A New Threat to Social Networks? Proposed US Law (SESTA) Could Shut Down All But the Biggest Social Networks In The Name Of 'Stopping Human Trafficking'. In This Post I Attempt To Improve On John McCain's New Law!

ura-soul (75)in #news • 7 years ago (edited)

Every 6 months or so, someone in the American political machine decides to invent yet another draconian 'law' that will reduce liberty and free will expression in the name of some kind of emotionally triggering agenda. As I understand, the latest one attempts to make it a crime for social site operators to operate a website where sex traffickers are found to have any kind of presence - including just allowing posts to be made that include embedded media that can be shown to be facilitating the trafficking in some way. A noble idea on the surface, but one that could lead to 'function creep' whereby the policy is used to shut down sites who have done nothing wrong. Let's look at the details...

Oh, yes, this policy is being co-sponsored by your friend and mine, the habitual liar - John McCain.

According to the Electronic Freedom Foundation's webpage on this topic - The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act means that anyone who operates an online service that hosts third party content can face civil and criminal proceedings just because sex traffickers used their service - even if the operator did take steps to remove such offenders! In fact, according to the interpretation of the proposed policy by the EFF - the policy would result in criminal liability being extended to site operators even if they only 'know' that a sex trafficker places adverts on their site - so technically, as soon as a sex trafficker uses your public site, you are a criminal! Can this really be the intent here?

This story from the Guardian makes clear that it appears that the website 'backpage' really was actively supporting the most hideous of crimes - that of selling kidnapped children for sex - even allegedly going as far as employing staff to edit out keywords that made clear that the advert was for sex with a kidnapped child! So clearly, there needs to be some kind of legislation in place to prevent this exploitation - so what's the right solution here to support free speech while also protecting people?

Note: I think this Act would also apply to Internet Service Providers that provide hosting and even broadband internet connections too - but I don't know for sure.

Does this proposed bill really do as the EFF claims?

A main claim is that the wording of the bill would make it an offense for a site operator to even just be aware that sex trafficking adverts are on their network. I am not a professional legal expert and I know that the EFF does have such people working with them, so I would like to say that they are probably right here - however, let's look at the relevant text:

Section 230 is here.

Section 1591 of title 18 is here.

The amendment to section 1591 of title 18 inserts that:

The term ‘participation in a venture’ includes knowing conduct by an individual or entity, by any means, that assists, supports, or facilitates the violation

of subsection (a)(1).”

Since (a)(1) describes the act of soliciting a person for sex, this change is making clear that anyone who gains from and is knowingly involved in supporting the sale of people for sex (who are underage or who don't want to be sold for sex) is liable for prosecution.

So, it does indeed appear that EFF are correct and that as soon as an advert is placed and the system operator notices it, they are liable for prosecution.

What might be the best way to deal with the real problem of sex traffickers using websites?

Cases are cited whereby adverts for child prostitutes have been placed on websites and the website operators are alleged to know about the problem but did nothing about it - apparently motivated by financial gains. So what should be done in that circumstance? Well, the prevailing protection for site operators means that the policy enforcement is aimed at the ones placing the adverts, which if it were done effectively would stop the problem. However, since it is far easier to target the operators of websites than it is to target the actual kidnappers and rapists, it appears that there is desire to do that - even though it would likely do little or nothing to actually stop the sick rapists from committing their crimes, since they would just find another way to make their actions 'pay'.

If the website operators are not explicitly doing something specific to attract in sex traffickers to use their service, then it is unfair to punish them for crimes that they themselves are neither inviting, nor enacting. However, where a website operator does really make it easier for sex trafficking to take place, then what should be done? If their only motivation is financial, then they may be truly immune from prosecution under the current policy - so all that might be left is to tell the world and have the world boycott their service, but it appears that there is enough of a market for advertising such criminal acts that the websites would not really be effected by a boycott from it's non criminal users.

So.. There's at least three main options:

Amp up the policing of such sites and actively go and arrest the sexual criminals involved - resulting in the 'market' drying up for the adverts and stopping the website operators from profiting.
Amend the current policy to allow for website operators to be prosecuted where they are found to be allowing such acts to occur via their services.
Do BOTH!

Presuming that those who support option 2 will also support option 3, we really only have 2 options.

From previous experience of researching the topic of the policing of child abuse, I know already that there is amazingly often a reluctance among police officers to work such cases, for a wide variety of reasons. Therefore, on a practical level I can see the attraction to option 2 - since it may actually really protect some children to allow website operators to be prosecuted where they really do support sex trafficking.

Claims of Sexual Exploitation as a weapon

To the average citizen, it might seem perfectly acceptable to remove the previously enshrined policy of never holding site operators liable for the content that is posted to their network if the content facilitates human sex trafficking - since all of us with hearts will want to protect each other by doing what we can to stop sex trafficking. However, it should be noted that the criminal system manipulators in politics (many of whom are well exposed already as career con artists and worse) have a tendency to use claims of child abuse as a weapon against those they don't like. Even in cases where people and organisations are entirely innocent, it is not uncommon for charges of child abuse to be aimed at them to discredit them in the minds of the population and possibly to also distract away from real criminal actions being perpetrated by cronies of the ones making the charges. If you have any doubts about how all of this 'works', I suggest starting by looking into this post about how many police investigations into child abuse have been stopped in Britain due to the 'higher ups' in the system being corrupt and using their 'authority' to protect themselves and their 'friends' who probably should themselves be behind bars.

So we need to be very cautious whenever snakes in suits decide to 'act for the good of the children' to attempt to solve a problem through control and criminalisation of those who could very well have absolutely no culpability in crime at all.

How to correctly define a policy that allows prosecution of website operators, while also fully protecting innocent website operators from also being prosecuted - and from possibly even being maliciously prosecuted?

It seems to me that it is wrong to do nothing where companies are actively gaining financially and supporting the exploitation of people against their will - so as long as we do have governments and police forces, we can at least use them to truly protect people who need protecting. However, it is also wrong to place a requirement of a great amount of work on website operators who may be prohibited from running a service at all if they are forced to hire lots of staff to check everything that is posted to their site.

Without considering the total abolition of police and government in this post, all that remains is to attempt to define the correct framework for keeping the balance - here are my thoughts on a possible solution:

Change the policy to end the immunity of prosecution on service providers and website operators.
Ensure that the policy is ultra clear that for such a prosecution to go ahead would require a thorough police investigation and for those involved to have compelling evidence that the website operator really did/does have intend to specifically and deliberately profit from the prostituting of people against their will and/or prostitution of children.
The policy should also be very clear that simply being aware of the existence of the content on the network which violates the law is not enough to violate the code. There must be a requirement to prove that those running the service specifically sought to profit from the content and also that they specifically chose not to report the posters of the content for the advertising of their obvious criminal agenda.

It seems to me that this is a fairly simple solution that is quite obviously missing from the proposed policy change, so I continue to be suspicious of the intent of the co-creators of the policy change!

Taking Action

In any case, the EFF has an action page that you can use to write to your representative in America if you feel moved to stop this SESTA Act.

Got Comments?

What do you think about this threat to internet freedom? Do you think it will affect Steemit in a problematic way? Let us know in the comments below. Thanks.

Wishing you well,
Ura Soul