FOSTA 1865 bill shuts down Craigslist Personals

New FOSTA bill that passed the house will make it easy for any provider to sue the website that hosted the ad if they can claim human trafficking.

If the change to the law is signed in, expect Backpage to go bye bye, followed by escort websites.

Dark web onion address for Eccie soon?

TER has also closed their US ad section, and Cityvibe appears to have closed down. Also, reddit groups r/hookers, r/escorts, and I believe r/sexworkers have been banned from reddit. First of much more fallout from this, I’m sure.

The reddit groups are especially troubling because no one advertised in them. It was only discussions.

I think all that remains is for the President to sign it into law. I think there will certainly be a constitutional challenge - even DOJ has said it is unconstitutional as currently written - but given the conservative skew of the Supreme Court, they may just refuse to hear it. There is an especially troubling provision about making it retroactive - basically saying the law applies to things that happened before it was a law. This is blatantly unconstitutional and prohibited by Article I, Section 10, Clause 1, of the U.S. Constitution. Other constitutional challenges would likely focus on the chilling effect on free speech online (already being seen) by modifying the safe harbor provisions of CDA 230.

It is likely that the CDA change will cause something called the moderator’s dilemma, because as written it states that the target is sited that knowingly facilitate trafficking. That means sites are likely to take one of two approaches - moderating nothing, so the “knowingly” part cannot be claimed, or moderating everything - all user posts being reviewed before posting to make sure no content that could be in violation. All or nothing, in other words.

A big problem with this is that it pretty transparently conflates all sex work with trafficking and makes it a federal crime. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), a co-author if the house bill stated as much:

“H.R. 1865 creates the new offense of intentional promotion or facilitation of prostitution while using or operating a facility or means of interstate or foreign commerce, such as the internet”

Hate to sound like the sky is falling, but in my opinion, it is. Or at least it’s very likely about to.

More info here:

https://reason.com/blog/2018/02/28/fosta

I think and hope we would all agree that trafficking is heinous and horrifying, but the point had been made in many places that this would actually make it harder for law enforcement to fight it by driving it underground and back into informal offline networks of people such as before the internet existed.

Unfortunately it's a bit difficult to speak out publicly on legislation like this. Unlike the furor over net neutrality last year, which many of my real-life friends were very vocal about, I wouldn't have heard about this until now except for a couple of providers' Twitters. I feel like making a fuss when few others are would raise eyebrows. At worst, "What, are you in favor of underage prostitution??? Ugh, sick" At best, "why do you care about this, exactly?"

I agree this is likely going to make things less safe for many and drive the real scum further underground. Guess I got into the hobby just in time...I have private contact info for at least a few I'd trust if everyone goes UTR.

This is rather troubling but the market will always find a way. TOR isn't hard to navigate and download, hell there's even a tor iPhone app so I suspect you'll see this and other sites pop up with an onion address or at the very least have private forums created with strict screening requirements.

Now would be a good time to start networking with trusted providers and clients to have a means to continue outside the site should it go down and not have yourself wind up on an island, so to speak

Trump wants all the providers to himself and the other politicians! What a genius plan by them to have someone front the bill with the target being the most common advertising, and leaving other avenues UTR. DC at its finest!

I'm not worried, I've been setting up plan b and c since last year. Sorry for the rest of yall. But honestly, you can't get rid of the worlds oldest profession. Yeah it'll be harder, but horny men will always find a way to pay for sex.

Better dust off the little black book.

A big problem with this is that it pretty transparently conflates all sex work with trafficking and makes it a federal crime. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), a co-author if the house bill stated as much:

“H.R. 1865 creates the new offense of intentional promotion or facilitation of prostitution while using or operating a facility or means of interstate or foreign commerce, such as the internet” Originally Posted by SpankyJ

Problem? That's hardly a problem as far as the sponsors of this legislation are concerned. Basically, it's not a bug, it's a feature.

And it's only "new" on the Federal level, and not much. Under the promoting prostitution statutes of a whole shitload of states the owners (and probably admins and moderators) of sites like ECCIE could be prosecuted and convicted for promoting prostitution, and to the extent sites like this bring together escorts and clients across state lines, there's probably grounds for a Mann Act prosecution, too.

I probably should start learning how to get on the dark web... purely as a kind of professional "continuing education" thing.

Cheers,

bcg

Its called tor browser its the only way you can access deep web or dark web its legal to download but for security safety reasons you might want to download it onto a usb not your computer

Ph and always use a vpn and never allow it to maximize window onto screen in full resolution. (Your computer will log it after you download and open go to setting put on hi this disables javascript from creating any logs afterwords search for hidden wiki in search engine the link changes so you may have to try a few but once found your golden have fun

Nightshift is shutting down, at least for now. I've read on Twitter that Wordpress is closing down sex worker blogs but can't find any validation of it yet. Several Twitter escorts are also reporting that their work-related files have disappeared from Google docs.

Nightshift is shutting down, at least for now. I've read on Twitter that Wordpress is closing down sex worker blogs but can't find any validation of it yet. Several Twitter escorts are also reporting that their work-related files have disappeared from Google docs. Originally Posted by SpankyJ

It's probably time to contact the providers you absolutely don't ever want to lose contact with, and come to an agreement to keep each other posted of changes in contact information so you don't lose contact with them. Unless you're going to take this as a sign from the universe that it's time to retire from the hobby.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet heavily that ECCIE is soon to go comatose (at least), and probably without advance warning.

Cheers,

bcg

Trump is a known hobbyist. Surely he will veto the bill when it crosses his desk. Good Lord man no one in Congress has any sense. Piddling around with anything besides an all out effective way to stop human trafficking? And now this if passes will make it more difficult to stop. I’m sorry but this is nothing more than “mental masturbation”!!!

Trump is a known hobbyist. Surely he will veto the bill when it crosses his desk. Originally Posted by austin88998833

1. Most likely Trump will sign it, his status as "known hobbyist"* or not, because the GOP tolerates him in the Oval Office precisely because he will sign anything they put on his desk.

2. In the astronomically unlikely event Trump would veto it (shit, he's so stupid I doubt he knows how to spell "veto"), FOSTA/SESTA passed in the House of Representatives 388-25, and passed in the Senate 97-2. Can you say "veto-proof" majority?

It's going to be the law. You'd better hope the heavily Republican Supreme Court finds it unconstitutional... and given the clowns currently on the bench, I wouldn't hold my breath on that.

Cheers,

bcg

*Sure, he pays for sex, like we do, but I think that when push comes to shove, he's not seen as a "whoremonger" (moralist-speak for "hobbyist") but as a "sugar daddy". The rich get to skate on that distinction when it counts.