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YouTube tutorials for sex traffickers
Internet giants allow pimps to flout curbs on backpage.com
Danny Fortson, San Francisco
February 25 2018, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
Desiree Robinson: the 16-year-old was killed by a man she met through backpage.com
YouTube is hosting videos that show potential sex traffickers how to make payments to a classifieds website notorious for prostitution, The Sunday Times can reveal.
Backpage.com has been labelled a “hub of human trafficking, especially the trafficking of minors” by the US National Association of Attorneys General, yet the website has fended off a series of legal efforts to shut it down. It is implicated in three out of four reported child trafficking cases in America, according to research by campaign groups.
The site, owned by a Dutch company domiciled in Curacao, operates with impunity in nearly 1,000 cities in 97 countries — including Britain. Investigations into the site’s role in people trafficking have thus far focused on America.
Videos have appeared on YouTube explaining to potential human traffickers how to make payments to Backpage through secretive internet channels.
The videos give step-by-step instructions on how to use pre-paid credit cards to buy bitcoin, which can then be used to purchase ads on the site. The most popular of the videos, “Use Bitcoin on Backpage How to”, which was published by an American company called Paxful, was watched more than 71,000 times before it was removed from YouTube on Friday. Many others remain available.
Pimps post ads on Backpage, offering children for sex. Last year, bereaved mother Yvonne Ambrose pleaded withthe US Congress to shut the site after her 16-year-old daughter, Desiree, had her throat slit by a man she met through an ad on the site. Backpage was started in Dallas in 2004. Videos explaining the anonymised ways to pay the site first sprung up in 2015 after Mastercard, American Express and Visa stopped processing payments for the site’s “adult” section.
The YouTube videos will stir fresh controversy over the website’s policing of its content and shine a spotlight on its relationship with YouTube’s sister company, Google. The search giant has helped to shield Backpage because any proposed clampdowns on the site usually involved changes to section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The 1996 law has been central to Google’s meteoric growth because it gives web companies blanket immunity from action over third-party content posted on their sites.
Google has spent millions on lobbyists to water down and delay new regulations, and funded third-party organisations such as the Center for Democracy & Technology and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which have written legal briefs defending Backpage and warned of dire consequences from laws that open companies to liability for content posted by others.
The House of Representatives will vote this week on the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (Fosta). The proposed legislation is a combination with a Senate bill that would make companies liable if they “knowingly assist, support or facilitate” content that leads to prostitution or trafficking. The Internet Association, a trade body funded by Google, Facebook and other giants, changed its stance at the end of last year after months of resistance and backed both House and Senate bills.
The association declined to comment this weekend on whether it supports the combined legislation. The EFF called it a “Frankenstein bill” that would censor users and kill innovation.
Backpage’s growth soared after classifieds rival Craigslist removed its “adult services” section in 2010. Sales leapt from $11.7m in 2009 to $135m in 2014, according to congressional investigators. Backpage closed its adult section last year but posts moved to other sections.
Chief executive Carl Ferrer was arrested on 10 charges, including “pimping a minor”. Financial backers Michael Lacey and James Larkin were accused of conspiracy. A judge dismissed the charges two months later, citing Section 230. Backpage denied any wrongdoing. Google did not respond to requests for comment about the videos. EFF said: “The modern internet would not exist without Section 230.” It added that its views were not influenced by Google’s financial support.
Last December, more than 7,000 prostitution ads were posted on Backpage for Manhattan alone, according to district attorney Cy Vance.
Jerome Elam, head of the Trafficking in America Task Force, said: “In the time it takes us to have a 15-minute conversation, four or five kids have been sold on backpage.com.”
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3 comments
Joss Bolton 2 hours ago
Child protection is massively under resourced. People who work in this area suffer from PTSD, but carry on because they couldn’t abandon the children they encounter. If the public knew the graphic details that these people have to listen to and try to deal with there would be uproar. It makes MNCs avoiding tax look like a day in the park. And yet here is Google trying to work against rules trying to do some good, to protect there profits. I am beginning to feel these companies are beyond the pale. Perhaps Google executives should do the equivalent of a safe driving course, and be required to listen to some of the victims’ stories. Perhaps then they would be a bit more human.
Mr J R Toone 2 hours ago
To imply that google, youtube or any other tech provider is criminally responsible for what is published on their platforms is about as sensible as saying that paper mills and ink manufacturers are responsible for what people write. That is not to say that they should not be active in policing what is published.
