Bye Bye, Backpage.com: Feds Seize Classifieds Site
Update (4/ix): Backpage Co-Founders Michael Lacey and James Larkin and five others associated with the site have been indicted on charges of facilitating prostitution, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit these offenses, AZCentral.com reports.
The 93-count indictment, unsealed today past the U.S. Attorney'southward Role in Phoenix, claims that Backpage enabled kid trafficking and earned more than than $500 million in prostitution-related revenue since its launch in 2004.
"For several years, Backpage's official policy, when presented with an ad featuring the prostitution of a child, was to delete the particular words in the advert denoting the kid's age and so publish a revised version of the advertising," the indictment reads. "Such editing, of grade, did goose egg to change the fact the ad featured the prostitution of a child – it only created a veneer of deniability and helped Backpage's customers (i.eastward., pimps trafficking children) evade detection."
The indictment goes on to say that "about every dollar flowing into Backpage'southward coffers represents the proceeds of illegal activity."
Original Story (four/6):
The FBI has seized classified advertising website Backpage.
As of Friday afternoon, a annotation on the site reads: "backpage.com and affiliated websites have been seized every bit function of an enforcement action by the Federal Agency of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the Internal Acquirement Service Criminal Investigation Partition, with analytical assistance from the Articulation Regional Intelligence Center."
According to the notation, several other agencies played a part in the seizure, including the Us Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona, the Justice Department'south Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, the US Chaser'southward Office for the Fundamental District of California, and the California and Texas Attorneys Full general offices.
The FBI said it would share more than details most the seizure later this afternoon.
Backpage, for the uninitiated, offered its users the power to postal service classified ads, with categories that encompassed geographical areas too equally subject areas, from jobs to real manor.
The seizure follows the passage of a controversial anti sexual practice-trafficking beak known every bit FOSTA (Fight Online Sex Trafficking Human activity) or SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act), which prompted Craigslist to remove all personal ads. FOSTA seeks to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and would concur accountable websites that "unlawfully promote and facilitate prostitution and websites that facilitate traffickers in advertising the auction of unlawful sex activity acts with sex trafficking victims."
SESTA sponsor Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican, has specifically taken aim at Backpage, saying it "knowingly facilitate[s] sex trafficking."
Backpage final year shuttered its developed department over a US Senate written report that accused it of facilitating online sex trafficking. "The conclusion of Backpage.com today to remove its adult section in the Usa volition no doubt be heralded every bit a victory by those seeking to shutter the site, only it should exist understood for what information technology is: an accumulation of acts of government censorship using extra-legal tactics," the company said at the time.
Near Angela Moscaritolo
Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/news/20510/bye-bye-backpagecom-feds-seize-classifieds-site
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