Senators introduce legislation Tuesday that would allow sex trafficking victims to sue websites they blame for helping their traffickers, and would free federal, state and local law enforcement to go after them more freely.
The goal is to prevent a repeat of the scandal involving Backpage.com — one of the Internet’s largest purveyors of adult services — which now stands accused of knowingly allowing itself to be used for sex trafficking of children.
Backpage had claimed it was the equivalent of a classified ads section in a newspaper, running others’ advertising but not involved in the actual services being sold. The company claimed protections under the Communications Decency Act.
But Mr. Portman and nearly two dozen other senators are trying to change that.
“For too long, courts around the country have ruled that Backpage can continue to facilitate illegal sex trafficking online with no repercussions,” he said. “The Communications Decency Act is a well-intentioned law, but it was never intended to help protect sex traffickers who prey on the most innocent and vulnerable among us.”
Backpage faces criminal charges in California, several federal lawsuits and the aftermath of the long Senate investigation, which pried tens of thousands of pages of documents from the secretive company.
Senators said those documents showed Backpage didn’t do enough to weed out ads that seemed clearly aimed at promoting prostitution of young girls.
Backpage’s claims of First Amendment protections as a media organization had ignited a fierce debate over Internet freedoms and criminal investigations.
The Internet Association on Tuesday called Backpage.com a “rogue” operator, and said authorities should go after companies like them — but said the new legislation went too far.
“While not the intention of the bill, it would create a new wave of frivolous and unpredictable actions against legitimate companies rather than addressing underlying criminal behavior,” said association President Michael Beckerman. “The bill also jeopardizes bedrock principles of a free and open internet, with serious economic and speech implications well beyond its intended scope.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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