Showing posts with label Backpage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Backpage. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Backpage has always claimed it doesn’t control sex-related ads. New documents show otherwise, Randy Noblitt and His Research
Backpage has always claimed it doesn’t control sex-related ads. New documents show otherwise.
By Tom Jackman and Jonathan O'Connell July 11, 2017
A contractor for the controversial classifieds website Backpage.com has been aggressively soliciting and creating sex-related ads, despite Backpage’s repeated insistence that it had no role in the content of ads posted on its site, according to a trove of newly discovered documents.
The documents show that Backpage hired a company in the Philippines to lure advertisers — and customers seeking sex — from sites run by its competitors. The spreadsheets, emails, audio files and employee manuals were revealed in an unrelated legal dispute and provided to The Washington Post.
Workers in the Philippine call center scoured the Internet for newly listed sex ads, then contacted the people who posted them and offered a free ad on Backpage.com, the documents show. The contractor’s workers even created each new ad so it could be activated with one click.
Workers also created phony sex ads, offering to “Let a young babe show you the way” or “Little angel seeks daddy,” adding photos of barely clad women and explicit sex patter, the documents show. The workers posted the ads on competitors’ websites. Then, when a potential customer expressed interest, an email directed that person to Backpage.com, where they would find authentic ads, spreadsheets used to track the process show.
For years, Backpage executives have adamantly denied claims made by members of Congress, state attorneys general, law enforcement and sex-abuse victims that the site has facilitated prostitution and child sex trafficking. Backpage argues it is a passive carrier of “third-party content” and has no control of sex-related ads posted by pimps, prostitutes and even organized trafficking rings. The company contends it removes clearly illegal ads and refers violators to the police.
The discovery could be a turning point in the years-long campaign by anti-human trafficking groups, and Congress, to persuade Backpage to stop hosting prostitution ads, which many teenage girls have claimed were used to sell them for sexual exploitation. Lawsuits and criminal prosecutions of Backpage in the United States have nearly all failed because Backpage cites in its defense the federal Communications Decency Act, which grants immunity to websites that merely host or screen content posted by others.....
An investigation by a Senate subcommittee revealed earlier this year found that Backpage was editing ads to remove language indicating underage girls were available, rather than removing the ads. “Backpage has been righteously indignant throughout our investigation,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a subcommittee member, “about how we were infringing on their constitutional rights, because they were a mere passthrough.” She noted, however, that Backpage was not only changing ads but also was also guiding posters in how to conceal their true intentions.
“But that’s nothing compared to this” new information, McCaskill said after The Post described the data. “This is about as far from passive as you can get. This is soliciting. This is, really, trickery. .?.?. So I hope this opens the floodgates of liability for Backpage. Nobody deserves it more.”....
Among the sex ads posted on Backpage.com are those for underage boys and girls, authorities and advocacy groups say. The National Association of Attorneys General has described Backpage as a “hub” of human trafficking, which involves children or adults who are forced or coerced into prostitution. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said that 73 percent of the 10,000 child sex trafficking reports it receives from the public each year involve ads on Backpage.....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/backpage-has-always-claimed-it-doesnt-control-sex-related-ads-new-documents-show-otherwise/2017/07/10/b3158ef6-553c-11e7-b38e-35fd8e0c288f_story.html
Randy Noblitt
Information on Randy Noblitt and His Research
https://ritualabuse.us/smart/randy-noblitt/
Noblitt, PhD, J. R. – An Empirical Look at the Ritual Abuse Controversy http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/an-empirical-look-at-the-ritual-abuse-controversy-randy-noblitt-phd/
Fran’s Day Care – Keller Case – Randy Noblitt, PhD
https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/frans-day-care/
Monday, July 3, 2017
Small ads sex trafficking: the battle against Backpage
Small ads sex trafficking: the battle against Backpage
Annie Kelly Sunday 2 July 2017
Backpage started out with small ads for household goods. So how did it grow into a major online market for child sex trafficking? Annie Kelly meets some of the survivors – and reveals how their fight for justice became a battleground for free speech on the internet
The first time Kubiiki Pride used Backpage, America's largest classified website, was to buy a fridge. The second time she sold some clothes. The third time she was looking for her 13-year-old daughter.
The family had spent nine frantic months looking for MA, posting flyers, launching public appeals and scouring the streets. It took Kubiiki less than five minutes to find her on Backpage. "We were so desperate we were trying everything, but when my husband said check Backpage I was confused because I thought it was a site where you sold stuff you didn't want any more. It never occurred to me that children were being bought and sold, too."
My 13-year-old was starved, had her head shaved, was abused and then they sold her on Backpage like she was a used car
Kubiiki found the site and clicked on the adult section. "It took a minute for the page to load, but immediately the third link down from the top just caught my eye," she says. "It was covered in hearts and these little flower pictures. It looked like something a kid would like, so I clicked on it and there was my baby.
Small ads sex trafficking: the battle against Backpage
Backpage started out with small ads for household goods. So how did it grow into a major online market for child sex trafficking? Annie Kelly meets some of the survivors – and reveals how their fight for justice became a battleground for free speech on the internet....
Over the past decade the enormous revenue streams created by the voracious appetite for online sex ads has thrown anti-trafficking campaigners into a state of acute alarm.
"The scale of child sexual exploitation is not something many people are willing or able to accept," says Yiota Souras, senior vice-president at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Some campaigners believe that up to 100,000 children like MA are exploited for profit across the country every year.
"What we do know for certain is that, since 2010, the number of reports of suspected sex trafficking has gone off the chart – we registered an 846% increase between 2010-2014 and this number is growing every year," says Souras. "And we believe a large driver of this has been the increased use of the internet in the buying and selling of children."
Souras says the unfettered and largely unregulated growth of the internet has been a gift for traffickers. Online classified websites, such as Backpage, have provided a cheap and relatively risk-free platform through which to conduct their business, with traffickers scattering children among the thousands of ads for private massages or escort services.
"All a pimp needs is a classified website to post ads and a cell phone. All the client needs is an internet connection," says Souras.....
Nobody has a clear idea of how many children have been sold on Backpage but, currently, 73% of child sex trafficking reports NCMEC receives from the public relate to Backpage ads. NCMEC's early collaborative relationship with Backpage soured when, Souras said, it became clear the site was using NCMEC as good PR but failing to implement adequate checks and balances that the centre believed needed to be put in place to protect vulnerable children.....
"They just kept on winning," says Brad Myles, director of anti-trafficking group Polaris. Judge after judge accepted that Backpage was not accountable under US law for the child trafficking occurring on its website. Backpage was, according to the courts, no different from any other web publisher provided immunity for content posted by third parties under the 1996 Communications and Decency Act, where section 230 had been included to ensure that the burgeoning tech industry was not crushed by litigation. It has also emerged that not-for-profit special interest groups funded by companies including Google have supported Backpage's legal battles and provided expert briefs in support of the site.
"The most disheartening indication of our judiciary's legal priorities," says Myles, "was the fact that judges would do nothing to hold a website that was profiting from the sale of children accountable to preserve the legal immunity of the billion-dollar tech industry."
Kubiiki and MA were devastated by the judge's decision not to let their case against Backpage go to trial. "These are children who are being raped, yet the whole debate around Backpage has become about the rights of internet companies to not get sued?" says Kubiiki.....
Mazzio's documentary forensically timelines the legal assault waged against Backpage, first by Kubiiki and MA and then by other families along with state prosecutors and law enforcement officers. Her film also charts the astonishment and dismay as one by one their lawsuits bit the dust....
Regardless of which side you come down on, it looks as if the net could be closing around Backpage. When Carl Ferrer failed to answer a subpoena to appear before a Senate subcommittee in 2016 investigating child trafficking, the Senate's response was to launch a full-blown investigation into the company. One of the closing scenes in Mazzio's documentary is the moment when Larkin, Lacey and Ferrer are forced to appear before the subcommittee in January this year.
Earlier that day Backpage had finally closed its adult services listings. "Today, the censors prevailed," wrote Lacey and Larkin in a statement. "The shutdown of Backpage's adult classified advertising is an assault on the First Amendment. We maintain hope for a more robust and unbowed internet in the future."
"They weren't willing to invest in what we believed were comprehensive measures to protect children," she says. "They were far more focused on hiring a legal team to ensure that their revenue streams could continue."....
"For me, the biggest tragedy is that for seven years there has been all this debate about free speech and First Amendment rights. And the basic fact that these are children who are being raped and sold on a public website somehow got pushed to the background. What happened to the rights of my child?" asks Nacole, fury in her voice. "What if this was your daughter? How would you feel if this happened to you?"....
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jul/02/fight-for-my-daughter-battle-against-backpage-child-sex-trafficking
Neil Brick will be speaking at S.M.A.R.T. Child and Ritual Abuse Conference - August 11 - 13, 2017
Neil Brick has developed Internet resources to publish scientific information about child and ritual abuse. He publishes a bimonthly newsletter and organizes informational conferences. The goal of these resources is to help stop child and ritual abuse through public education. http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=210052
The Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Mind Control 2017 Conference
Video Presentations from The Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Mind Control 2017 Conference https://survivorship.org/presentations-from-the-survivorship-ritual-abuse-and-mind-control-2017-conference
How to Avoid Being Mind Controlled at a Conference and Freedom from Mind Control – 2017 Presentation by Neil Brick https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/how-to-avoid-being-mind-controlled-at-a-conference-and-freedom-from-mind-control/
Strong accuracy and validity of ritual abuse research: http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=Ritual_Abuse
Fran and Dan Keller legal case information https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/frans-day-care/
Annie Kelly Sunday 2 July 2017
Backpage started out with small ads for household goods. So how did it grow into a major online market for child sex trafficking? Annie Kelly meets some of the survivors – and reveals how their fight for justice became a battleground for free speech on the internet
The first time Kubiiki Pride used Backpage, America's largest classified website, was to buy a fridge. The second time she sold some clothes. The third time she was looking for her 13-year-old daughter.
The family had spent nine frantic months looking for MA, posting flyers, launching public appeals and scouring the streets. It took Kubiiki less than five minutes to find her on Backpage. "We were so desperate we were trying everything, but when my husband said check Backpage I was confused because I thought it was a site where you sold stuff you didn't want any more. It never occurred to me that children were being bought and sold, too."
My 13-year-old was starved, had her head shaved, was abused and then they sold her on Backpage like she was a used car
Kubiiki found the site and clicked on the adult section. "It took a minute for the page to load, but immediately the third link down from the top just caught my eye," she says. "It was covered in hearts and these little flower pictures. It looked like something a kid would like, so I clicked on it and there was my baby.
Small ads sex trafficking: the battle against Backpage
Backpage started out with small ads for household goods. So how did it grow into a major online market for child sex trafficking? Annie Kelly meets some of the survivors – and reveals how their fight for justice became a battleground for free speech on the internet....
Over the past decade the enormous revenue streams created by the voracious appetite for online sex ads has thrown anti-trafficking campaigners into a state of acute alarm.
"The scale of child sexual exploitation is not something many people are willing or able to accept," says Yiota Souras, senior vice-president at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Some campaigners believe that up to 100,000 children like MA are exploited for profit across the country every year.
"What we do know for certain is that, since 2010, the number of reports of suspected sex trafficking has gone off the chart – we registered an 846% increase between 2010-2014 and this number is growing every year," says Souras. "And we believe a large driver of this has been the increased use of the internet in the buying and selling of children."
Souras says the unfettered and largely unregulated growth of the internet has been a gift for traffickers. Online classified websites, such as Backpage, have provided a cheap and relatively risk-free platform through which to conduct their business, with traffickers scattering children among the thousands of ads for private massages or escort services.
"All a pimp needs is a classified website to post ads and a cell phone. All the client needs is an internet connection," says Souras.....
Nobody has a clear idea of how many children have been sold on Backpage but, currently, 73% of child sex trafficking reports NCMEC receives from the public relate to Backpage ads. NCMEC's early collaborative relationship with Backpage soured when, Souras said, it became clear the site was using NCMEC as good PR but failing to implement adequate checks and balances that the centre believed needed to be put in place to protect vulnerable children.....
"They just kept on winning," says Brad Myles, director of anti-trafficking group Polaris. Judge after judge accepted that Backpage was not accountable under US law for the child trafficking occurring on its website. Backpage was, according to the courts, no different from any other web publisher provided immunity for content posted by third parties under the 1996 Communications and Decency Act, where section 230 had been included to ensure that the burgeoning tech industry was not crushed by litigation. It has also emerged that not-for-profit special interest groups funded by companies including Google have supported Backpage's legal battles and provided expert briefs in support of the site.
"The most disheartening indication of our judiciary's legal priorities," says Myles, "was the fact that judges would do nothing to hold a website that was profiting from the sale of children accountable to preserve the legal immunity of the billion-dollar tech industry."
Kubiiki and MA were devastated by the judge's decision not to let their case against Backpage go to trial. "These are children who are being raped, yet the whole debate around Backpage has become about the rights of internet companies to not get sued?" says Kubiiki.....
Mazzio's documentary forensically timelines the legal assault waged against Backpage, first by Kubiiki and MA and then by other families along with state prosecutors and law enforcement officers. Her film also charts the astonishment and dismay as one by one their lawsuits bit the dust....
Regardless of which side you come down on, it looks as if the net could be closing around Backpage. When Carl Ferrer failed to answer a subpoena to appear before a Senate subcommittee in 2016 investigating child trafficking, the Senate's response was to launch a full-blown investigation into the company. One of the closing scenes in Mazzio's documentary is the moment when Larkin, Lacey and Ferrer are forced to appear before the subcommittee in January this year.
Earlier that day Backpage had finally closed its adult services listings. "Today, the censors prevailed," wrote Lacey and Larkin in a statement. "The shutdown of Backpage's adult classified advertising is an assault on the First Amendment. We maintain hope for a more robust and unbowed internet in the future."
"They weren't willing to invest in what we believed were comprehensive measures to protect children," she says. "They were far more focused on hiring a legal team to ensure that their revenue streams could continue."....
"For me, the biggest tragedy is that for seven years there has been all this debate about free speech and First Amendment rights. And the basic fact that these are children who are being raped and sold on a public website somehow got pushed to the background. What happened to the rights of my child?" asks Nacole, fury in her voice. "What if this was your daughter? How would you feel if this happened to you?"....
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jul/02/fight-for-my-daughter-battle-against-backpage-child-sex-trafficking
Neil Brick will be speaking at S.M.A.R.T. Child and Ritual Abuse Conference - August 11 - 13, 2017
Neil Brick has developed Internet resources to publish scientific information about child and ritual abuse. He publishes a bimonthly newsletter and organizes informational conferences. The goal of these resources is to help stop child and ritual abuse through public education. http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=210052
The Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Mind Control 2017 Conference
Video Presentations from The Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Mind Control 2017 Conference https://survivorship.org/presentations-from-the-survivorship-ritual-abuse-and-mind-control-2017-conference
How to Avoid Being Mind Controlled at a Conference and Freedom from Mind Control – 2017 Presentation by Neil Brick https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/how-to-avoid-being-mind-controlled-at-a-conference-and-freedom-from-mind-control/
Strong accuracy and validity of ritual abuse research: http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=Ritual_Abuse
Fran and Dan Keller legal case information https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/frans-day-care/
Sunday, May 13, 2012
An uneasy Backpage alliance - Anti-trafficking activists
An uneasy Backpage alliance
Anti-trafficking activists may turn to the site for tips, but some say we're ultimately better without it
By Tracy Clark-Flory
Saturday, May 12, 2012
In the fight against child sex trafficking, Backpage.com is seen as both friend and foe. The online classified site screens ads, reports thousands of potential cases of exploitation, assists in police investigations and acts as a resource for those searching for trafficked kids. But even some activists who use the site for good see greater benefit in the site shutting down its adult section — a move called for recently in Senate and House resolutions. This uneasy alliance reveals the complexities of the problem at hand.
In the past 16 months — the length of time Backpage has been screening and reporting potential trafficking ads — the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received nearly 5,000 tips from the site. The center’s president, Ernie Allen, tells me, “There’s no question they have undertaken the screening and reporting process very aggressively.” Ultimately, though, the question is whether it’s enough.
After working with Craigslist in a similar fashion for almost two years, he says, “What we basically concluded was that it wasn’t working. The price you pay to allow this kind of activity to proliferate was too great.” Eventually, Craigslist shuttered its adult section and, Allen says, “the total volume of these ads dropped dramatically, and most of that has not come back.”
If Backpage were to do the same thing, “it would dramatically reduce the scale and scope of the problem,” he says. “Some of it would relocate, but I don’t think it would proliferate at the same level.” Allen says that NCMEC doesn’t make “public pronouncements about the policy stuff,” but his message is clear: Shuttering Backpage’s adult section would make things better — but, short of that, NCMEC is devoted to helping the site reduce harm.... http://www.salon.com/2012/05/13/an_uneasy_backpage_alliance/singleton/
Anti-trafficking activists may turn to the site for tips, but some say we're ultimately better without it
By Tracy Clark-Flory
Saturday, May 12, 2012
In the fight against child sex trafficking, Backpage.com is seen as both friend and foe. The online classified site screens ads, reports thousands of potential cases of exploitation, assists in police investigations and acts as a resource for those searching for trafficked kids. But even some activists who use the site for good see greater benefit in the site shutting down its adult section — a move called for recently in Senate and House resolutions. This uneasy alliance reveals the complexities of the problem at hand.
In the past 16 months — the length of time Backpage has been screening and reporting potential trafficking ads — the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received nearly 5,000 tips from the site. The center’s president, Ernie Allen, tells me, “There’s no question they have undertaken the screening and reporting process very aggressively.” Ultimately, though, the question is whether it’s enough.
After working with Craigslist in a similar fashion for almost two years, he says, “What we basically concluded was that it wasn’t working. The price you pay to allow this kind of activity to proliferate was too great.” Eventually, Craigslist shuttered its adult section and, Allen says, “the total volume of these ads dropped dramatically, and most of that has not come back.”
If Backpage were to do the same thing, “it would dramatically reduce the scale and scope of the problem,” he says. “Some of it would relocate, but I don’t think it would proliferate at the same level.” Allen says that NCMEC doesn’t make “public pronouncements about the policy stuff,” but his message is clear: Shuttering Backpage’s adult section would make things better — but, short of that, NCMEC is devoted to helping the site reduce harm.... http://www.salon.com/2012/05/13/an_uneasy_backpage_alliance/singleton/
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Where Pimps Peddle Their Goods - Backpage Village Voice Media
Where Pimps Peddle Their Goods
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
March 17, 2012
I WENT on a walk in Manhattan the other day with a young woman who once had to work these streets, hired out by eight pimps while she was just 16 and 17. She pointed out a McDonald’s where pimps sit while monitoring the girls outside, and a building where she had repeatedly been ordered online as if she were a pizza....
After Alissa testified against her pimps, six of them went to prison for up to 25 years. Yet these days, she reserves her greatest anger not at pimps but at companies that enable them. She is particularly scathing about Backpage.com, a classified advertising Web site that is used to sell auto parts, furniture, boats — and girls. Alissa says pimps routinely peddled her on Backpage.
“You can’t buy a child at Wal-Mart, can you?” she asked me. “No, but you can go to Backpage and buy me on Backpage.”
Backpage accounts for about 70 percent of prostitution advertising among five Web sites that carry such ads in the United States, earning more than $22 million annually from prostitution ads, according to AIM Group, a media research and consulting company. It is now the premier Web site for human trafficking in the United States, according to the National Association of Attorneys General. And it’s not a fly-by-night operation. Backpage is owned by Village Voice Media, which also owns the estimable Village Voice newspaper....
Liz McDougall, general counsel of Village Voice Media, told me that it is “shortsighted, ill-informed and counterproductive” to focus on Backpage when many other Web sites are also involved, particularly because Backpage tries to screen out ads for minors and reports possible trafficking cases to the authorities. McDougall denied that Backpage dominates the field....
Backpage’s exit from prostitution advertising wouldn’t solve the problem, for smaller Web sites would take on some of the ads. But it would be a setback for pimps to lose a major online marketplace. When Craigslist stopped taking such ads in 2010, many did not migrate to new sites: online prostitution advertising plummeted by more than 50 percent, according to AIM Group.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/kristof-where-pimps-peddle-their-goods.html
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
March 17, 2012
I WENT on a walk in Manhattan the other day with a young woman who once had to work these streets, hired out by eight pimps while she was just 16 and 17. She pointed out a McDonald’s where pimps sit while monitoring the girls outside, and a building where she had repeatedly been ordered online as if she were a pizza....
After Alissa testified against her pimps, six of them went to prison for up to 25 years. Yet these days, she reserves her greatest anger not at pimps but at companies that enable them. She is particularly scathing about Backpage.com, a classified advertising Web site that is used to sell auto parts, furniture, boats — and girls. Alissa says pimps routinely peddled her on Backpage.
“You can’t buy a child at Wal-Mart, can you?” she asked me. “No, but you can go to Backpage and buy me on Backpage.”
Backpage accounts for about 70 percent of prostitution advertising among five Web sites that carry such ads in the United States, earning more than $22 million annually from prostitution ads, according to AIM Group, a media research and consulting company. It is now the premier Web site for human trafficking in the United States, according to the National Association of Attorneys General. And it’s not a fly-by-night operation. Backpage is owned by Village Voice Media, which also owns the estimable Village Voice newspaper....
Liz McDougall, general counsel of Village Voice Media, told me that it is “shortsighted, ill-informed and counterproductive” to focus on Backpage when many other Web sites are also involved, particularly because Backpage tries to screen out ads for minors and reports possible trafficking cases to the authorities. McDougall denied that Backpage dominates the field....
Backpage’s exit from prostitution advertising wouldn’t solve the problem, for smaller Web sites would take on some of the ads. But it would be a setback for pimps to lose a major online marketplace. When Craigslist stopped taking such ads in 2010, many did not migrate to new sites: online prostitution advertising plummeted by more than 50 percent, according to AIM Group.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/kristof-where-pimps-peddle-their-goods.html
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