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With SESTA/FOSTA, lawmakers failed to separate good intentions from bad law
- mr_spothawk 9y agodid anybody else get the messages from EFF and ignore them?
- gremlinsinc 9y agoCongress is a bunch of idiots. Online ads are probably the #1 spot for sex slaves to be found and returned home. Instead they drive everything to dark nets and offline methods of acquiring clientele, and thus making it harder to police and save lives. Not to mention all the freedoms this can potentially take away. I'm against sex traffickers as much as the next guy, but this is not the way to stop them.
- sdrothrock 9y ago> Online ads are probably the #1 spot for sex slaves to be found and returned home. I'd never heard of this. I'm not trying to call you out or anything, but do you have any sources or further reading? I'd be interested in seeing how this works.
- dangerlibrary 9y agoLinked FTA: https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2017/08/how-section-230-helps-sex-trafficking-victims-and-sesta-would-hurt-them-guest-blog-post.htm https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2017/08/how-section-23...
- sdrothrock 9y agoThank you!
- bones6 9y agoA YC (2015 I think) backed company did just this. Collated Backpage ads to assist Law Enforcement in tracking down child sex slaves. At the time they were called Rescue Forensics and were acquired a year or so ago.
- Berobero 9y ago> Congress is a bunch of idiots I mean, not all... https://www.c-span.org/video/?442912-6/senator-wyden-online-trafficking-prosecution https://www.c-span.org/video/?442912-6/senator-wyden-online-...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- zaarn 9y agoWelp, this is the (big) straw that breaks the camels back. While I've been somewhat slowly easing out of having my hosting services in the US, I don't think I want to even have business with anyone HQ'd in the US anymore. What if someone phone's them up and says I host sex trafficking? Or I do something else illegal in the US that is fine in the EU or elsewhere? I simply don't want the risk of the US gov'd or law interfering with me or my business.
- Zamicol 9y agoWhere are you going? Where can Internet refugees go?
- pingec 9y agoGermany
- megous 9y agoNot really, no. You can't even torrent there without getting threatening letters in the mail. Also wifi/responsibility issues. Copyright nonsense is running strong in Germany. There are freeer countries than that WRT internet freedom in EU.
- snikeris 9y agoWill you get letters for torrenting legally, or only when you download copyrighted stuff?
- 0XAFFE 9y agoOnly copyrighted stuff and sometimes its bogus, so the best turn is to have a lawyer friend, write a nice letter and never hear from them again.
- mattnewton 9y agoI know people who have gotten those letters in the US; the companies that send them are contracted by major media corps and don’t care about where you live.
- rayiner 9y agoPretty hilarious/depressing WaPo coverage from when the Communications Decency Act was struck down in the lower court (before it got to the Supreme Court): https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/06/13/court-upholds-free-speech-on-internet-blocks-decency-law/02e2ecfd-50c0-4d36-8d11-b78cdc3ad8e3/?utm_term=.4e57b38cf732 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/06/13/c.... Love this quote: > But a leading proponent of the legislation, Bruce Taylor of the National Law Center for Children and Families, said yesterday that the court "jumped off the bridge" with its "absolute" decision. Saying "the technology overwhelmed the court," Taylor predicted the Supreme Court would reject the ruling. "They haven't got a prayer of having this upheld on appeal," he said. These twits are going to win eventually, just slowly.
- Bartweiss 9y ago> These twits are going to win eventually, just slowly. This is basically my expectation for how all privacy and legal freedom end on the internet. It's easier to pass a law than repeal it, and so this stuff will get done by throwing up slight variants of the same bills over and over until they get through Congress and the courts. Constitutionality can be ensured by getting lucky with wording and a friendly court. Passage comes from simply wearing down the opposition, who are drastically less well-funded and organized than the advocates. I honestly have no idea what can be done about it. Internet freedoms work like a ratchet, and even winning 95% of the fights means that everything gets worse every year and never gets better.
- jurt 9y agoThese twits presumably spent two decades drumming up support for their cause while the tech community failed to give an answer to how the Internet won't affect society negatively. The results are well deserved.
- themaninthedark 9y agoWe shouldn't have to give an answer as to how freedom of speech and freedom of association will affect things negatively.
- m1el 9y agoDoes it mean that websites now must prevent encrypted communication? U2FsdGVkX18IeqlFqCOknXszPyMqiWSyn99anjBcKIl8bINzaUyWc0Le8lgEcj6t zoGfSQvhXeaoNfMyrEd9WA==
- coldcode 9y agoSo if I post something about sex and prostitution research in HN then HN is liable for some criminal violation if they don't censor it? What kind of insanity is that? Would that not open the possibility of destroying an online site with comments (or even something like Medium) deliberately by posting now "illegal" things?
- mattnewton 9y agoThe cynic in me thinks this is exactly the intention. Shut down any site you don’t like, with the argument being literally “think of the children”
- gowld 9y agoIf you find clients for your pimping business via HN, with HN's knowing consent, then yes, it's a criminal violation.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- hlieberman 9y agoKnowing consent that it's used for prostitution isn't required under FOSTA/SESTA. Merely knowing consent that there's facilitation.
- walterbell 9y agoWhile on the topic of censorship, https://blog.github.com/2018-03-14-eu-proposal-upload-filters-code/ https://blog.github.com/2018-03-14-eu-proposal-upload-filter... "The EU is considering a copyright proposal that would require code-sharing platforms to monitor all content that users upload for potential copyright infringement (see the EU Commission’s proposed Article 13 of the Copyright Directive) … Upload filters (“censorship machines”) are one of the most controversial elements of the copyright proposal … EU policymakers have told us it would be very useful to hear directly from more developers. In particular, developers at European companies can make a significant impact."
- nukeop 9y agoGithub is perfectly fine with censorship on their platform and they frequently use it to take down repositories that use language they don't like, it only becomes a problem when someone else does it to them. That blog post is very dishonest and manipulative too.
- walterbell 9y agoAll online code/media publishing companies would be equally affected.
- duskwuff 9y agoCan you give a specific example of what you're referring to? I suspect that you're thinking of situations like the GamerGateOP repository, which was disabled because it was being used for harassment. (There was no actual code in the repository; it was simply being used to host a newsletter.) Besides, what are you trying to argue here? That web sites should be forced to distribute anyone's content?
- nukeop 9y agoWebm for retards is one example of censorship on Github. There are plenty of repositories that have no code in them that are perfectly fine by Github rules even if they're just pieces of propaganda. What I'm trying to argue is that they're hypocrites that are only against censorship when it's applied to them and endangers their profits.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- cornholio 9y agoWhat exactly is the intention behind this bill? Do they hope the demand for prostitution will drop, and thus trafficker revenues and incentives? That seems ridiculous, as demand for prostitution existed throughout human history and across civilizations, mainly as a cultural artifact. So we expect the services to simply shift to use other facilitators. Do they hope the new facilitators will be better for the victims? That, again, seems misguided: we know for a fact that traditional, pre-internet facilitators, like pimps and underground brothels, are exceptionally damaging for victims, physically, emotionally and economically. Any underground, high friction market, will have large margins for the traders (traffickers) and make the producers worse off. Is the intention to drag prostitutes into legality, in supervised establishments where they can be protected by the state? Shouldn't that start with a nation-wide ban of anti-brothel laws that effectively force prostitutes to work underground? So what exactly is the point of this bill? Denying independent prostitutes autonomy and forcing them in the hands of traffickers? Did they even ask themselves these questions? Do they even understand the purpose is harm-reduction across a whole at-risk social class, not some crusade against a Hollywood vision of innocence abused?
- Klathmon 9y agoI genuinely don't think any of these questions were asked or discussed in any real fashion. It really sounds like this was touted as a way to reduce prostitution and sex trafficking and nobody involved ever questioned if it would really do that, because simply questioning a bill like this can get your name in the news about how much you support sex trafficking. And that news story will never go away, 10 years from now people will be bringing that story up about how you once opposed a bill designed to reduce sex trafficking, and how can anyone trust someone that once supported something so vile?
- romwell 9y agoThis is a really dangerous trend that needs to end ASAP. With this reasoning, one can slip anything into a bill with a nice name. This has already done a lot of harm. (After all, how can someone oppose the PATRIOT act when the nation is in danger? etc)
- deleted 9y ago
- moomin 9y agoThis is the real story: "While we can’t speculate on the agendas of the groups behind SESTA, we can study those same groups’ past advocacy work. Given that history, one could be forgiven for thinking that some of these groups see SESTA as a mere stepping stone to banning pornography from the Internet or blurring the legal distinctions between sex work and trafficking." Too many laws in America are stalking horses for restricting, not just commercial sexual activity, but all unapproved sexual activity. And the people who'd be doing the approving don't look like people I want in charge of my or my kid's sex life. Child pornography and sex trafficking are both real, serious, problems. We should deal with them, not work to make it harder for sex workers and horny teenagers. But for a lot of the pressure groups in this area, the second thing is _their actual goal_.
- PurpleBoxDragon 9y agoOne should look at the history behind why certain currently banned obscenity is banned, and what the goals of the groups were who originally pushed the ban. >Given that history, one could be forgiven for thinking that some of these groups see SESTA as a mere stepping stone to banning pornography from the Internet This is one of their main goals. >blurring the legal distinctions between sex work and trafficking I think this has largely been achieved.
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago> I think this has largely been achieved. Indeed, “combating sex trafficking” seems to already be a euphemism for cracking down on sex work of all kinds.
- hedora 9y ago“Combating sex trafficking” is also a euphemism for cracking down on free speech on the internet, privacy, and small competitors to the big two internet firms. In the same week, we’ve also gotten the cloud act, and widely expanded censorship on youtube. The big two seem to welcome these changes: google lobbied in support of at least some of this, while zuckerberg says he’s ok with expanded regulation of facebook. Reglatory capture is being used to lock down our industry (and, maybe democracy) before our very eyes.
- pweissbrod 9y ago:%s/sex trafficking/mass shooting/g :%s/gun control laws/internet censorship/g --edit: before you reach for that downvote button - im not conflating the two crimes they are both depreaved and horrible in their own way. I am noting a high degree of symmetry in the reaction of a heavy-handed government 'take away the rights of everyone' to what is isolated incidents of horror. In one case americans seems willing to relinquish their rights to the government in the name of safety. In the other americans seems to consider this overreacting yet to me they seem to have high degree of symmetry
- Deestan 9y ago> isolated incidents of horror. They are not. They happen with such regularity that you can reliably estimate them per year. They are empirically preventable.
- pweissbrod 9y agoby "preventable" I presume you mean prevented by relinquishing all citizens rights and the rights of their descendents permanently to the government. I'm not debating gun laws, Im pointing out how readily it seems people are willing to relinquish their rights in one case vs another which have remarkably high similarities.
- 0xfeba 9y agoNo, just one right?
- nybble41 9y agoThe one right which makes it possible to defend the rest; so in effect, all of them.
- scotty79 9y agoHow can you keep illussion that you'll be able to defend anything with guns against US army? Because them you'll be fighting, because they are the actual guvnment. And these guys train every day how to kill people armed with guns without getting shot. And they got pretty good at that.
- smoyer 9y agoWell ... it's what I've come to expect from our federal government.
- userbinator 9y agoOne only hopes the growing gap between the government and its citizens will reach a breaking point, but unfortunately it seems too many are willing to stay apathetic and complacent, "because it doesn't affect me" while the government continues stripping them of their ability to revolt. Not to mention the clever(!?) technique of naming these bills such that those opposing them could be seen as supporting the various crimes they are intending to fight against. "When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."
- EGreg 9y agoHow many of the commenters read the actual bill, and not just about the bill? It's quite short, and it's on Congress' website. I agree with everyone who says this will just drive prostitution underground, and isn't helpful. However, I am wondering about how hurtful it is to sites which are not designed to host personals or prostitution advertising. Dating sites are in a gray area, and they have been vetting people's descriptions for a long time. Social networking sites have flagging features, that others can use to flag profiles for review, under various categories. One of them can be specifically tailored to make sure this bill doesn't describe them as "reckless disregard". All other sites that host user-generated content, such as programming forums, I think, are in no danger. Again, this is not about the good intentions of the bill vs what it actually achieves to reduce human trafficking or prostitution. But rather, my comment is mainly about its effect on the vast majority of sites hosting user-generated content under section 230.
- girvo 9y agoI think you’re right; but it’s already having a chilling effect, with large platforms banning and removing content left right and centre to preempt this bill, regardless of whether it would actually fall afoul of it. When you’ve got huge fines and jail time at stake, it’s better for the companies in question to err on the side of more censorship, not less, and it’s worse for everyone who uses the platform in question. So even though I agree with you, it’s already having the impact that a slippery slope argument would expect... that’s very worrying to me.
- hannasanarion 9y agoOne of the problems is this line in particular: The term ‘participation in a venture’ means knowing conduct by an individual or entity, that assists, supports, or facilitates a violation. "facilitating" means "make easier or less difficult". Hosting a website that allows people to talk about things, potentially including sex trafficking, certainly makes it easier, and under this law, any such website would be liable.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- skocznymroczny 9y agoThat's why free speech basically can't be selective. If it was Reddit banning /r/the_donald, all of you complaining now would cheer the development.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- craftyguy 9y agoReddit doesn't have to permit freedom of speech on their site. The US government does have to permit it, supposedly.
- TheCapn 9y agoFor the longest time the argument for banning The_Donald wasn't to silence their voice. It was to tell their users to fuck off if they can't follow the site rules. They would constantly manipulate the vote counts or brigade smaller subs, more recently the spotlight has been about reddit's rules regarding advocating violence. The problem was always that they hid behind the guise that they were the unofficial Donald Trump fanclub when there really never was an alternative one with a more moderate userbase. The_Donald is fine to exist but they seemingly refuse to stay in their playpen and ahve their fun, they need to sling mud throughout the rest of reddit while they're there. And just to state it, I don't think TD is the only sub guilty of this behavior. I don't think its even an issue exclusive to politics but I really wish Reddit took a more hard look at their rule enforcement to make things clear and had clear transparency for their enforcement of the rules.
- fuball63 9y agoI agree 100% with everything in the article, but to play devils advocate: A common thread that appears on HN is the nostalgia laden post about how the internet used to be "smaller" and more "personal", with forums and chat rooms ruling the landscape instead of social media. This article mentions that large internet companies will be able to afford litigation, but medium sized companies will not. Small communities, however, are able to be moderated by a small team of humans. The reason why reddit/4chan/twitter/craigslist/youtube are forced into sweeping censorship due to FOSTA/SESTA is because they have user bases too massive to comb through without a clumsy algorithm. They will become the network broadcast TV; small sites will become the internet reaction to that, what they were always supposed to be. Obviously, SESTA/FOSTA is the dumbest way to build a smaller internet, hurts more user than it helps on massive platforms, and spreads unlawful activity to even smaller, darker corners of the internet. But grasping for silver linings here.
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago> Small communities, however, are able to be moderated by a small team of humans. That doesn't change the cost per user. You're essentially talking about having the users do the moderation, but that isn't enough when it comes to legal requirements. What happens when they make mistakes because they aren't lawyers? If smaller communities take over it won't be because they're more economical, it will be for the same reasons that piracy sites continue to exist -- they're in violation of the law but for every one that gets shut down two more pop up.
- fuball63 9y agoGood point. Especially the last remark about two or more popping up; that's really the worst side effect of SESTA/FOSTA.
- Beltiras 9y agoBig question is if this will actually survive judicial review. I am quite sure someone will make a test case out of something. There's enough of "offending material" to make hay off.
- mattnewton 9y agoNow what?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- wuliwong 9y agoIt seems like a dirty tactic for a federal law to be passed making websites that promote prostitution illegal while the legality of actual prostitution is left up to the individual states to decide. I bet this isn't the first time this type of tactic has been employed.
- scardine 9y agoI think it is more like cigarettes, you are free to smoke your lungs off but tobacco companies are forbidden to advertise. Fair enough, I don't want my daughters watching ads about amazing returns for beautiful girls in the prostitution industry.
- Consultant32452 9y agoWould you rather your daughter hooking on the street making barely enough to stay alive because her pimp takes all the money or in a safe place with healthcare, police protection, and high earnings?
- scardine 9y agoExcellent question! No, I live in Brazil where prostitution is not illegal but profiting from prostitutes is. So brothels and pimping are illegal - although there are plenty brothels, you only see pimping on very high level escorts and I never saw a place with sex slaves (but I saw this kind of place in other countries). So this is my point, prostitution should be legal and physically safe both for prostitutes and Johns (nobody being beaten, mugged or otherwise ripped off) the same way tobacco smoking is legal. It is my opinion about safe recreational drugs as well. And like tobacco, companies should be prevented from mass-advertising.
- arca_vorago 9y agoHere is the question all Americans should ask about legislation: "Is it constitutional?" If no. Discard or modify.
- hedora 9y agoI’m worried that it is. Most of the legal precedents in the internet space hinge on the fact that it is impossible for things like search engines to read every page they index, so mandating they do will ban search engines, and the courts doubt congress meant to do that. (Sometimes judges will say the law has to “scale” to new technologies, and then find in the common sense direction, instead of following the letter of the law) Google has said that it is now feasible for machine learning algorithms to police user content, which undermines the legal precedent. Honestly, I’m surprised this change had to go through congress, since the legal precedents were on shaky ground to start with. I think you’ll fund the framers of the constitution did not anticipate the existence of publishers that cannot even enumerate the things they publish, and were completely silent on this issue. A similar oversight occurred with online privacy: The government’s surveillance apparatus is much smaller than corporate America’s and nothing stops the government from buying legally available commercial surveillance data, so they just launder illegal searches through private industry. (The CLOUD act extends this to launder the searches through foreign governments, and also expand US law enforcement’s jurisdiction to the whole planet—that seems much more likely to fall afoul of the constitution. Issues of sovereignty and protection against foreign influence were clearly well understood when the constitution was written.)
- Jeema101 9y agoMalicious users will always find ways around machine learning algorithms, though. So if the law makes it impossible for someone to run a legitimate personals website (as it seems to already be happening with Craigslist), then doesn't that amount to government-instituted prior restraint on what should be legitimate free speech?
- zerotolerance 9y agoThe real irony is between SESTA/FOSTA and the CLOUD act we've basically regulated Internet companies into mandatory consumer violation instead of protection. There is no end to this. If this extends to telcos then decentralization will not help. Today, we made the Internet into broadcast television. Congratulations to AT&T.
- metalliqaz 9y agoWhat do you mean by "mandatory consumer violation"?
- kevin_b_er 9y agoLet's ask a harsh question: Could a service like Gmail or Hotmail be declared illegal with this?
- Mithorium 9y agoWhat about airlines with online booking websites? People have travelled for sex tourism to countries with trafficked sex workers, and it's such a known phenomenon that there's no reasonable way the operators of an airline could be unaware of it. And yet, they still sell tickets. By the letter of the law, that can certainly "make easier or less difficult" the sex trade by facilitating the transportation of potential customers. Are they then criminally liable if someone is found to have flown on their airline for the purpose of sex tourism?
- jstarfish 9y agoI don't like the pretense of the law, but the hysteria surrounding this is truly astounding. No, Gmail, Facebook, and Travelocity are not complicit in the sex trade by virtue of the fact that someone can use their services to conduct such actions. Section 230 still exists. Without it, yes, you might actually be right, and the internet would implode due to the liability involved in running any service at all. We already covered this 20 years ago. The operative word in the new law is "knowingly." If Gmail knowingly provided services to a pimp, if Facebook knowingly hosted a group to facilitate trafficking, and if Travelocity knowingly sold sex tourism packages ("we see you're renting a hotel and a car-- would you like to add an underaged escort?"), then the law applies. Selling someone a ticket to Thailand isn't a crime. Giving them recommendations on the local brothels might be. Backpage is in the shit because they knew they were hosting child prostitution ads and actively tried to hide it from police. Silk Road couldn't claim 230 because internal documents showed Ulbricht knew he was facilitating the drug trade (and even knew what the consequences would be!). The message is clear-- if you're going to run an illegal site, don't participate in its content or market it for those purposes. Don't seed it or hire anybody to seed your content. Just stay out of it, run an agnostic platform and let the users generate their own content (4chan isn't technically a porn site, after all). If something is brought to your attention, delete it and document it-- you fulfilled your obligation. You'd still have deniability as to what your users are up to; after all, you can't be expected to police all the user-generated content faster than they can create it.
- coding123 9y agoSo does that mean Nevada can sue the federal government because it is legal there?
- z0r 9y agoI was spurred to make a sizable donation to the EFF by recent news (in addition to my regular per-paycheque) donation and I encourage anyone else reading this to consider donating as well.
- FSharper 9y agoThere were no good intentions here.
- whataretensors 9y agoIf Facebook, Google, et al didn't want these authoritarian laws passed do you think they'd make it through? They are likely purposefully doing this to create a humongous barrier of entry for new incumbents. And a fresh new way to politically destroy competition. This is why we need to decentralize as much as possible.
- LifeLiverTransp 9y agoProstitution devalues the defacto-trade currency of relationships- thus every creature dependent for well-beeing on a relationship, will put agents into motion to harass the consumers and providers of the "free-drug-trade". So, yes, your wife is secretly donating money to harass prostitutes.