I saw the documentary “I am Jane Doe” this evening. It is on Netflix. This documentary focuses on those who facilitate child sex trafficking through internet websites. Backpage.com was the primary target for this expose.
I first became aware of child molestation when I was a mental health worker in a mental hospital. We had a ward which was reserved for split personality patients. Every single one of those dear patients had been molested or horribly abused as children and as a result, had a dissociative mental illness. You never knew what was going to happen with them but those patients grabbed a part of my heart that I have never gotten back. My heart broke for the horrors that they had experienced as a child.
I had to resign from that job because I got pregnant and many of the patients could get violent. I didn’t want to put my baby in danger. I made a promise to myself that if I ever had a platform for writing I would try to help them as best as I could.
I watched this documentary and was appalled that Backpage.com would not take responsibility for facilitating the exploitation of children. Under the adult services section children were being sold for sex. This company hid behind a law which protected the internet. https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2018/03/21/591622450/section-230-a-key-legal-shield-for-facebook-google-is-about-to-change
The judges in the majority of cases that were filed against Backpage.com were less than intelligent and those parents who had girls which had been trafficked using this site kept getting shot down.
However, since Trump took office things have begun to change and all for the better. The following is an excerpt from a very little known fact about President Trump.
“The move against Backpage came just days before President Trump is expected to sign a new anti-sex-trafficking bill that passed both houses of Congress with overwhelming support. The bill initially was controversial because it alters a key internet law that protects tech companies from liability for user-generated content on their platforms.
Previous criminal and civil charges against Backpage had mostly been derailed by that law, the Communications Decency Act. The bill Trump is expected to sign creates an exception for sites that “knowingly” facilitate or support online sex trafficking and explicitly grants states and victims the right to bring criminal and civil action against websites like Backpage. The bill faced opposition from tech companies, free speech advocates, and sex workers, and has already prompted online forums like Craigslist’s personal section and Reddit sections like Escorts and Sugar Daddies to shut down, rather than risk liability.”https://www.wired.com/story/feds-seize-backpagecom-site-linked-to-sex-trafficking/
This is a huge blow to human trafficking. I just want people to know that President Trump does many things that protect us and our children and he gets very little press about the good things he does.
This whole mess started when another man was President and that man, who had two young girls, did absolutely nothing to stop human trafficking.
All I can say is that it is about time and that I hope Michael Lacey and James Larkin get a lot more time than the CEO of backpage.com. He only got five years and that is not near enough for ruining the lives of countless children. https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2018/04/30/hearing-set-backpage-founders-case-over-sex-ads-larkin-lacey/564886002/
