Backpage Removes Adult Content Due to US Govt Censorship

Jan 9, 2017
Business
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Backpage.com Removes Adult Content Due to Unconstitutional Government Censorship....Vows to Fight First Amendment Battles

Publisher Vows to Fight First Amendment Battles

Washington, D.C. – As the direct result of unconstitutional government censorship, Backpage.com has removed its Adult content section from the highly popular classified website, effective immediately. For years, the legal system protecting freedom of speech prevailed, but new government tactics, including pressuring credit card companies to cease doing business with Backpage, have left the company with no other choice but to remove the content in the United States.

Backpage.com Removes Adult Content Due to Unconstitutional Government Censorship....Vows to Fight First Amendment Battles

As federal appeals court Judge Richard Posner has described, the goal is either to “suffocate” Backpage out of existence or use the awesome powers of the government to force Backpage to follow in the footsteps of Craigslist and abandon its Adult advertising section. Judge Posner described such tactics as “a formula for permitting unauthorized, unregulated, foolproof, lawless government coercion.”

Leading the charge for this action was Democrat and feminist Kamala Harris, the politically ambitious Senator for California, and former CA Attorney General.

Kamala Harris (SOURCE: Twitter)

“It’s a sad day for America’s children victimized by prostitution,” said Dr. Lois Lee, Founder and President, Children of the Night, a leading national hotline and shelter program for victims of sex trafficking based in Los Angeles. “Backpage.com was a critical investigative tool depended on by America’s vice detectives and agents in the field to locate and recover missing children and to arrest and successfully prosecute the pimps who prostitute children.” She added, “The ability to search for and track potentially exploited children on a website and have the website bend over backwards to help and cooperate with police the way Backpage did was totally unique.  It not only made law enforcement’s job easier, it made them much more effective at rescuing kids and convicting pimps.”

Backpage.com was created thirteen years ago by Jim Larkin and Michael Lacey, through their newspaper company, New Times Media, to compete with Craigslist, the nation’s largest online classified ad platform. Larkin and Lacey were pioneers in independent journalism, establishing Village Voice Media in 1970 to provide alternative news coverage of the Vietnam war and later served as editor and publisher of twenty weekly newspapers.

As The Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have observed, the Senate subcommittee has engaged in an “invasive, burdensome inquiry into Backpage.com’s editorial practices [that] creates an intense chilling effect, not only for Backpage but for any website operator seeking to define their own editorial viewpoint and moderation procedures for the third-party content they host.”

This will not end the fight for online freedom of speech. Backpage.com will continue to pursue its efforts in court to vindicate its First Amendment rights and those of other online platforms for third party expression.

 

For additional context of Backpage and the First Amendment, please read:
Noah Feldman, Professor of Constitutional and International Law at Harvard University
Mike Masnick, Founder and CEO of Floor64 and Editor of the Techdirt blog
Eric Goldman, Technology and Marketing Blog
Hilary Hanson, Huffington Post
Kimberly Mehlman Orozco, Criminologist and Human Trafficking Expert Witness. Also here and here.
Mark Joseph Stern, Slate
Nick Sibilla, Institute for Justice
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crunkleschwitz
crunkleschwitz
7 years ago

Terrible to do it in the cold of winter. Streetwalkers have been nestled in their warm and toasty dump motels for a couple months, but now they will be out in the harsh elements trying to ply their trade. Them censors never had to put on a vinyl minidress, then head outside when the Real Feel was 19degrees. Fake Jim Cramer told me pussy futures are plummeting, gonna be a buyer’s market from now till spring. Economical greek upsells and multi-hour discounts are going to soar. Tricks from coast to coast are salivating at the potential bargains, while regional whore… Read more »

TRPWL
Admin
7 years ago
Reply to  crunkleschwitz

you’re a poet

Jack Hammer
Jack Hammer
7 years ago

OHHH No Shy Love cant run ads there for hookery antics herself and hit up back page low rent girls into the talent pool with promises of stardom

houland
houland
6 years ago

OHHH No Shy Love cant run commercials there for hookery antics herself and hit up lower back web page low lease ladies into the skills pool with promises of stardom

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