7 ms·

This argument is so often used; that shutting down access to one means of doing an illegal or negative act doesn't matter because there are other means and it's

This argument is so often used; that shutting down access to one means of doing an illegal or negative act doesn't matter because there are other means and it's always false. Any time you increase the cost of doing something by a non-trivial amount you are almost certain to decrease the amount that thing is done. The assumptions you make that you lead you to your conclusion aren't clearly based in fact: 1) It is effectively costless to move to a new service 2) Any new service has equivalent demand 3) The profits are significant (your very profitable human trafficking business) The first is clearly false. You'll need to move all your workflows to a new platform, learn the new platform, understand how to market on it, etc. The second is also clearly false. These are marketplaces meaning there are strong network effects. Backpage was likely the best marketplace meaning it had very large portions of both the supply side and demand side. Now, how do you what service to move to when no service is dominant yet? You don't. You almost certainly see decreased marketplace effects in the "100 other sites doing this". For the third, is there any reason at all to believe the human trafficking business is "very profitable"? It seems like a very small market with very high costs. Of course, a further effect here is the deterrent that shutting down such a website will be to developers who may wish to replace backpage. A further example of what I will call "the fallacy of costless transfer" is in suicide prevention. Removing access to easy means of suicide, prevents the likelihood of committing suicide. Hence why there is to be a net around the golden gate bridge to catch jumpers.

jjeaff 9y ago
Not to mention, of those hundred new sites that popup, some of them will be honey pots operated by law enforcement. Traffickers have lost a trusted marketplace and it will hopefully be difficult to find another.
- nickthemagicman 9y ago
  Theres literally infinite number of places on the web human traffickers can start a market place.
  - emiliobumachar 9y ago
    Irrelevant. Once they start a new one, how will buyers know they're not a cop?
    - anonbanker 9y ago
      you should probably look into "Zero-Trust Authentication".
busterarm 9y ago
Yeah, prohibition has worked out lots of times.
- jakelazaroff 9y ago
  When people refer to prohibitions failing, they're generally referring to consensual or victimless crimes: drugs, alcohol, (non-coerced) prostitution, gambling, etc. That's not the case here. Coercion and violence are component to human trafficking. Taking down Backpage and similar websites isn't "prohibition" any more than laws against murder are.
  - busterarm 9y ago
    And I think you missed the point completely and that's exactly why my comment had to be made. The fact that you use murder here is a perfect example. Prohibition measures are all about restricting the availability of something to curb the desire of it. With the sole exception of the Quaalude, it has never worked. A single government had to convince a global industry to stop its production entirely. There were only like 7 or 9 labs making it though. Oh and with designer drug labs in China, you can actually get ludes made now if you're clever. Human trafficking, coercion and violence is a side-effect of a desire creating a market. Driving that market underground will not eliminate the market, you have to eliminate peoples' desire for that thing. You can't globally stop the production of human beings to curtail this market like they did with Quaaludes... Murder is just about the freest, easiest thing you can do if that's your desire. Murder rates are on the decline because it's just something not that many people want to do anymore.
    - creddit 9y ago
      See Singapore's drug use policies.
      - busterarm 9y ago
        Which are the complete opposite of prohibition. Singapore's policies have nothing to do with restricting access. They're torture, life imprisonment or the death penalty. Apples to Oranges.
nickthemagicman 9y ago
Your anologies are all wrong. Its like trying to kill a fly with a sledgehammer. It's like a grocery store being closed because one of the manufacturers products was bad. Its like burning down a house to kill a mouse. Its like if someone created ads on Hacker News for prostitution and the government shut down the entire site. Its like targeting the INTERNET instead of the actual HUMAN TRAFFICKERS.... These sensational news reports are a distraction from SESTA a really freaky law that allows the govt to bring criminal action against a sites owners for content they deem innappropriate...its already affected numerous sites beyond backpage. Our civil liberties and the internet have been grossly eroded by SESTA and its sad to see the day when the government can shut sites down at their leisure.
- creddit 9y ago
  I'm not reasoning through analogies like yours. I was reasoning from principles. Your analogies might be nice sound bites but don't have much value in describing the world. Your problems with SESTA may be valid but that's a completely separate question from whether or not shutting backpage down would limit human trafficking. You're arguing from mood affiliation (that SESTA is bad and therefore anything associated with it is bad) and not against the principles.
  - nickthemagicman 9y ago
    You're arguing from poor statistics. Backpage was the second largest classifieds ads service on the internet. Thousands+ of ads per week... It blows my mind that people are fine with destroying the foundation of the free internet for something that's a minor statistical outlier drop in the bucket of activities on these sites no matter how horrible the activity may be. In related news we've been spending 7.6 billion a year on the TSA after 9.11 to prevent terrorism....
    - creddit 9y ago
      It was involved in 73 percent of all child trafficking cases reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The proportion of that site's activities that are related to illegal activities is completely irrelevant. It may be that 0.001% of the classifieds on Backpage were human trafficking related but if that made up even 10% of human trafficking cases this is a slam dunk success in terms of stopping human trafficking. In related news we've been spending 7.6 billion a year on the TSA after 9.11 to prevent terrorism.... True and that's a terrible waste of money but completely unrelated to this. It blows my mind that someone thinks allowing terrible illegal activity in the name of some mysterious concept of internet freedom is a good thing. Certainly you don't seem particularly concerned with the freedom of those being trafficked in the physical world.

jjeaff 9y ago

Not to mention, of those hundred new sites that popup, some of them will be honey pots operated by law enforcement. Traffickers have lost a trusted marketplace and it will hopefully be difficult to find another.

nickthemagicman 9y ago
Theres literally infinite number of places on the web human traffickers can start a market place.
- emiliobumachar 9y ago
  Irrelevant. Once they start a new one, how will buyers know they're not a cop?
  - anonbanker 9y ago
    you should probably look into "Zero-Trust Authentication".

busterarm 9y ago

Yeah, prohibition has worked out lots of times.

jakelazaroff 9y ago
When people refer to prohibitions failing, they're generally referring to consensual or victimless crimes: drugs, alcohol, (non-coerced) prostitution, gambling, etc. That's not the case here. Coercion and violence are component to human trafficking. Taking down Backpage and similar websites isn't "prohibition" any more than laws against murder are.
- busterarm 9y ago
  And I think you missed the point completely and that's exactly why my comment had to be made. The fact that you use murder here is a perfect example. Prohibition measures are all about restricting the availability of something to curb the desire of it. With the sole exception of the Quaalude, it has never worked. A single government had to convince a global industry to stop its production entirely. There were only like 7 or 9 labs making it though. Oh and with designer drug labs in China, you can actually get ludes made now if you're clever. Human trafficking, coercion and violence is a side-effect of a desire creating a market. Driving that market underground will not eliminate the market, you have to eliminate peoples' desire for that thing. You can't globally stop the production of human beings to curtail this market like they did with Quaaludes... Murder is just about the freest, easiest thing you can do if that's your desire. Murder rates are on the decline because it's just something not that many people want to do anymore.
  - creddit 9y ago
    See Singapore's drug use policies.
    - busterarm 9y ago
      Which are the complete opposite of prohibition. Singapore's policies have nothing to do with restricting access. They're torture, life imprisonment or the death penalty. Apples to Oranges.

nickthemagicman 9y ago

Your anologies are all wrong. Its like trying to kill a fly with a sledgehammer. It's like a grocery store being closed because one of the manufacturers products was bad. Its like burning down a house to kill a mouse. Its like if someone created ads on Hacker News for prostitution and the government shut down the entire site. Its like targeting the INTERNET instead of the actual HUMAN TRAFFICKERS.... These sensational news reports are a distraction from SESTA a really freaky law that allows the govt to bring criminal action against a sites owners for content they deem innappropriate...its already affected numerous sites beyond backpage. Our civil liberties and the internet have been grossly eroded by SESTA and its sad to see the day when the government can shut sites down at their leisure.

creddit 9y ago
I'm not reasoning through analogies like yours. I was reasoning from principles. Your analogies might be nice sound bites but don't have much value in describing the world. Your problems with SESTA may be valid but that's a completely separate question from whether or not shutting backpage down would limit human trafficking. You're arguing from mood affiliation (that SESTA is bad and therefore anything associated with it is bad) and not against the principles.
- nickthemagicman 9y ago
  You're arguing from poor statistics. Backpage was the second largest classifieds ads service on the internet. Thousands+ of ads per week... It blows my mind that people are fine with destroying the foundation of the free internet for something that's a minor statistical outlier drop in the bucket of activities on these sites no matter how horrible the activity may be. In related news we've been spending 7.6 billion a year on the TSA after 9.11 to prevent terrorism....
  - creddit 9y ago
    It was involved in 73 percent of all child trafficking cases reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The proportion of that site's activities that are related to illegal activities is completely irrelevant. It may be that 0.001% of the classifieds on Backpage were human trafficking related but if that made up even 10% of human trafficking cases this is a slam dunk success in terms of stopping human trafficking. In related news we've been spending 7.6 billion a year on the TSA after 9.11 to prevent terrorism.... True and that's a terrible waste of money but completely unrelated to this. It blows my mind that someone thinks allowing terrible illegal activity in the name of some mysterious concept of internet freedom is a good thing. Certainly you don't seem particularly concerned with the freedom of those being trafficked in the physical world.