4 ms·

Hang on. The CEO and two board members were arrested and charged with pimping three months ago, and they're just now taking down the ads? That is some dedicat

by mundo 10y ago

Hang on. The CEO and two board members were arrested and charged with pimping three months ago, and they're just now taking down the ads? That is some dedication to free speech, I guess... (The rationale was that, since the site has tools to help posters write their posts, the site owners were in a "conspiracy" with the authors of illegal posts. (Edit - that's not very accurate, see below))

hendersoon 10y ago
No, if you read the senate complaint, backpage employees actually EDITED posts to make them less obvious advertisements for illegal activity. And that clearly breaks safe harbour.
- saycheese 10y ago
  To be fair, the Senate complaint is not evidence, it's a complaint.
  - hendersoon 10y ago
    Right, they're allegations and don't contain the actual evidence upon which those allegations are founded. I would take them with a pinch of salt until seeing the actual evidence. But just a pinch; the excerpts and descriptions are very clear, non-ambiguous, and you would basically need to believe the senate was plain-faced lying to go too far down that road.
- mundo 10y ago
  Thanks for clarifying that, you're right, I just assumed the "editing" the article mentioned was referring to a site feature.
- jandrese 10y ago
  Didn't that argument fall completely on its face in court?
  - hendersoon 10y ago
    Yes it did, the Backpage executives were cleared of all charges. And then the CA Attorney General and Senate apparently went after their credit card processors in an extra-legal way, applying pressure that forced Backpage to take down their sex services classifieds.
- leshow 10y ago
  The employees didn't edit anything. They were just banning certain words from being posted. For example "teen" was a word not allowed to be posted. The senate was able to turn what is supposed to be a tool to censor certain types of posts into an argument that they were complicit. This is clearly ridiculous and it's why they were cleared of charges.
leshow 10y ago
They were cleared of all charges AKAIK. This is just in response to the Senate report.

by mundo 10y ago

hendersoon 10y ago

No, if you read the senate complaint, backpage employees actually EDITED posts to make them less obvious advertisements for illegal activity. And that clearly breaks safe harbour.

saycheese 10y ago
To be fair, the Senate complaint is not evidence, it's a complaint.
- hendersoon 10y ago
  Right, they're allegations and don't contain the actual evidence upon which those allegations are founded. I would take them with a pinch of salt until seeing the actual evidence. But just a pinch; the excerpts and descriptions are very clear, non-ambiguous, and you would basically need to believe the senate was plain-faced lying to go too far down that road.
mundo 10y ago
Thanks for clarifying that, you're right, I just assumed the "editing" the article mentioned was referring to a site feature.
jandrese 10y ago
Didn't that argument fall completely on its face in court?
- hendersoon 10y ago
  Yes it did, the Backpage executives were cleared of all charges. And then the CA Attorney General and Senate apparently went after their credit card processors in an extra-legal way, applying pressure that forced Backpage to take down their sex services classifieds.
leshow 10y ago
The employees didn't edit anything. They were just banning certain words from being posted. For example "teen" was a word not allowed to be posted. The senate was able to turn what is supposed to be a tool to censor certain types of posts into an argument that they were complicit. This is clearly ridiculous and it's why they were cleared of charges.

leshow 10y ago

They were cleared of all charges AKAIK. This is just in response to the Senate report.