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They stripped terms out related specifically to children from the listings and still posted them.

by wavefunction 8y ago

noobermin 8y ago
Something like a dumb wordfilter? Or did they just ban words and traffickers posted ads that didn't include them?
- jovrtn 8y ago
  According to the Senate report on the matter[0], Backpage would systematically help posters reword illegal ads to appear less so: "Backpage has publicly touted its process for screening adult advertisements as an industry-leading effort to protect against criminal abuse, including sex trafficking. A closer review of that “moderation” process reveals, however, that Backpage has maintained a practice of altering ads before publication by deleting words, phrases, and images indicative of an illegal transaction." [0] https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Backpage%20Report%202017.01.10%20FINAL.pdf https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Backpage%20Report...
  - noobermin 8y ago
    Scanned the executive summary. That does sound like they aren't good guys. As I posted above, putting down backpage as a whole puts a lot of sex workers at risk, but this gives me mixed feelings about backpage in general.
    - jovrtn 8y ago
      Yeah—not arguing the overall wisdom of law enforcement's approach here, but it's important to understand how much these guys were aware of the illegal activity on their platform and chose to actively facilitate it.
  - sbr464 8y ago
    I can’t help but think that the lawyers and marketing team for Donald Trump struggle keeping up with this same task on a daily basis.
- jstarfish 8y ago
  If they actively banned/prohibited ads/posters that used obviously illegal terms, I suspect they wouldn't be in the situation they're currently in. Instead, someone would post an ad for a "sexy mocha l0lita 4 you", and Backpage values profit over principles so they took it upon themselves to remove the term "l0lita" and allow such ads to be posted.
ellius 8y ago
Clearly no one is reading the Senate reports or any of the other factual detail pertaining to Backpage's conduct. They were very obviously doing everything in their power to continue advertising children. They hired staff and trained them to help posters avoid trigger words, but as you said would post the ads and basically never alert law enforcement. There are some good points in here from people quoting sex workers and people who try to help sex workers (public health officials etc) who believe that having everything centralized and public was a benefit to their efforts, but anyone defending Backpage's conduct is either willfully ignorant of their behavior and just sharing their general views about prostitution or has a seriously messed up idea of right and wrong.
- tptacek 8y ago
  It's worth remembering that when we talk about stripping things from ads, the ads included photographs, and the photographs were apparently not stripped from the ads.

They stripped terms out related specifically to children from the listings and still posted them.

noobermin 8y ago

Something like a dumb wordfilter? Or did they just ban words and traffickers posted ads that didn't include them?

jovrtn 8y ago
According to the Senate report on the matter[0], Backpage would systematically help posters reword illegal ads to appear less so: "Backpage has publicly touted its process for screening adult advertisements as an industry-leading effort to protect against criminal abuse, including sex trafficking. A closer review of that “moderation” process reveals, however, that Backpage has maintained a practice of altering ads before publication by deleting words, phrases, and images indicative of an illegal transaction." [0] https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Backpage%20Report%202017.01.10%20FINAL.pdf https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Backpage%20Report...
- noobermin 8y ago
  Scanned the executive summary. That does sound like they aren't good guys. As I posted above, putting down backpage as a whole puts a lot of sex workers at risk, but this gives me mixed feelings about backpage in general.
  - jovrtn 8y ago
    Yeah—not arguing the overall wisdom of law enforcement's approach here, but it's important to understand how much these guys were aware of the illegal activity on their platform and chose to actively facilitate it.
- sbr464 8y ago
  I can’t help but think that the lawyers and marketing team for Donald Trump struggle keeping up with this same task on a daily basis.
jstarfish 8y ago
If they actively banned/prohibited ads/posters that used obviously illegal terms, I suspect they wouldn't be in the situation they're currently in. Instead, someone would post an ad for a "sexy mocha l0lita 4 you", and Backpage values profit over principles so they took it upon themselves to remove the term "l0lita" and allow such ads to be posted.

ellius 8y ago

Clearly no one is reading the Senate reports or any of the other factual detail pertaining to Backpage's conduct. They were very obviously doing everything in their power to continue advertising children. They hired staff and trained them to help posters avoid trigger words, but as you said would post the ads and basically never alert law enforcement. There are some good points in here from people quoting sex workers and people who try to help sex workers (public health officials etc) who believe that having everything centralized and public was a benefit to their efforts, but anyone defending Backpage's conduct is either willfully ignorant of their behavior and just sharing their general views about prostitution or has a seriously messed up idea of right and wrong.

tptacek 8y ago
It's worth remembering that when we talk about stripping things from ads, the ads included photographs, and the photographs were apparently not stripped from the ads.