Members stevenkesslar Posted July 8, 2023 Members Posted July 8, 2023 Appeals court upholds but narrows sex-trafficking statute Activists claimed the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act violated the First Amendment. Quote “We therefore hold that [FOSTA’s] mental state requirement does not reach the intent to engage in general advocacy about prostitution, or to give advice to sex workers generally to protect them from abuse,” Judge Patricia Millett wrote, joined by Judges Harry Edwards and Justin Walker. “Nor would it cover the intent to preserve for historical purposes webpages that discuss prostitution. Instead, it reaches a person’s intent to aid or abet the prostitution of another person.” I take that to be good news ............ kinda, sorta, maybe? At least it clarifies that the broad and expansive way to interpret the law is NOT what Congress meant. Which was clear, if you read the Congressional Record of the floor debate. Yup, I did. But really? Who does that? Chuck Schumer, among others, was very clear that he didn't want to impair "harm reduction" organizations that work with sex workers, or free speech. This was about going after abusive sex traffickers. That said, it would be better still if they simply decriminalized prostitution. But don't hold your breath. This is a little bit like clarifying after the prisoner has been executed that "punishment" meant a slap on the wrist, not a firing squad. One of the plaintiffs was a massage therapist who says he lost business after Craig's List pulled many categories of ads. Whatever harm was done, for years, is done. The basic goal of FOSTA was to reduce sex trafficking in the US. The Congressional Record of the floor debate included pages and pages of real horror stories of victims, some children, who were sold and abused and even murdered. Has FOSTA helped? From a 2019 FBI report on all human trafficking: From the most recent federal report I could find, dated October 22: Quote A total of 2,198 persons were referred to U.S. Attorneys for human trafficking offenses in fiscal year 2020, a 62% increase from the 1,360 persons referred in 2011. The number of persons prosecuted for human trafficking increased from 729 in 2011 to 1,343 in 2020, an 84% increase. One other data base I could find comes from the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which says they have "one of the most extensive data sets on trafficking in the United States." They measure "signals," meaning anything from phone calls to texts to online tips received by the hotline. Here are the number of signals received starting from the year before FOSTA passed: 2017: 36.068 signals 2018: 43,751 signals 2019: 51,921 signals 2020: 56,127 signals 2021: 51,073 signals If anyone has actually followed this closely - I haven't - a more thorough analysis would be welcome. But it seems like a decent one word answer is NO, FOSTA did not help reduce sex trafficking. Incidents reported went up in the year after FOSTA became law on April 11, 2018. That 2022 report's time frame is a decade, during which trafficking has gone way up. The Hot Line reports substantial increases in trafficking signals in each of the two years after FOSTA was passed, although there was a definite decline in 2021. I'm guessing COVID was somehow a factor, for good or bad. If FOSTA helped identify and prosecute and ultimately reduce sex trafficking, that would be significant. But the argument against it was that at best it would be a game of Whack A Whore with lots of collateral damage. At worst it would make trafficking harder to identify and prosecute by driving it further into the dark. If the goal in 2018 was to substantially reduce US sex trafficking, that simply has not happened. Quote
Members stevenkesslar Posted July 8, 2023 Author Members Posted July 8, 2023 Adding extensive quotes that provide additional useful facts and perspective: The first citation is from AIDS United dated December 2021,, and then several quotes from the June 2021 GAO report AIDS United cites to reach its conclusions FOSTA-SESTA and its impact on sex workers Quote Are the benefits of FOSTA-SESTA worth its implications? The short answer is no. A U.S. Government Accountability Office report reveals that FOSTA-SESTA has not helped prosecutors tackle trafficking cases and suggests it is not frequently applied — even as legislators push for laws that double down on the sentiments of FOSTA-SESTA, like the EARN IT Act. The law does not appear to do anything concrete to target illegal sex trafficking directly. Instead, it has caused platforms to preemptively censor sex workers’ presence and speech online, making their jobs more dangerous and difficult. And from the GAO report on the implementation and effectiveness of FOSTA: Quote The seizure of backpage.com and enactment of FOSTA occurred just 5 days apart in April 2018, and disrupted the landscape of the online commercial sex market. Because these events occurred so close together, it is not possible to trace changes to the market to one event or the other. Nevertheless, taken together, these events have led to the relocation of platforms overseas, fragmentation of the market, and increased use of hobby board and sugar dating platforms. Quote In the wake of the events of April 2018, the controllers of many online platforms relocated their platforms overseas in an attempt to shield themselves from U.S. prosecution. More specifically, the controllers of many platforms in the online commercial sex market shut down or suspended operations in the United States while others moved their operations overseas, primarily to Europe, according to a July 2020 Polaris report and supported by a April 2019 childsafe.ai report. DOJ officials further clarified that many of those who control these platforms moved their web servers, web hosting services, and the registration of their domain names to countries where prostitution is legal. Quote The current landscape of the online commercial sex market heightens already-existing challenges law enforcement face in gathering tips and evidence. Specifically, gathering tips and evidence to investigate and prosecute those who control or use online platforms has become more difficult due to the relocation of platforms overseas; platforms’ use of complex payment systems; and the increased use of social media, dating, hookup, and messaging/communication platforms... Gosh. Who'd have ever guessed that a law that drove these platforms overseas would make prosecution in the US more difficult? 😉 Quote
