What the hell is wrong with people? Two factors are at play here, although “wrong with people” may be overly harsh and is certainly unhelpful. First, a lot of

What the hell is wrong with people? Two factors are at play here, although “wrong with people” may be overly harsh and is certainly unhelpful. First, a lot of people, myself included, think that prohibition of prostitution is a bad idea. Now I’d argue that in this case that’s a bit of a red herring, because we’re talking about sexual slavery, not sexual work. The second factor is a little nasty, but let’s face it... a site full of “toolmakers” takes a strong stance against people who make tools being held accountable for the uses of those tools. What a shock. Now it’s not just that simple, because some people are legitimately concerned about the proverbial blacksmith being held liable for making hammers. Others point out that if the blacksmith specially made “head cracking hammers” for Big Bob The Headsmasher, then the blacksmith crossed a line. Others are ideologically or practically opposed to almost any regulation. It’s a mess of people talking past each other, angrily. Personally I believe that BackPage was a bad actor, and as for SF I’ll wait and see what pretrial discovery turns up. Most people seem to be more interested in rushing to conclusions though, and fighting over hypotheticals, hence the high noise:signal ratio here.