Backpage Shuts Down Adult Section after Government Pressure about Sex Trafficking

Won’t all of this just move somewhere else on the web?

Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who led the bipartisan Senate investigation into the website, said Backpage’s move to shutter its adult ads attested to the damning evidence their team uncovered.

“We reported the evidence that Backpage has been far more complicit in online sex trafficking than anyone previously knew,” they said in a statement.

“Backpage’s response wasn’t to deny what we said. It was to shut down their site. That’s not ‘censorship’ — it’s validation of our findings.”

via LA TIMES

Backpage.com, one of the world’s largest classified ad websites and a frequent target in the political battle against sex trafficking, closed its adult ads section Monday in the United States, claiming to be the victim of a government witch hunt.

The extraordinary move came shortly after the release of a scathing U.S. Senate report that accused Backpage of hiding criminal activity by deleting terms from ads that indicated sex trafficking or prostitution, including of children.

The abrupt closure came on the eve of the scheduled testimony of Backpage’s founders, Michael Lacey and James Larkin, and the site’s CEO, Carl Ferrer, before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ subcommittee on investigations.

Baby-Face Pimps Guilty of Prostituting 12-Year Olds

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Three teenagers accused of forcing girls as young as 12 into prostitution have reached plea agreements and been sentenced to a juvenile detention center.

The boys – two are 17 and one is 16 – will be released no later than their 19th birthdays, according to the plea agreement.

They each pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of compelling prostitution. In exchange, prosecutors dropped other charges, including human trafficking. Charges against others allegedly involved in the ring are pending in adult court.