CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

EDITORIAL: FOSTA brings kudos

Joplin Globe - 4/15/2018

April 15--U.S. legislators and President Donald Trump's administration deserve kudos for final passage of legislation this week that enhances local, state and federal law enforcers' ability to go after websites that are involved in sex trafficking and that provides victims of human trafficking the opportunity to seek damages from the companies that operate those sites.

First Amendment protections and our nation's commitment to a free internet have been abused by these providers, such as the website involved in trafficking cases in our own community, Backpage.com. The Globe has and continues to cover these sex trafficking cases carefully, including in a package of reports on today's front page. We trust that the new law will be applied responsibly to address these abuses.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reports that Backpage has been involved in nearly three-quarters of all the public reports it received on child trafficking. Law enforcers have pursued the site for some time, but it has successfully evaded prosecution in a number of instances by citing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that says, in part, "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

The bill signed into law Wednesday, the Allow States And Victims To Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, provides what should be a narrow exception to the law by allowing prosecution and lawsuits against sites that knowingly operate these online red-light districts.

Opponents to the law, referred to as FOSTA, say that it is already chilling free speech on sites that have previously operated as forums where consenting adults made online sexual connections and that it endangers sex workers by forcing them further underground. Any chilling effect this law has on legitimate discourse is regrettable and the law must be enforced in a way that limits such an effect. However, abuses have been rampant.

Backpage has been alleged repeatedly to have edited and coached traffickers in their posts to the platform in order to protect them from prosecution while permitting the pandering that enriched both the online pimps and the site. Let us be clear. Sex work is illegal in Missouri. It is already underground. It is not in the state or community's interest to provide an online space for this unlawful activity to be brokered. Voters who feel that such a space is needed should pursue legalization.

Backpage has been shut down and other sites will be held accountable under the new law. The abuse of online freedoms to enable prostitution will be curbed under the provisions of this new statute. Human trafficking victims can seek recompense from their victimizers.

Again, to our lawmakers and to the president, good job.

___

(c)2018 The Joplin Globe (Joplin, Mo.)

Visit The Joplin Globe (Joplin, Mo.) at www.joplinglobe.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.