• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
    • Our Mission
      • Political Islam
    • Areas of Expertise
      • Economic Warfare
        • Cyber Security
      • U.S. Policy
      • Anti-Corruption
      • Foreign Election Observing
      • Supporting Free Speech
        • Legislation
      • Impact of ACD’s Work
      • Free Speech Celebration, U.S. Senate
    • Board of Directors & Advisors
    • Our Team
    • Contact Us
    • Subscribe
  • Our Impact
    • Endorsements
    • Additional Praise
  • Media
    • Events
      • Coming Events
    • Radio
    • Television
    • Youtube
  • Publications
    • All Posts Archive
    • Articles
    • Books
    • Papers
    • Presentations
    • Recommended Readings
  • Free Speech
    • Legislation & Support
    • Impact of ACD’s Work
      • Free Speech Celebration, U.S. Senate
      • Some Congressional Testimonies
      • 9/2010: SPEECH Act Celebration
  • Economic warfare
    • The Impact of Purposeful Interference on U.S. Cyber Interests
    • Cyber/Space, EMP Insecurity- Current and Future Threats
    • The Existential EMP Threat
    • New Strategies to Secure U.S. Economy from Cyber Attacks
    • Economic Warfare Subversions July 9, 2012
    • CyberSpace Security – Papers And Articles
    • Cyber Security
    • Da’esh “lite” North America Islamist – Sources
    • The Muslim Brotherhood and Da’esh “Lite” in North America
  • Support ACD
    • Donate
    • Subscribe
    • Contact
American Center for Democracy

American Center for Democracy

  • facebook
  • twitter
  • youtube
  • linkedin
  • Free Speech
  • U.S. Policy
    • U.S. Foreign Policy
  • Political Islam
    • Canada
    • Hamas
    • Iran
    • Islam
    • Muslim Brotherhood
    • Palestinian
    • United States
  • Narco-Terrorism
  • Middle East Conflicts
    • Iran
    • Israel
  • Global Conflicts
    • China
    • North Korea
    • Russia
    • Ukraine
  • Soros
You are here: Home / ACD in the Media / Ad Site Crimes: Shutdown Isn’t The Solution

Ad Site Crimes: Shutdown Isn’t The Solution

January 6, 2012 by internet evolution | by Robert McGarvey

Natasha Curtis made four. All women. All found dead in car trunks in Detroit. Three of the four apparently advertised themselves as available for escort services on Backpage.com, a classified site owned by Village Voice Media.

There is no debating the human tragedy here. Voices are now demanding a forced shuttering of Backpage.com. Among them are loud calls from every state attorney-general and more clergy than you could shake a Bible at.
But that is no solution. Personally, I would applaud a decision by Village Voice Media to kill Backpage.com — but wishing it and trying to force it via courts are two very different matters.
There is a precedent: In September 2010, after its implication in murders andmore, Craigslist pulled the plug on sex advertising. At the time, the New York Times reported that blacking out that category cost Craigslist around $44 million in annualized revenues.
Now it is Backpage.com‘s turn in the crosshairs of public ire. Its ads cost $5 apiece, by the way, and as per reporting by the Detroit Free Press, in the last 12 months it pulled in $24.3 million. It now is said to be the “leading” site for sex ads, as per the AIM Group, which ranks such things.
Backpage.com‘s problems go beyond Detroit, horrendous as those murders are. In Tennessee, for instance, a 15-year-old Memphis runaway stumbled into the hands of a pimp, Marvell Antonio Culp, who apparently took “provocative” photos of her and slapped up an ad on Backpage.com, reports The Commercial Appeal.
In Seattle recently, a 26-year-old creep pled guilty to extorting sex — he pretended to be a cop — from two 15-year-old girls whose ads he found on (you guessed correctly) Backpage.com.
A glance at my local Backpage.comNorth Jersey pages informs me that I am in the midst of a sexual souk, with escorts, body rubs, “adult jobs,” TS (no, I do not know what it means), and much more all close by.
Is this pornography? Obscene? Criminal?
Much as we may snigger at Backpage.com, shutting it down would be akin to killing a cockroach on a midtown New York kitchen countertop. One might feel good for an instant about killing one roach, but then there are the thousands more lurking behind the wall. And there is nothing you could possibly do about it.
Backpage.com itself delved into exactly this quagmire when it issued a reporttracking 70 different escort ads on 22 Websites that it says are linked to the four dead Detroit women.
That is the rub: “Putting Backpage out of business will accomplish absolutely nothing,” says Connecticut lawyer Norm Pattis. He adds: “This is the year of the attack on the Internet. I expect more attacks.”
The attacks, Pattis says, will do nothing to protect women such as the Detroit four. “Take the Backpage ads down and it accomplishes nothing. Sellers and buyers will continue to find each other.”
That is the thing: Shutter Backpage.com, and even find a way to close all its US competitors, and as soon as you can say “Kiev,” a similar Website will pop up in a country that has no scruples about what Americans sell each other, as long as those Americans pay with hard currency for their advertisements. And there is no stopping the flow of sex ads from locations unknown.
Our only choice is to live with these ads.
“We have free speech in this country,” says criminology scholar Rachel Ehrenfeld, director of New York-based watchdog group American Center for Democracy. She points out that “child pornography is illegal” — that is, there are clear routes to attempting to protect victims such as the Tennessee girl — but otherwise the Constitution sometimes will leave us with messes.
“There are many things I wish weren’t on the Internet — but we cannot limit it. You either are for free speech or you are not,” says Ehrenfeld.
It is really that simple. Shutting down Backpage.com would be an assault on the Internet freedoms we all enjoy.
— Robert McGarvey has been online and writing about the Internet for nearly 25 years.

Filed Under: ACD in the Media, Free Speech & Libel Tourism, U.S. Policy

Primary Sidebar

Now Available

Buy The Soros Agenda

Search

All Topics

Authors

The Soros Agenda

g. soros

Soros: The Man Who Would Be Kingmaker, Part I

Rachel Ehrenfeld & Shawn Macomber

Soros: The Man Who Would Be Kingmaker, Part II

Soros: The Man Who Would be Kingmaker, Part III

Soros: The Man Who Would be Kingmaker, Part IV

Spotlight

quote by j.woolsey obama signing Rachel's law chemical terrorism transportation terrorism nuclear threats on the rise islamist incitement winning the cyberwar gps concepts and misconceptions libel tourism

Tags

antisemitism Caliphate Canada capital punishment China Christians Dawah Disinformation genocide Hamas Iran ISIS Islam Islamic Party of Ontario Islamic Relief Canada Islamic Relief Worldwide Islamization Islamophobia Israel J. Millard Burr Jews jihad Justin Trudeau LGBT liberalism Mazin AbdulAdhim Muslim Brotherhood Muslims Norman Bailey Ontario Palestine Political Islam Quran Russia Salaheddin Islamic Centre Saudi Arabia Sharia Sol W. Sanders SOROS Syria Terrorism Toronto US USA women's rights

Footer

About ACD

ACD is a New York-based 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, which monitors and exposes the enemies of freedom and their modus operandi, and explores pragmatic ways to counteract their methods.

Endorsements

"The ACD/EWI ability to predict future threats is second to none"

- R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence

- - - More Endorsements - - -

Follow ACD!

  • facebook
  • twitter
  • youtube
  • linkedin

Copyright © 2023 | The American Center for Democracy is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Your contribution is tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.