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In defense of the "scorched earth approach or nothing" folks: from my perspective... it's a completely and totally human response to faceless, blameless, unappr

In defense of the "scorched earth approach or nothing" folks: from my perspective... it's a completely and totally human response to faceless, blameless, unapproachable (from their perspective) perpetrators and facilitators of systematic abuse and exploitation of innocent and vulnerable people. If you've ever felt frustrated at an IVR system for routine tasks such as banking, restaurant reservations, canceling a gym membership, checking a gift card balance, etc. then you may understand where the "scorched earth" people are coming from when it comes to advocating for dozens, if not hundreds, of innocent victims who have been raped, exploited, and brutalized. That said, I really wish that I could come forward with a solution to the online sex trafficking problem.

anigbrowl 9y ago
Great, like the trade is going to suddenly end. All they've achieved is 'out of sight, out of mind.' I'm quite annoyed about this, both because it affects numerous friends of mine who are sex workers and are now scrambling to find alternatives to working on the street, where they're far less safe, and on a more pedestrian level because I met my wife on a Craigslist date years ago. Life is too short to make excuses for stupid behavior.
- at-fates-hands 9y ago
  > Great, like the trade is going to suddenly end. All they've achieved is 'out of sight, out of mind.' I had the same reaction to this. Shutting down one avenue, just pushes these people back into the shadows where its going to be a LOT harder to track down and find them. With CL being up, it was public, traceable and arrests could be made discretely and out of public view.
- edraferi 9y ago
  I've been thinking about this a lot this morning. I think almost every vice would be less damaging to society if it was in the open. Polite society doesn't want to see sex work or drugs, but they still exist. Hiding them makes things much worse for the people directly involved. It's trafficked kids with broken immigration status who are more scared of the cops than their captors. It's drug addicts who OD on tainted drugs. Bring it all into the open. Have the government certify providers directly. Crack down on unauthorized middlemen. Tax it. Use the taxes to pay for programs that help people leave when they realize they can have a better life without it. We need the classic American Market here: free trade enabled by regulation that ensures market quality and protects participants from fraud. Unfortunately I don't think this is politically possible. It would take a long, well funded campaign. The people who are willing to do that kind of work are motivated by stories of individual tragedy and focus on draconian solutions like this mess of a law. The people who would push for openness can make more money elsewhere, and don't want to make their name "Advocating for drugs & sex." Frustrating.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    I'm in favour of careful legalisation. The submitted article is talking about a reaction to the behaviour of one publication who were openly allowing people to advertise kidnapped drugged children for sex; and then when they took a minimal step back from that the publisher was giving advice to advertisers about how to create an ad to sell drugged kidnapped children for sex without hitting the publications new filters. Once these children were rescued they were telling the publisher that some of these ads contained images of them; that they had been kidnapped, drugged, and repeatedly raped; and that they'd like the images taken down and preferably for the ads to be taken down. That publisher refused. One of the problems of decriminalisation of buying and selling sex work is that someone who wants to fuck a 14 year old child isn't going to use the service a 25 year old provides, so legalisation has limited usefulness to prevent the kidnap and drugging of children.
    - edraferi 9y ago
      I am unaware of this behavior by Craigslist. I want to believe that people are taken seriously when they alert authorities to crimes against them. The #MeToo movement suggests this doesn’t happen as readily as I would like. > but someone will still want to fuck 14 year olds This is still wrong, we can still criminalize it. That’s fine. We can still give a lot of other sex workers way more safety and legitimacy than they have now. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. There could be secondary effects that help the 14 year olds. (1) Most Johns would prefer the legal adult market, so that’s where the money will be. (2) There would be a bigger stigma to the illegal stuff because there are good legal alternatives, creating s higher barrier to entry. (3) institutions would develop to support sec workers, and they’d have resources and visibility to help the minors, more than exists now. The point is we can decriminalize/ legalize a LOT more than we do now, and have a net positive impact.
  - manofmanysmiles 9y ago
    I've been thinking about this peripherally for a while, especially the bigger picture when some law is passed, and it seems exceptionally out of touch with the reality, and does more harm than good. A depressing thought: What if we apply something akin to Occam's Razor? What if the lawmakers want to hurt the people struggling at at the lower rungs of society? To me it feels unlikely it is intentional in most cases, or conscious, but what if on some level, there is a motivation to hurt these people who they feel are inferior? You can easily apply Hanlon's razor here as a counter-argument, but that's not what I'm saying. I'm not attributing malice to any individual actor, but to something more subtle, e.g. unconscious bias. Maybe subconsciously, there's a force that's trying to destroy people who are for whatever reason unable thrive in society? I guess maybe this force IS society? Apologies if this is a bit vague and short. I just wanted to share this thought in case it resonated with anyone else. I'll be happy to expand upon this thought if there's interest.
- balls187 9y ago
  > Life is too short to make excuses for stupid behavior. Like meeting strangers on the internet and buying/selling sex for money? If it was legal, it could be better regulated, and they could operate with more safety...but it's not legal. While I'm in favor of decriminalizing adults engaging in adult behavior, I don't believe anyone goes into selling sex with a healthy attitude towards sex. They're typically victims of sexual abuse at a young age, which has warped their perspective, leading them to believe that their biggest value is to sell their bodies for sex.
  - ryanobjc 9y ago
    That belief isn’t just something they got from nowhere. Your contempt for their choices is bizarre and really offensive. If they have a better option, perhaps you could illustrate what that might be. Perhaps grab a coding job? Or waitressing, with all the benefits and pay that comes with (and sexual harassment with no recourse, not much #metoo for underpaid waitresses)? Or, are you offering a job?
    - balls187 9y ago
      What benefits come with being a prostitute? If you're worried about sexual harassment with no recourse, picking a profession with astronomically higher risk of sexual violence would be the last choice any rational person would make. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24625169 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24625169 It's not comtempt; I just haven't fooled myself into thinking that prostitution isn't a victimless crime. You've built a strawman for my argument; I'm not showing contempt for the choice of picking prostitution; but I am saying that in the US engaging in it, as a seller or as a buyer constitutes being stupid. The increase risk of violence, sexual or otherwise, the risk to your families health, the risk to your own health, the risk to your career. All reasons why it's stupid. I believe decriminalizing prostitution would reduce the risks--but regardless, those who go into prostitution will still be exploited, regardless of it's legal status. If it were decriminalized (and remove it's social stigma) I don't see more people becoming prostitutes.
      - sokoloff 9y ago
- hackermailman 9y ago
  Most US sex workers fled CL and use Instagram now or any chat program that provides location distances. In other countries Weechat is the preferred method to find companions for hire. You'll also find countless escort ads in any adult social media hookup site like say, Fetlife or Adult Friend Finder. A warning to anybody thinking of building a gigantic illegal escort listing service or agency and hosting it in Russia or via Tor, imagine the massive effort to come after you in hopes they discover political rivals have been using your service.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    This was interesting to me, so I researched a little. Apparently, the real volume of transactions has moved to https://eccie.net https://eccie.net (NSFW) in the US. As usual, the internet routes around censorship.
- vivekd 9y ago
  Well no we can't make the sex trade disappear, but we can certainly make it more difficult and by extension less prevalent. While I agree that the current measure is overblown, I do understand where the people behind the legislation are coming from.
- unabst 9y ago
  Nothing should be demonized. Anything that hinders humanity should be regulated and monitored, proportional to the threat. That is all that is needed. Out of sight and out of mind enables thriving dark markets. To eliminate dark markets, the open market must be all inclusive. There needs to be only one market. For darker material, we need more aggressive inclusion tactics. For example, pedophilia should be considered an extremely dangerous disease. Imagine if we treated Ebola or AIDS as a crime. No one would ever be protected or cured (or neutralized), and carriers would be hiding among us.
- touringcomplete 9y ago
  It’s SJW collective punishment mentality. Because something can be used for terrorism, like cars, ban all cars.
  - ionised 9y ago
    That kind of mentality tends to come from reactionary conservatives in my experience.
zeth___ 9y ago
And to make the system better they just took the system offline. The next Craigs list will be on Tor and will have a child prostitute section. Congratulations on making things worse.
- 3131s 9y ago
  Actually .onion prostitution services exist already and have for a long time. There was at least one that was very popular around 5 years ago, but I don't remember the name. But you are absolutely right, this is pushing sex workers further underground and therefore making their lives more dangerous.
  - knowThySelfx 9y ago
    Would it be surprising to say that trading in this might include Bitcoin?
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      About as surprising as noticing that e.g. moving some trade to Switzerland involves increased use of Swiss franc.
    - zanny 9y ago
      I'd imagine they would use Monero or Zcash nowadays since those are proven fairly more anonymized. Bitcoin is wholly public so all it takes is one identifiable wallet to start profiling addresses they interact with.
      - knowThySelfx 9y ago
        By Bitcoin I meant Blockchain based money.
        smadge 9y ago
        Then you should say that or “cryptocurrency”
threatofrain 9y ago
But if people are content to swat away a problem until they can't see it anymore, despite that the ignored causes continues to generate more misery, then it's hard to be sympathetic to that defensible position. Especially since a lot of people just lost access to romantic venues because a minority of users make a living through sex.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  > because a minority of users make a living through sex. // So you deny there is trafficking of people as sex slaves? Or that particular sites enable it? Or?
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    I think the point is: imagine government banned bars, because some percentage of rapes involve perpetrators stalking victims in bars and getting them drunk.
    - Fjolsvith 9y ago
      Or why can't we ban churches because pastors can use them to rape or molest church members?
    - Bartweiss 9y ago
      Perhaps more directly - if we're trying to stop sex trafficking by shutting down the places where victims meet clients, we're going to have to ban streets.
  - lagadu 9y ago
    Most monetary transactions involving victims of sex slaves involve money, should we remove it too? He's saying that this affects far more legitimate users than sex traffickers by multiple orders of magnitude, while at the same time not preventing sex trafficking from taking place anyway.
    - pixl97 9y ago
mnm1 9y ago
> That said, I really wish that I could come forward with a solution to the online sex trafficking problem. Start by legalizing prostitution and removing the black market. That won't end all trafficking, but will end a lot and will make it much easier to go after the remaining illegal black market as it's now been separated from the legal market. Comment about how people who don't learn are doomed to repeat history here. How many black markets for harmless everyday goods and services do we need to ban before the idiots in charge start to understand these simple principles? They're constantly talking about markets, but clearly no one in government understands the first thing about them. Or, more likely, doesn't want to.
- tajen 9y ago
  One of the key aspects of prostitution is it provides an alternative outcome to marriage. Why else would a man step into marriage where 100% rules have been thoughtfully designed against him (except love, for as long as it lasts), if he could last a few years longer by using prostitution... Heck, even sex dolls are being forbidden, even though they cause absolutely no harm to humans (a sex doll house is being closed down in Paris, France, for example). It’s not about the victims. Forbidding prostitution is about keeping men hungry. Even if that increases rapes and child porn. As long as men are blamed for sex, everyone seems satisfied.
  - golergka 9y ago
    You know that you can have consensual sexual relationships outside of marriage, right? They don't even have to be exclusive. Seriously, dude, if you're a "hungry man", open Tinder or just go to a local hook up bar. Hooking up for a one night stand is trivial.
    - NoGravitas 9y ago
      ITT: Incels. Incels everywhere.
    - syshum 9y ago
      .
cornholio 9y ago
> If you've ever felt frustrated at an IVR system for routine tasks such as banking, restaurant reservations [...] hundreds, of innocent victims who have been raped, exploited, and brutalized. How can you compare being the victim of misdesigned automated system, who has no conscience and follows blind rules, to being the victim of a trafficker who has full understanding and responsibility for what he's doing and exploiting a mindless computer system designed for an entirely different purpose? Now I agree we as a society should recognize that some tools, in the hands of the criminal, sociopath or insane can do a lot of harm, and it's fair to move and restrict them. High explosives, nuclear material, anonymous banking are all examples of technologies that, while useful, can and should be restricted. But at no point it is a fault of the technology, and at no point should we examine the technology divorced from it's nefarious users who ultimately bear responsibility. Restricting useful technology is an extreme measure reserved for the most dangerous situations, otherwise ANY technology can be used for harming others. This particular case seems completely out of balance and likely to have NO impact.
- smueller1234 9y ago
  I think you may be misreading GP's point. My reading is that he's likening the frustrations of the non profits with getting through to what they consider faceless entities (the companies) to the lesser frustrations one may have when one's subjected to an optional IVR experience. In other words, paraphrasing liberally: "if you occasionally get annoyed by bring subjected to being automated by IVRs, imagine what these folks feel like trying to get through to [insert company name here]."
- NotSammyHagar 9y ago
  > High explosives, nuclear material, anonymous banking are all examples of technologies that, while useful, can and should be restricted. I'm not sure how to take your comments, based on your other thoughts. We shouldn't have anonymous banking, i.e. cryptocurrency or even cash?
  - allannienhuis 9y ago
    I don't think he said anonymous banking should't be available at all - he explicitly said it was useful. But he also said it should be restricted for similar reasons the other things in his list should be restricted, because significant harm can be done to the public/society with it in the hands of some people. Money laundering is one example that comes to mind. If you're a proponent of Crypto currencies you've probably heard similar statements before - this criticism isn't new.
golergka 9y ago
"Human" as in emotional, impulsive and irrational, yes. It is also quite unfitting and stupid and innefective.
safety1st 9y ago
The "scorched earth" approach only gets support when the nature and scope of the issues are distorted. What are the real issues in play? One is prostitution, a form of sex work which is illegal in most of the United States. The American public have varying feelings about its legal status, how enforcement should be carried out, etc. Public opinion doesn't support measures which endanger sex workers (which FOSTA does), because they're already an at-risk group. A separate issue is human trafficking, which is moving people across borders for the purpose of slavery/forced labor, including sex slavery. Public opinion is rightly massively against slavery in any form. What I would like to know is, how much slavery was taking place through the Craigslist personals section? How much of it goes on in America? Can we get some real data injected into this discussion about the nature and the extent of actual forced sex labor? Scorched earth tactics might be appropriate if America has developed a serious slavery problem (again), but they need to be justified with facts. I've run across people who want to take a scorched earth approach to eradicating prostitution (which will not work any more than the war on drugs did). They refer to all prostitution as trafficking in order to conflate the two issues, mislead the public and build support for their radical policies. There is also a class of people who have used FOSTA as an opportunity to expand government power. Neither of these agendas reflect public opinion.
- dangerlibrary 9y ago
  > How much of it goes on in America? Can we get some real data injected into this discussion about the nature and the extent of actual forced sex labor? Scorched earth tactics might be appropriate if America has developed a serious slavery problem (again), but they need to be justified with facts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_trafficking_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_trafficking_in_the_United_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_the_Unite...
  - safety1st 9y ago
    Thanks for the links! These Wikipedia articles demonstrate my point that the facts and data are very weak in the trafficking discussion, and that data is often misrepresented to exaggerate the size of the problem. - The sex trafficking article states that in 2001 the State Department estimated 50k-100k were trafficked into the US -- this estimate was for both genders but the article erroneously states it is women only. - Either way, by 2004 the State Department reduced its estimate to 14,500-17,500 trafficked into the US annually for all genders and purposes. - According to the Washington Post, between 2000-2007 the government had identified 1,362 total victims of human trafficking brought into the United States. The percentage of these related to sex is not mentioned. - The human trafficking article states that the Global Slavery Index estimated 57,700 people were trafficked into the US in 2016. This statement is also erroneous. The GSI's estimate was for the number of people in some form of "modern slavery," which by their definition includes certain kinds of prison labor among other things, and is unrelated to whether they were trafficked. - The article also doesn't mention that the GSI arrived at 57,700 by designating a tier of the least enslaved countries studied and estimating the number of modern slaves at 0.018% of the population. The same formula is used for Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, etc. I'm not trying to detract from the importance of the issue of modern slavery but mentioning the 57k out of context seems a bit misleading, the US is literally among the best in the world in this area and the number is so rough that it could be off by tens of thousands. And again, it has nothing to do with trafficking, let alone sex trafficking!) Both the ACLU and EFF oppose FOSTA on the grounds that it violates both human and civil rights. Why aren't we doing better studies and getting better data about the problem it purports to solve?
syshum 9y ago
>>I really wish that I could come forward with a solution to the online sex trafficking problem. Step 1. End Prohibition of Sex Work Step 2. Stop Diverting Police Resources to enforcing laws on what consenting Adults do on their own time (both Prostitution and Drugs) Step 3. Stop Criminalizing Speech driving to further and further under ground were it is no longer tracable at all The "scorched earth" groups are in no way protecting victims, in fact they are making it WORSE by driving people to more shady platforms deep deep under ground, where law enforcement will be less likely to find information or victims.
- _pmf_ 9y ago
  Some workers of the business in the Netherlands argue that the end of prohibition worsened conditions.
  - jrs235 9y ago
    I assume things got worse because cowardly assholes are now allowed to treat the prostitutes disrespectfully. Before, the assholes that were afraid of the law wouldn't risk going to a prostitute. Now that the law won't hurt them, they go and are demanding disrespectful assholes. Just a guess. Edit: law abiding != kind, respectful, or moral
    - austinheap 9y ago
      Implying that there is some uptick in people who are "allowed to treat the prostitutes disrespectfully" in well-regulated societies is intellectually disingenuous. To quote @Illniyar: "Legalization is far from perfect but abuse in Nevada brothels is much lower than as street walkers." Assumptions are...well, you know the saying.
      - jrs235 9y ago
        Fair enough. Thank you for the reply and insight. My point is, there are more people now openly able and willing to approach prostitutes who think "shut up and do what I say because I'm paying you [you low life worthless being who has to sell you body to make a living]". I'm not saying all people who use or are okay with prostitution think this, just that the supply of people who think this and act this way now find themselves able to openly go to prostitutes (where as the law, and fear of it, kept these assholes from using prostitutes before).
kofejnik 9y ago
> it's a completely and totally human response to faceless, blameless, unapproachable (from their perspective) perpetrators and facilitators of systematic abuse and exploitation of innocent and vulnerable people. You mean, like millions of illegal immigrants who are working in farming, construction, fast food, and many other industries? How do you feel about scorched earth approach to those?
- hnzix 9y ago
  Apparently trading your body for sex is somehow metaphysically different to trading your body for labor.
  - vixen99 9y ago
    It most certainly is for an indeterminate number of people.
    - kofejnik 9y ago
      then it should be honestly discussed in terms of morality, not 'but slavery and trafficking!'
PurpleBoxDragon 9y ago
But if you suggest to legalize and regulate it as a means of protecting those who don't wish to participate, you will be seen as a demonic entity who is advocating for sex crimes to be legalized. I don't think one can defend a crusade that so easily and extremely ignores alternative solutions. I suspect a lot of the push is from very conservative or sex negative views who see this as an opening to roll back some of the recently won sexual freedoms.
- TallGuyShort 9y ago
  It works both ways with different issues. Generally speaking every political discussion has degraded into accusing the other side of killing children.
mseebach 9y ago
> In defense of the "scorched earth approach or nothing" folks: from my perspective... it's a completely and totally human response to faceless, blameless, unapproachable (from their perspective) perpetrators and facilitators of systematic abuse and exploitation of innocent and vulnerable people. Yes, the instinct is understandable, but by the time we're putting NGO experts in government-sponsored working groups for the purpose of drafting legislation, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that we're expecting something that rises (high!) above mere instinct. Otherwise, we can (almost, somewhat melodramatic exaggeration) just let mobs with pitchforks take care of business and save a ton of effort.
Fjolsvith 9y ago
> In defense of the "scorched earth approach or nothing" folks: from my perspective... it's a completely and totally human response to faceless, blameless, unapproachable (from their perspective) perpetrators and facilitators of systematic abuse and exploitation of innocent and vulnerable people. No, its more like the Salem witch hunt.
- Chris_Jay 9y ago
  both of those statements can be true.
ryanlol 9y ago
The difference is that this approach could work against IVRs, but not against sex trafficking.
spocksdoom 9y ago
the good of the dozens outweighs the liberty the entire species?
Kalium 9y ago
You're absolutely right. It it a deeply human response to an incredible frustration. After decades of struggle, to help the poor, vulnerable, and oppressed, it's down a couple of faceless corporations that don't seem to care. Because if they just knew, if they just understood, if they just had a little human empathy and sympathy for the pain and suffering... Why then they'd take all their money and smart people and Solve the Problem! That this is perhaps an excessively simplistic view doesn't occur to people who fervently believe that it's simply a matter of making the useless arrogant dweebs do the right thing. Instead, it's scorched earth with good intentions. My heart aches for the wonderful people saving lives out there. For their deep frustration, and for the purity of their beliefs and intentions. Yet, it's perhaps abstractly possible that empathy and good intentions might be subtly different from good policy.
pmarreck 9y ago
The scorched earth mentality says that if you're not in favor of gun-banning, you're pro-murder. If you're not in favor of policing all of your user-generated content instantaneously and at significant cost, then you are pro-childporn and pro-child-sexual-exploitation. When in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The form of this is a false equivalency (or perhaps the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition): If you are pro-<activity that is only rarely engaged in by bad actors>, then you are pro-<activity that is ONLY done by bad actors> The upshot of this will be ZERO startups that deal in user-generated content simply because they cannot afford the manpower or the liability. Which is a pretty bad consequence, IMHO. This also creates a law open to abuse: If you have a corporate enemy that permits user-generated content, simply anonymously post some objectionable content to their site, take a screenshot, and then alert the authorities with the URL and screenshot. It's like SWATting, except on a whole 'nother level! Is Giphy really to blame in this fiasco? How are they somehow more to blame than the person who actually posted this? (as they would be, after this law goes into effect) https://mashable.com/2018/03/10/snapchat-instagram-giphy-racist/ https://mashable.com/2018/03/10/snapchat-instagram-giphy-rac...

anigbrowl 9y ago

Great, like the trade is going to suddenly end. All they've achieved is 'out of sight, out of mind.' I'm quite annoyed about this, both because it affects numerous friends of mine who are sex workers and are now scrambling to find alternatives to working on the street, where they're far less safe, and on a more pedestrian level because I met my wife on a Craigslist date years ago. Life is too short to make excuses for stupid behavior.

at-fates-hands 9y ago
> Great, like the trade is going to suddenly end. All they've achieved is 'out of sight, out of mind.' I had the same reaction to this. Shutting down one avenue, just pushes these people back into the shadows where its going to be a LOT harder to track down and find them. With CL being up, it was public, traceable and arrests could be made discretely and out of public view.
edraferi 9y ago
I've been thinking about this a lot this morning. I think almost every vice would be less damaging to society if it was in the open. Polite society doesn't want to see sex work or drugs, but they still exist. Hiding them makes things much worse for the people directly involved. It's trafficked kids with broken immigration status who are more scared of the cops than their captors. It's drug addicts who OD on tainted drugs. Bring it all into the open. Have the government certify providers directly. Crack down on unauthorized middlemen. Tax it. Use the taxes to pay for programs that help people leave when they realize they can have a better life without it. We need the classic American Market here: free trade enabled by regulation that ensures market quality and protects participants from fraud. Unfortunately I don't think this is politically possible. It would take a long, well funded campaign. The people who are willing to do that kind of work are motivated by stories of individual tragedy and focus on draconian solutions like this mess of a law. The people who would push for openness can make more money elsewhere, and don't want to make their name "Advocating for drugs & sex." Frustrating.
- DanBC 9y ago
  I'm in favour of careful legalisation. The submitted article is talking about a reaction to the behaviour of one publication who were openly allowing people to advertise kidnapped drugged children for sex; and then when they took a minimal step back from that the publisher was giving advice to advertisers about how to create an ad to sell drugged kidnapped children for sex without hitting the publications new filters. Once these children were rescued they were telling the publisher that some of these ads contained images of them; that they had been kidnapped, drugged, and repeatedly raped; and that they'd like the images taken down and preferably for the ads to be taken down. That publisher refused. One of the problems of decriminalisation of buying and selling sex work is that someone who wants to fuck a 14 year old child isn't going to use the service a 25 year old provides, so legalisation has limited usefulness to prevent the kidnap and drugging of children.
  - edraferi 9y ago
    I am unaware of this behavior by Craigslist. I want to believe that people are taken seriously when they alert authorities to crimes against them. The #MeToo movement suggests this doesn’t happen as readily as I would like. > but someone will still want to fuck 14 year olds This is still wrong, we can still criminalize it. That’s fine. We can still give a lot of other sex workers way more safety and legitimacy than they have now. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. There could be secondary effects that help the 14 year olds. (1) Most Johns would prefer the legal adult market, so that’s where the money will be. (2) There would be a bigger stigma to the illegal stuff because there are good legal alternatives, creating s higher barrier to entry. (3) institutions would develop to support sec workers, and they’d have resources and visibility to help the minors, more than exists now. The point is we can decriminalize/ legalize a LOT more than we do now, and have a net positive impact.
- manofmanysmiles 9y ago
  I've been thinking about this peripherally for a while, especially the bigger picture when some law is passed, and it seems exceptionally out of touch with the reality, and does more harm than good. A depressing thought: What if we apply something akin to Occam's Razor? What if the lawmakers want to hurt the people struggling at at the lower rungs of society? To me it feels unlikely it is intentional in most cases, or conscious, but what if on some level, there is a motivation to hurt these people who they feel are inferior? You can easily apply Hanlon's razor here as a counter-argument, but that's not what I'm saying. I'm not attributing malice to any individual actor, but to something more subtle, e.g. unconscious bias. Maybe subconsciously, there's a force that's trying to destroy people who are for whatever reason unable thrive in society? I guess maybe this force IS society? Apologies if this is a bit vague and short. I just wanted to share this thought in case it resonated with anyone else. I'll be happy to expand upon this thought if there's interest.
balls187 9y ago
> Life is too short to make excuses for stupid behavior. Like meeting strangers on the internet and buying/selling sex for money? If it was legal, it could be better regulated, and they could operate with more safety...but it's not legal. While I'm in favor of decriminalizing adults engaging in adult behavior, I don't believe anyone goes into selling sex with a healthy attitude towards sex. They're typically victims of sexual abuse at a young age, which has warped their perspective, leading them to believe that their biggest value is to sell their bodies for sex.
- ryanobjc 9y ago
  That belief isn’t just something they got from nowhere. Your contempt for their choices is bizarre and really offensive. If they have a better option, perhaps you could illustrate what that might be. Perhaps grab a coding job? Or waitressing, with all the benefits and pay that comes with (and sexual harassment with no recourse, not much #metoo for underpaid waitresses)? Or, are you offering a job?
  - balls187 9y ago
    What benefits come with being a prostitute? If you're worried about sexual harassment with no recourse, picking a profession with astronomically higher risk of sexual violence would be the last choice any rational person would make. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24625169 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24625169 It's not comtempt; I just haven't fooled myself into thinking that prostitution isn't a victimless crime. You've built a strawman for my argument; I'm not showing contempt for the choice of picking prostitution; but I am saying that in the US engaging in it, as a seller or as a buyer constitutes being stupid. The increase risk of violence, sexual or otherwise, the risk to your families health, the risk to your own health, the risk to your career. All reasons why it's stupid. I believe decriminalizing prostitution would reduce the risks--but regardless, those who go into prostitution will still be exploited, regardless of it's legal status. If it were decriminalized (and remove it's social stigma) I don't see more people becoming prostitutes.
    - sokoloff 9y ago
hackermailman 9y ago
Most US sex workers fled CL and use Instagram now or any chat program that provides location distances. In other countries Weechat is the preferred method to find companions for hire. You'll also find countless escort ads in any adult social media hookup site like say, Fetlife or Adult Friend Finder. A warning to anybody thinking of building a gigantic illegal escort listing service or agency and hosting it in Russia or via Tor, imagine the massive effort to come after you in hopes they discover political rivals have been using your service.
- tyingq 9y ago
  This was interesting to me, so I researched a little. Apparently, the real volume of transactions has moved to https://eccie.net https://eccie.net (NSFW) in the US. As usual, the internet routes around censorship.
vivekd 9y ago
Well no we can't make the sex trade disappear, but we can certainly make it more difficult and by extension less prevalent. While I agree that the current measure is overblown, I do understand where the people behind the legislation are coming from.
unabst 9y ago
Nothing should be demonized. Anything that hinders humanity should be regulated and monitored, proportional to the threat. That is all that is needed. Out of sight and out of mind enables thriving dark markets. To eliminate dark markets, the open market must be all inclusive. There needs to be only one market. For darker material, we need more aggressive inclusion tactics. For example, pedophilia should be considered an extremely dangerous disease. Imagine if we treated Ebola or AIDS as a crime. No one would ever be protected or cured (or neutralized), and carriers would be hiding among us.
touringcomplete 9y ago
It’s SJW collective punishment mentality. Because something can be used for terrorism, like cars, ban all cars.
- ionised 9y ago
  That kind of mentality tends to come from reactionary conservatives in my experience.

zeth___ 9y ago

And to make the system better they just took the system offline. The next Craigs list will be on Tor and will have a child prostitute section. Congratulations on making things worse.

3131s 9y ago
Actually .onion prostitution services exist already and have for a long time. There was at least one that was very popular around 5 years ago, but I don't remember the name. But you are absolutely right, this is pushing sex workers further underground and therefore making their lives more dangerous.
- knowThySelfx 9y ago
  Would it be surprising to say that trading in this might include Bitcoin?
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    About as surprising as noticing that e.g. moving some trade to Switzerland involves increased use of Swiss franc.
  - zanny 9y ago
    I'd imagine they would use Monero or Zcash nowadays since those are proven fairly more anonymized. Bitcoin is wholly public so all it takes is one identifiable wallet to start profiling addresses they interact with.
    - knowThySelfx 9y ago
      By Bitcoin I meant Blockchain based money.
      - smadge 9y ago
        Then you should say that or “cryptocurrency”

threatofrain 9y ago

But if people are content to swat away a problem until they can't see it anymore, despite that the ignored causes continues to generate more misery, then it's hard to be sympathetic to that defensible position. Especially since a lot of people just lost access to romantic venues because a minority of users make a living through sex.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago
> because a minority of users make a living through sex. // So you deny there is trafficking of people as sex slaves? Or that particular sites enable it? Or?
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  I think the point is: imagine government banned bars, because some percentage of rapes involve perpetrators stalking victims in bars and getting them drunk.
  - Fjolsvith 9y ago
    Or why can't we ban churches because pastors can use them to rape or molest church members?
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    Perhaps more directly - if we're trying to stop sex trafficking by shutting down the places where victims meet clients, we're going to have to ban streets.
- lagadu 9y ago
  Most monetary transactions involving victims of sex slaves involve money, should we remove it too? He's saying that this affects far more legitimate users than sex traffickers by multiple orders of magnitude, while at the same time not preventing sex trafficking from taking place anyway.
  - pixl97 9y ago

mnm1 9y ago

> That said, I really wish that I could come forward with a solution to the online sex trafficking problem. Start by legalizing prostitution and removing the black market. That won't end all trafficking, but will end a lot and will make it much easier to go after the remaining illegal black market as it's now been separated from the legal market. Comment about how people who don't learn are doomed to repeat history here. How many black markets for harmless everyday goods and services do we need to ban before the idiots in charge start to understand these simple principles? They're constantly talking about markets, but clearly no one in government understands the first thing about them. Or, more likely, doesn't want to.

tajen 9y ago
One of the key aspects of prostitution is it provides an alternative outcome to marriage. Why else would a man step into marriage where 100% rules have been thoughtfully designed against him (except love, for as long as it lasts), if he could last a few years longer by using prostitution... Heck, even sex dolls are being forbidden, even though they cause absolutely no harm to humans (a sex doll house is being closed down in Paris, France, for example). It’s not about the victims. Forbidding prostitution is about keeping men hungry. Even if that increases rapes and child porn. As long as men are blamed for sex, everyone seems satisfied.
- golergka 9y ago
  You know that you can have consensual sexual relationships outside of marriage, right? They don't even have to be exclusive. Seriously, dude, if you're a "hungry man", open Tinder or just go to a local hook up bar. Hooking up for a one night stand is trivial.
  - NoGravitas 9y ago
    ITT: Incels. Incels everywhere.
  - syshum 9y ago
    .

cornholio 9y ago

> If you've ever felt frustrated at an IVR system for routine tasks such as banking, restaurant reservations [...] hundreds, of innocent victims who have been raped, exploited, and brutalized. How can you compare being the victim of misdesigned automated system, who has no conscience and follows blind rules, to being the victim of a trafficker who has full understanding and responsibility for what he's doing and exploiting a mindless computer system designed for an entirely different purpose? Now I agree we as a society should recognize that some tools, in the hands of the criminal, sociopath or insane can do a lot of harm, and it's fair to move and restrict them. High explosives, nuclear material, anonymous banking are all examples of technologies that, while useful, can and should be restricted. But at no point it is a fault of the technology, and at no point should we examine the technology divorced from it's nefarious users who ultimately bear responsibility. Restricting useful technology is an extreme measure reserved for the most dangerous situations, otherwise ANY technology can be used for harming others. This particular case seems completely out of balance and likely to have NO impact.

smueller1234 9y ago
I think you may be misreading GP's point. My reading is that he's likening the frustrations of the non profits with getting through to what they consider faceless entities (the companies) to the lesser frustrations one may have when one's subjected to an optional IVR experience. In other words, paraphrasing liberally: "if you occasionally get annoyed by bring subjected to being automated by IVRs, imagine what these folks feel like trying to get through to [insert company name here]."
NotSammyHagar 9y ago
> High explosives, nuclear material, anonymous banking are all examples of technologies that, while useful, can and should be restricted. I'm not sure how to take your comments, based on your other thoughts. We shouldn't have anonymous banking, i.e. cryptocurrency or even cash?
- allannienhuis 9y ago
  I don't think he said anonymous banking should't be available at all - he explicitly said it was useful. But he also said it should be restricted for similar reasons the other things in his list should be restricted, because significant harm can be done to the public/society with it in the hands of some people. Money laundering is one example that comes to mind. If you're a proponent of Crypto currencies you've probably heard similar statements before - this criticism isn't new.

golergka 9y ago

"Human" as in emotional, impulsive and irrational, yes. It is also quite unfitting and stupid and innefective.

safety1st 9y ago

The "scorched earth" approach only gets support when the nature and scope of the issues are distorted. What are the real issues in play? One is prostitution, a form of sex work which is illegal in most of the United States. The American public have varying feelings about its legal status, how enforcement should be carried out, etc. Public opinion doesn't support measures which endanger sex workers (which FOSTA does), because they're already an at-risk group. A separate issue is human trafficking, which is moving people across borders for the purpose of slavery/forced labor, including sex slavery. Public opinion is rightly massively against slavery in any form. What I would like to know is, how much slavery was taking place through the Craigslist personals section? How much of it goes on in America? Can we get some real data injected into this discussion about the nature and the extent of actual forced sex labor? Scorched earth tactics might be appropriate if America has developed a serious slavery problem (again), but they need to be justified with facts. I've run across people who want to take a scorched earth approach to eradicating prostitution (which will not work any more than the war on drugs did). They refer to all prostitution as trafficking in order to conflate the two issues, mislead the public and build support for their radical policies. There is also a class of people who have used FOSTA as an opportunity to expand government power. Neither of these agendas reflect public opinion.

dangerlibrary 9y ago
> How much of it goes on in America? Can we get some real data injected into this discussion about the nature and the extent of actual forced sex labor? Scorched earth tactics might be appropriate if America has developed a serious slavery problem (again), but they need to be justified with facts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_trafficking_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_trafficking_in_the_United_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_the_Unite...
- safety1st 9y ago
  Thanks for the links! These Wikipedia articles demonstrate my point that the facts and data are very weak in the trafficking discussion, and that data is often misrepresented to exaggerate the size of the problem. - The sex trafficking article states that in 2001 the State Department estimated 50k-100k were trafficked into the US -- this estimate was for both genders but the article erroneously states it is women only. - Either way, by 2004 the State Department reduced its estimate to 14,500-17,500 trafficked into the US annually for all genders and purposes. - According to the Washington Post, between 2000-2007 the government had identified 1,362 total victims of human trafficking brought into the United States. The percentage of these related to sex is not mentioned. - The human trafficking article states that the Global Slavery Index estimated 57,700 people were trafficked into the US in 2016. This statement is also erroneous. The GSI's estimate was for the number of people in some form of "modern slavery," which by their definition includes certain kinds of prison labor among other things, and is unrelated to whether they were trafficked. - The article also doesn't mention that the GSI arrived at 57,700 by designating a tier of the least enslaved countries studied and estimating the number of modern slaves at 0.018% of the population. The same formula is used for Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, etc. I'm not trying to detract from the importance of the issue of modern slavery but mentioning the 57k out of context seems a bit misleading, the US is literally among the best in the world in this area and the number is so rough that it could be off by tens of thousands. And again, it has nothing to do with trafficking, let alone sex trafficking!) Both the ACLU and EFF oppose FOSTA on the grounds that it violates both human and civil rights. Why aren't we doing better studies and getting better data about the problem it purports to solve?

syshum 9y ago

>>I really wish that I could come forward with a solution to the online sex trafficking problem. Step 1. End Prohibition of Sex Work Step 2. Stop Diverting Police Resources to enforcing laws on what consenting Adults do on their own time (both Prostitution and Drugs) Step 3. Stop Criminalizing Speech driving to further and further under ground were it is no longer tracable at all The "scorched earth" groups are in no way protecting victims, in fact they are making it WORSE by driving people to more shady platforms deep deep under ground, where law enforcement will be less likely to find information or victims.

_pmf_ 9y ago
Some workers of the business in the Netherlands argue that the end of prohibition worsened conditions.
- jrs235 9y ago
  I assume things got worse because cowardly assholes are now allowed to treat the prostitutes disrespectfully. Before, the assholes that were afraid of the law wouldn't risk going to a prostitute. Now that the law won't hurt them, they go and are demanding disrespectful assholes. Just a guess. Edit: law abiding != kind, respectful, or moral
  - austinheap 9y ago
    Implying that there is some uptick in people who are "allowed to treat the prostitutes disrespectfully" in well-regulated societies is intellectually disingenuous. To quote @Illniyar: "Legalization is far from perfect but abuse in Nevada brothels is much lower than as street walkers." Assumptions are...well, you know the saying.
    - jrs235 9y ago
      Fair enough. Thank you for the reply and insight. My point is, there are more people now openly able and willing to approach prostitutes who think "shut up and do what I say because I'm paying you [you low life worthless being who has to sell you body to make a living]". I'm not saying all people who use or are okay with prostitution think this, just that the supply of people who think this and act this way now find themselves able to openly go to prostitutes (where as the law, and fear of it, kept these assholes from using prostitutes before).

kofejnik 9y ago

> it's a completely and totally human response to faceless, blameless, unapproachable (from their perspective) perpetrators and facilitators of systematic abuse and exploitation of innocent and vulnerable people. You mean, like millions of illegal immigrants who are working in farming, construction, fast food, and many other industries? How do you feel about scorched earth approach to those?

hnzix 9y ago
Apparently trading your body for sex is somehow metaphysically different to trading your body for labor.
- vixen99 9y ago
  It most certainly is for an indeterminate number of people.
  - kofejnik 9y ago
    then it should be honestly discussed in terms of morality, not 'but slavery and trafficking!'

PurpleBoxDragon 9y ago

But if you suggest to legalize and regulate it as a means of protecting those who don't wish to participate, you will be seen as a demonic entity who is advocating for sex crimes to be legalized. I don't think one can defend a crusade that so easily and extremely ignores alternative solutions. I suspect a lot of the push is from very conservative or sex negative views who see this as an opening to roll back some of the recently won sexual freedoms.

TallGuyShort 9y ago
It works both ways with different issues. Generally speaking every political discussion has degraded into accusing the other side of killing children.

mseebach 9y ago

> In defense of the "scorched earth approach or nothing" folks: from my perspective... it's a completely and totally human response to faceless, blameless, unapproachable (from their perspective) perpetrators and facilitators of systematic abuse and exploitation of innocent and vulnerable people. Yes, the instinct is understandable, but by the time we're putting NGO experts in government-sponsored working groups for the purpose of drafting legislation, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that we're expecting something that rises (high!) above mere instinct. Otherwise, we can (almost, somewhat melodramatic exaggeration) just let mobs with pitchforks take care of business and save a ton of effort.

Fjolsvith 9y ago

Chris_Jay 9y ago
both of those statements can be true.

ryanlol 9y ago

The difference is that this approach could work against IVRs, but not against sex trafficking.

spocksdoom 9y ago

the good of the dozens outweighs the liberty the entire species?

Kalium 9y ago

You're absolutely right. It it a deeply human response to an incredible frustration. After decades of struggle, to help the poor, vulnerable, and oppressed, it's down a couple of faceless corporations that don't seem to care. Because if they just knew, if they just understood, if they just had a little human empathy and sympathy for the pain and suffering... Why then they'd take all their money and smart people and Solve the Problem! That this is perhaps an excessively simplistic view doesn't occur to people who fervently believe that it's simply a matter of making the useless arrogant dweebs do the right thing. Instead, it's scorched earth with good intentions. My heart aches for the wonderful people saving lives out there. For their deep frustration, and for the purity of their beliefs and intentions. Yet, it's perhaps abstractly possible that empathy and good intentions might be subtly different from good policy.

pmarreck 9y ago

The scorched earth mentality says that if you're not in favor of gun-banning, you're pro-murder. If you're not in favor of policing all of your user-generated content instantaneously and at significant cost, then you are pro-childporn and pro-child-sexual-exploitation. When in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The form of this is a false equivalency (or perhaps the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition): If you are pro-<activity that is only rarely engaged in by bad actors>, then you are pro-<activity that is ONLY done by bad actors> The upshot of this will be ZERO startups that deal in user-generated content simply because they cannot afford the manpower or the liability. Which is a pretty bad consequence, IMHO. This also creates a law open to abuse: If you have a corporate enemy that permits user-generated content, simply anonymously post some objectionable content to their site, take a screenshot, and then alert the authorities with the URL and screenshot. It's like SWATting, except on a whole 'nother level! Is Giphy really to blame in this fiasco? How are they somehow more to blame than the person who actually posted this? (as they would be, after this law goes into effect) https://mashable.com/2018/03/10/snapchat-instagram-giphy-racist/ https://mashable.com/2018/03/10/snapchat-instagram-giphy-rac...