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> And the CEO himself pleaded guilty to money laundering. I remember people here were coming out in droves to defend the company against big bad government when

> And the CEO himself pleaded guilty to money laundering. I remember people here were coming out in droves to defend the company against big bad government when the site was first seized. They weren't defending Backpage, they were condemning the power grab in the form of a law that was passed (but has not yet been signed) where they let this whole situation languish to make it easier to "sell" the new powers for the Government. You are confusing the fight over FOSTA/SESTA/etc. with the fight over Backpage just like the people who pushed those laws intended you to.

stale2002 8y ago
Actually, I saw lots of people defending backpage. It is some sort of new age leftist thing, where the argument is that backpage somehow made things safer for sex workers.
- williamscales 8y ago
  I believe there is a valid argument that giving sex workers a platform where they can advertise relatively safely improves their safety. I, for one, did not really research Backpage that much and so was unaware of the reality of the allegations against them. For myself, I chose not to weigh in on the debate, even though I have the belief I stated above, because I didn't feel I had enough background.
- andymoe 8y ago
  No, this is the actual sex workers saying “places like backpage, where I can vet clients ahead of time, keeps me safer.”
  - oep2929 8y ago
    The issue is when the only choice is “poke or be broke” it’s time to rethink our culture We’re all forced to sell our time but what we have to offer varies You wanna suck dick for a meal? You hiring people without tech skills? There’s a whole lot of “sucking it up” for a lot of women with little choice but to “suck for survival”
    - jjeaff 8y ago
      So you think if we had a better social safety net like say, the Netherlands, we would see less prostitution?
      - noobermin 8y ago
        Not speaking for the green account, but, yes, I think improving the economic standing of all people would go a long way towards getting people out of the sex trade or from entering into it.
        loggedinmyphone 8y ago
        I'm pretty sure the comment you responded to was sarcasm, given the prevalence of red light districts in the Netherlands.
  - stale2002 8y ago
    Yes, I'm sure it works great for the upper middle class white escorts who are essentially small business owners. The issue is the effect that it has on trafficking, and that it makes trafficking much more profitable.
    - noobermin 8y ago
      Instead of making assumptions about the people you believe you're saving, it would help to actually listen to them about what would help them and what wouldn't. Above I share an article from a former sex worker. Here is yet another that cites[0] sex workers as well. [0] https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/sesta-anti-sex-trafficking-bill-fosta.html https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/sesta-anti-sex-trafficking-bi...
      - deft 8y ago
        how does that link invalidate the parent comment? No more details on who is saying "backpage is good". And I almost guarantee sex-trafficked women aren't the ones defending it. So why don't we listen to the victims of the crime the bill is about: sex-trafficking. NOT prostitution.
        girvo 8y ago
        But they didn’t even need the damned bill to nail the Backpage owners. So what’s the point of the SESTA power grab?
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        The point of the FOSTA power grabs is to make it easy to go after sites providing arms-length escort information with no or only incidental connection to trafficking and with none of the ancillary (money laundering, etc.) offenses in the Backpage or MyRedbook cases. SESTA seems mostly to function as a smokescreen for FOSTA (since it drives all the media attention to it and it's knowing involvement in trafficking requirement).
    - lilililili 8y ago
  - AFNobody 8y ago
    The thing is they weren't defending Backpage but Craigslist (among others) that shut down due to new legislation. I don't think anyone was really defending Backpage (the site itself, rather than the broker function) in any real numbers.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- chc 8y ago
  Do you think backpage is actually less safe than working with a pimp? A place can be pretty bad and still preferable to the alternative if that alternative is bad enough.
  - pharrington 8y ago
    No. Turns out that question is irrelevant, because Backpage and pimps were empirically compatible.
    - chc 8y ago
      You're drawing a false dilemma here. The question isn't "Was it possible for pimps to go on Backpage?" but "How easy was it to work without a pimp on Backpage versus on the street?" That's the argument people were making — not that nothing bad ever happened where Backpage was involved, but that sex workers feel more required to put themselves in bad situations in the absence of something like Backpage.
      - jakelazaroff 8y ago
        Likewise, the argument that people who support the takedown are making isn't "it was possible to use Backpage for prostitution", but "Backpage themselves were actively colluding with human traffickers". Maybe sex workers are less safe now that Backpage is gone, and that sucks — but it doesn't mean we let people working with human traffickers slide.
        chc 8y ago
        If you look back a bit in the thread, the idea that I was disagreeing with is that this proves people were wrong when they said Backpage made many sex workers safer. I'm not saying we should let the Backpage people slide, but that the ideas "Backpage was involved in some very messed-up stuff that people should go to jail for" and "Backpage was better than the streets for sex workers on the whole" can both be true simultaneously.
  - paxys 8y ago
paxys 8y ago
You must have skipped over the many hundreds of "Backpage actually reduces trafficking" comments.
- noobermin 8y ago
  If you actually listen to sex workers and people who were victims of trafficking, this is not the way to go. Law enforcement can be very unhelpful to sex workers and giving them more powers puts them in danger. Moreover, not having online platforms to screen customers and share information amongst themselves isolates sex workers and further endangers them, forcing them to engage in dangerous work on the street. Here is a good link on this[0]. Here[1] is also a short interview of the author. [0] https://www.allure.com/story/sesta-sex-trafficking-bill-celebrity-psa https://www.allure.com/story/sesta-sex-trafficking-bill-cele... [1] https://youtu.be/2TEcWKz_TAg?t=8m52s https://youtu.be/2TEcWKz_TAg?t=8m52s
  - sgc 8y ago
    Or they could look at the current guilty plea and the public evidence tied to it and come to a reasonable conclusion. That anecdotally some people are helped does not make up for the crimes committed against even more vulnerable members of society using that site. I disagree with the new law, but the site had to go.
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    We're not just talking about trafficked adult women. Backpage is alleged to have facilitated a huge number of underage child sex trafficking transactions. Apparently, with some knowledge of what was going on.
- AFNobody 8y ago
  Where were they and in context on HN? And please prove there were hundreds.

stale2002 8y ago

Actually, I saw lots of people defending backpage. It is some sort of new age leftist thing, where the argument is that backpage somehow made things safer for sex workers.

williamscales 8y ago
I believe there is a valid argument that giving sex workers a platform where they can advertise relatively safely improves their safety. I, for one, did not really research Backpage that much and so was unaware of the reality of the allegations against them. For myself, I chose not to weigh in on the debate, even though I have the belief I stated above, because I didn't feel I had enough background.
andymoe 8y ago
No, this is the actual sex workers saying “places like backpage, where I can vet clients ahead of time, keeps me safer.”
- oep2929 8y ago
  The issue is when the only choice is “poke or be broke” it’s time to rethink our culture We’re all forced to sell our time but what we have to offer varies You wanna suck dick for a meal? You hiring people without tech skills? There’s a whole lot of “sucking it up” for a lot of women with little choice but to “suck for survival”
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    So you think if we had a better social safety net like say, the Netherlands, we would see less prostitution?
    - noobermin 8y ago
      Not speaking for the green account, but, yes, I think improving the economic standing of all people would go a long way towards getting people out of the sex trade or from entering into it.
      - loggedinmyphone 8y ago
        I'm pretty sure the comment you responded to was sarcasm, given the prevalence of red light districts in the Netherlands.
- stale2002 8y ago
  Yes, I'm sure it works great for the upper middle class white escorts who are essentially small business owners. The issue is the effect that it has on trafficking, and that it makes trafficking much more profitable.
  - noobermin 8y ago
    Instead of making assumptions about the people you believe you're saving, it would help to actually listen to them about what would help them and what wouldn't. Above I share an article from a former sex worker. Here is yet another that cites[0] sex workers as well. [0] https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/sesta-anti-sex-trafficking-bill-fosta.html https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/sesta-anti-sex-trafficking-bi...
    - deft 8y ago
      how does that link invalidate the parent comment? No more details on who is saying "backpage is good". And I almost guarantee sex-trafficked women aren't the ones defending it. So why don't we listen to the victims of the crime the bill is about: sex-trafficking. NOT prostitution.
      - girvo 8y ago
        But they didn’t even need the damned bill to nail the Backpage owners. So what’s the point of the SESTA power grab?
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        The point of the FOSTA power grabs is to make it easy to go after sites providing arms-length escort information with no or only incidental connection to trafficking and with none of the ancillary (money laundering, etc.) offenses in the Backpage or MyRedbook cases. SESTA seems mostly to function as a smokescreen for FOSTA (since it drives all the media attention to it and it's knowing involvement in trafficking requirement).
  - lilililili 8y ago
- AFNobody 8y ago
  The thing is they weren't defending Backpage but Craigslist (among others) that shut down due to new legislation. I don't think anyone was really defending Backpage (the site itself, rather than the broker function) in any real numbers.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
chc 8y ago
Do you think backpage is actually less safe than working with a pimp? A place can be pretty bad and still preferable to the alternative if that alternative is bad enough.
- pharrington 8y ago
  No. Turns out that question is irrelevant, because Backpage and pimps were empirically compatible.
  - chc 8y ago
    You're drawing a false dilemma here. The question isn't "Was it possible for pimps to go on Backpage?" but "How easy was it to work without a pimp on Backpage versus on the street?" That's the argument people were making — not that nothing bad ever happened where Backpage was involved, but that sex workers feel more required to put themselves in bad situations in the absence of something like Backpage.
    - jakelazaroff 8y ago
      Likewise, the argument that people who support the takedown are making isn't "it was possible to use Backpage for prostitution", but "Backpage themselves were actively colluding with human traffickers". Maybe sex workers are less safe now that Backpage is gone, and that sucks — but it doesn't mean we let people working with human traffickers slide.
      - chc 8y ago
        If you look back a bit in the thread, the idea that I was disagreeing with is that this proves people were wrong when they said Backpage made many sex workers safer. I'm not saying we should let the Backpage people slide, but that the ideas "Backpage was involved in some very messed-up stuff that people should go to jail for" and "Backpage was better than the streets for sex workers on the whole" can both be true simultaneously.
- paxys 8y ago

paxys 8y ago

You must have skipped over the many hundreds of "Backpage actually reduces trafficking" comments.

noobermin 8y ago
If you actually listen to sex workers and people who were victims of trafficking, this is not the way to go. Law enforcement can be very unhelpful to sex workers and giving them more powers puts them in danger. Moreover, not having online platforms to screen customers and share information amongst themselves isolates sex workers and further endangers them, forcing them to engage in dangerous work on the street. Here is a good link on this[0]. Here[1] is also a short interview of the author. [0] https://www.allure.com/story/sesta-sex-trafficking-bill-celebrity-psa https://www.allure.com/story/sesta-sex-trafficking-bill-cele... [1] https://youtu.be/2TEcWKz_TAg?t=8m52s https://youtu.be/2TEcWKz_TAg?t=8m52s
- sgc 8y ago
  Or they could look at the current guilty plea and the public evidence tied to it and come to a reasonable conclusion. That anecdotally some people are helped does not make up for the crimes committed against even more vulnerable members of society using that site. I disagree with the new law, but the site had to go.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  We're not just talking about trafficked adult women. Backpage is alleged to have facilitated a huge number of underage child sex trafficking transactions. Apparently, with some knowledge of what was going on.
AFNobody 8y ago
Where were they and in context on HN? And please prove there were hundreds.