Craigslist last week pulled the plug on its popular personal ads. The U. Senate last week voted to approve an anti-sex trafficking bill that would subject websites to criminal prosecution and civil litigation if they accept advertising, knowingly or unknowingly, linked to both coerced sex-trafficking as well as sex work engaged in by consenting adults. The White House has said President Trump will sign the bill.
The action by Craigslist raised questions about whether other online sites that include sexually oriented content, including sex or dating hook-up sites like the gay site Grindr, would follow Craigslist and shut down their sites.
Several advocacy organizations representing Internet service providers and civil liberties groups, including the ACLU, expressed strong opposition to the FOSTA bill prior to the votes by the House and Senate to approve it. They argued that the legislation would be a threat to free speech and limit the free flow of content on the Internet. Opponents say existing federal law already allows state and federal prosecutors to go after criminal activity on the Internet such as sex trafficking and that the FOSTA bill would hinder rather than help in efforts to crack down on trafficking.
That law has been credited with enabling the Internet to grow and flourish without excessive restrictions that could have prevented its exponential growth over the past 20 years. Supporters of the bill, however, have argued that FOSTA is needed to remove what they say has been uncertainty over whether prosecutors have legal authority to go after the growing use of online sites by criminals to promote sex trafficking.
Supporters point to court rulings that prevented prosecutors from pursuing websites linked to trafficking on grounds that the Communications Decency Act would not allow them to penalize the sites. Backpage had become known as a site where sex workers advertised their services. Sex worker advocacy groups have said the overwhelming majority of the ads were for sex between consenting adults, which enabled sex workers to operate safely at indoor locations and avoid having to ply their trade on the streets.
