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You seem to have missed this paragraph: > When Backpage lost some of the court cases they put in filters so the advertisers couldn't be quite so blatant. But B

You seem to have missed this paragraph: > When Backpage lost some of the court cases they put in filters so the advertisers couldn't be quite so blatant. But Backpage also told the advertisers how to evade those filters. "Use words like 'Amber Alert'" they said. This directly addresses your argument: backpage changed to make the child prostitution less obvious.

vageli 9y ago
At least when it was semi-public coordinated police efforts could have tackled some of these prostitution rings. Now that these forums are being taken down the conversations will just move to other places which will be harder to observe. There's a lot of money involved in crimes like this and I doubt the crimes will stop overnight for lack of marketplace. Just like when Silk Road was taken down and many more darknet markets sprung up to fill the void.
- IAmEveryone 9y ago
  From what I've read about Backpage, prostitution actually moved back to the street, where it happens to be much easier to police.
- DanBC 9y ago
  > At least when it was semi-public coordinated police efforts could have tackled some of these prostitution rings. It's generally accepted among researchers that the Internet makes life easier for people trafficking sex, and harder for law enforcement to investigate those crimes. This is especially the case in something like Backpage, where they had a policy to not report to law enforcement, and to provide incomplete information to law enforcement. Backpage was claiming to be a dumb pipe. They weren't. They were giving advice to advertisers about which words to use or avoid. They knew advertisers were selling rape of children, they told those advertisers how to do it. And so when they made reports to law enforcement they had to withold some information - the bits where they'd helped the pimps - because that showed they were not dumb pipes.
Consultant32452 9y ago
I specifically pointed out that I searched that key word and found no results. Even if that keyword has fallen out of use, surely something would've shown up in the hundreds of ads I looked at. I'm trying to be a reasonable person here. What should I do to validate OP's claims? I even doubled down and looked at some actual accounts in court claims (articles about them). It says that backpage filtered searches for some key words associated with child sex trafficking but not some others, and not some misspellings of those words. Of course as soon as BP filters some words the criminals will start using others. What is the reasonable test here?
- DanBC 9y ago
  > What should I do to validate OP's claims? Listen to Backpage. They don't attempt to deny that they publish these ads. They do claim that the first amendment and the Communications Decency Act mean they're blameless for doing so. The fact that Backpage was telling advertisers how to avoid the filters is also widely accepted. In fact, it's worse: Backpage developed software to automatically change ads before moderating the ads. Watch the video and read the Chairman's comments: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/hearings/backpagecoms-knowing-facilitation-of-online-sex-trafficking https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/he... > Our report demonstrates that Backpage has concealed evidence of crimes by systematically deleting words and images suggestive of illegal conduct from advertisements submitted to their website before publishing the ads. And some of those ads involved child sex trafficking. Backpage’s editing process sanitized the content of millions of advertisements and hid important evidence from law enforcement. > This story begins in 2006, when Backpage executives began instructing staff responsible for screening ads (known as “moderators”) to edit the text of adult ads to conceal their true nature. By October 2010, Backpage executives formalized a process of both manual and automated deletion of incriminating words and phrases in ads. > A feature known as the “Strip Term From Ad filter” did most of the work. Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer personally directed his employees to create this electronic filter to “strip”—that is, to delete—hundreds of words indicative of sex trafficking or prostitution from ads before publication. > To be clear, this filter did not reject ads for illegal activity. Backpage executives were afraid that would cut into profits and, in Ferrer’s words, “piss off a lot” of customers. Instead, the Strip Term From Ad filter simply altered ads to conceal signs of illegality. They put profits ahead of vulnerable women and children. The evidence is clear that Backpage deliberately edited out words indicative of child sex trafficking and other crimes from ads. > The list of terms is chilling. Starting in 2010, Backpage automatically deleted words including “lolita,” “teenage,” “rape,” “young,” “little girl,” “teen,” “fresh,” “innocent,” “school girl,” and even “amber alert”—and then published the edited versions of the ads to their website. Backpage also systematically deleted scores of words indicative of prostitution. > Backpage claims their staff reviews ads to avoid child exploitation, but these terms were stripped out before anyone at Backpage even looked at the ad. And when law enforcement officials came asking for more information about suspicious ads—as they routinely did—Backpage had already destroyed the original ad posted by the pimp or trafficker. The evidence was gone.

vageli 9y ago

At least when it was semi-public coordinated police efforts could have tackled some of these prostitution rings. Now that these forums are being taken down the conversations will just move to other places which will be harder to observe. There's a lot of money involved in crimes like this and I doubt the crimes will stop overnight for lack of marketplace. Just like when Silk Road was taken down and many more darknet markets sprung up to fill the void.

IAmEveryone 9y ago
From what I've read about Backpage, prostitution actually moved back to the street, where it happens to be much easier to police.
DanBC 9y ago
> At least when it was semi-public coordinated police efforts could have tackled some of these prostitution rings. It's generally accepted among researchers that the Internet makes life easier for people trafficking sex, and harder for law enforcement to investigate those crimes. This is especially the case in something like Backpage, where they had a policy to not report to law enforcement, and to provide incomplete information to law enforcement. Backpage was claiming to be a dumb pipe. They weren't. They were giving advice to advertisers about which words to use or avoid. They knew advertisers were selling rape of children, they told those advertisers how to do it. And so when they made reports to law enforcement they had to withold some information - the bits where they'd helped the pimps - because that showed they were not dumb pipes.

Consultant32452 9y ago

I specifically pointed out that I searched that key word and found no results. Even if that keyword has fallen out of use, surely something would've shown up in the hundreds of ads I looked at. I'm trying to be a reasonable person here. What should I do to validate OP's claims? I even doubled down and looked at some actual accounts in court claims (articles about them). It says that backpage filtered searches for some key words associated with child sex trafficking but not some others, and not some misspellings of those words. Of course as soon as BP filters some words the criminals will start using others. What is the reasonable test here?

DanBC 9y ago
> What should I do to validate OP's claims? Listen to Backpage. They don't attempt to deny that they publish these ads. They do claim that the first amendment and the Communications Decency Act mean they're blameless for doing so. The fact that Backpage was telling advertisers how to avoid the filters is also widely accepted. In fact, it's worse: Backpage developed software to automatically change ads before moderating the ads. Watch the video and read the Chairman's comments: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/hearings/backpagecoms-knowing-facilitation-of-online-sex-trafficking https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/he... > Our report demonstrates that Backpage has concealed evidence of crimes by systematically deleting words and images suggestive of illegal conduct from advertisements submitted to their website before publishing the ads. And some of those ads involved child sex trafficking. Backpage’s editing process sanitized the content of millions of advertisements and hid important evidence from law enforcement. > This story begins in 2006, when Backpage executives began instructing staff responsible for screening ads (known as “moderators”) to edit the text of adult ads to conceal their true nature. By October 2010, Backpage executives formalized a process of both manual and automated deletion of incriminating words and phrases in ads. > A feature known as the “Strip Term From Ad filter” did most of the work. Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer personally directed his employees to create this electronic filter to “strip”—that is, to delete—hundreds of words indicative of sex trafficking or prostitution from ads before publication. > To be clear, this filter did not reject ads for illegal activity. Backpage executives were afraid that would cut into profits and, in Ferrer’s words, “piss off a lot” of customers. Instead, the Strip Term From Ad filter simply altered ads to conceal signs of illegality. They put profits ahead of vulnerable women and children. The evidence is clear that Backpage deliberately edited out words indicative of child sex trafficking and other crimes from ads. > The list of terms is chilling. Starting in 2010, Backpage automatically deleted words including “lolita,” “teenage,” “rape,” “young,” “little girl,” “teen,” “fresh,” “innocent,” “school girl,” and even “amber alert”—and then published the edited versions of the ads to their website. Backpage also systematically deleted scores of words indicative of prostitution. > Backpage claims their staff reviews ads to avoid child exploitation, but these terms were stripped out before anyone at Backpage even looked at the ad. And when law enforcement officials came asking for more information about suspicious ads—as they routinely did—Backpage had already destroyed the original ad posted by the pimp or trafficker. The evidence was gone.