does it for money it's prostitution, another does it after spending a bunch of money it's called a date. Go after those who are doing the sex trafficking, hold them accountable as slavers and call it life in prison.
 
number of studies in Europe showing that legalizing prostitution increases the amount of human trafficking going on; the expanded market for prostitutes overwhelms the number of women doing it voluntarily. The effect is worse the richer a country is, since wealthier country = fewer women willing to do it voluntarily.

not few enough to matter.

sometimes you just have to apply common sense rather than looking at skewed data... Like Bill Maher says "I don't know for a fact, I just know it's true".


A wealthier country like the USA doesn't mean everyone is wealthy. There are a fuck ton of poor upper low class, lower middle class people here, and they are more than eager to volunteer to be prostitutes.

Women were born with an ATM between their legs, and there will always be plenty of women who want the extra cash.


"Expanded market overwhelms" my ass. If you survey 1000 hookers, you will see that they do not get steady business. Much of the day is downtime, no customers.
And this is not because prostitution is illegal. Believe me, there are plenty of johns who don't give a shit about the law and seek hookers anyway. Here in Los Angeles, there is easy access to plenty of hookers.

I'm sure even in legal countries, hookers aren't fucking nonstop all day.

I believe that with decriminalized or legal prostitution, MORE women will volunteer to be hookers. Right now, they're not doing it because they're afraid of being busted by law enforcement.

Women are already fucking random strangers on Tinder. Why not get paid for it?
If hookers don't like the ugly chump, they can refuse service. It's not like they have to open their legs for everyone.
 
I would hardly call prostitution a victimless crime...

Who the fuck are the victims. Person A. wants to have sex and is willing to pay for it. Person B. wants money and is will to provide sex in exchange for money. there is no victim in that scenario.

Now maybe, you are thinking of people who are forced into the sex trade by an outside party in some way, but that's not prostitution it's usually a form of slavery (and often many other crimes) but it's not prostitution. There are no victims in prostitution, stop conflating one completely non harmful activity with other unrelated activities in order to push your agenda.
 
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