Backpage.com is making a pre-emptive stand against US authorities by taking the government to court over laws against advertising sex for money. The online classified site said that "censorship is not a solution to human trafficking or child exploitation."

 

At issue is the SAVE Act, which requires a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence (and up to life imprisonment) if a company's site is found to have facilitated, even unknowingly, in the sexual exploitation of an innocent party.

 

“Many experts and law enforcement officials agree that politically-motivated responses, including whack-a-mole censorship against one website after another, are ill-advised and will accomplish nothing,” Backpage.com argued. “They advocate that a better approach is to use the Internet and to work with cooperative website providers such as Backpage.com to identify, investigate and prosecute illegal conduct and rescue victims.”

 

Attorney Robert Corn Revere added that it was unfair to hold a website responsible for providing a forum for speech that some individuals misuse for sex trafficking.

 

“Given the enormous volume of third-party content they receive and disseminate every day, websites cannot possibly review every post to guarantee nothing is unlawful,” Backpage.com said. “With all its vagaries, the act could allow ad hoc and subjective interpretations by prosecutors with attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application. And, given the severe penalties under the act — up to life imprisonment — the risks and likely speech-chilling effect of the law is also severe.”

 

With the recent shut-down of gay escort website RentBoy.com, it is obvious there is a level of prudishness on the part of authorities when it comes to sex for money. That said, the sexual exploitation of minors and other innocent men and women is an important focus for law enforcement. 

 

The government needs to find a way to balance the two.