They deleted a bunch of other subs, for other reasons, today.

After this bill being passed in the US today I am seeing on twitter that US SWers are very worried about their websites/ads and social media being kinda banned I think from the internet  ... so they won't be able to advertise or network online ... I don't totally understand it but this explains it
[removed - please don't post press urls here]

So I'm wondering how this could effect us all here in the UK? I have sites on wordpress and their HQ is in the US, also what about our social media and sites such as AW? I'm hoping adult work is all hosted in the UK so it won't be effected ..but could laws like this happen in Europe & the UK eventually? It could also possibly effect our emails like hotmail or gmail. Or clip sites we may sell on!

So yeah does anyone more clued up know more? I do all my ads online not sure what else I would do these days... Wonder what all the US girls and guys are gonna do?  Very worrying I think.

xxx 

There's mentions that this bill will be challenged in court and found unconstitutional, for now this bill isn't law. Reddit,Craigslist and other social media platforms are covering themselves and trying to predict what content might get them sued in the future hence the sudden knee jerk reaction to suddenly censoring its users and their voice. The problems with the bill are its definitions are so broad companies can't run the risk of any user content mentioning sex work, ammendments were put forward to shield companies from legal liability if they actively moderated their forums which were rejected. I'm not sure how any site that lets its users comment can be successful in that mindfield of a
law. If this bill makes into through court with no sensible amendments then I'm guessing places like twitter are going to blanket ban any mention of sex work or run the risk of one single post about prostitution,violating that law and potentionally landing the website operator with a prison sentence.

I have no idea what will happen to us in the UK especially when our laws contradict each other when it comes to sex work.

craigslist not happy with removing it's "erotic services" some years ago has just gotten rid of it's casual encounters and dating section in the US. when you click on it they just posted the following banner:

"US Congress just passed HR 1865, "FOSTA", seeking to subject websites to criminal and civil liability when third parties (users) misuse online personals unlawfully.

Any tool or service can be misused. We can't take such risk without jeopardizing all our other services, so we are regretfully taking craigslist personals offline. Hopefully we can bring them back some day.

To the millions of spouses, partners, and couples who met through craigslist, we wish you every happiness!"

However... their casual encounters section is working as normal in the rest of the world. phew...

So how's the future looking in the US with this new law when it comes to advertising sex services?

Dull.

The very few escort directories left will need to hire more staff to closely scrutinize their posters, a lot of escorts won't feel comfortable sending their ID's details and personal info because it might fall in hands of the government, who knows!  (remember that raid organized by homeland security on EROS a few months ago? Homeland security took the EROS guide hard drives with them). This will mean a loss of revenue for the directories. Then once the bill is officially enforced and the directories are faced with a couple of hefty lawsuits they will go out of business because it will no longer be a profitable business financially viable.

On top of it the new law makes the owners of websites that have ads for sex work liable for an illegal act. It was not illegal to advertise the illegal service before, it now is. So sex workers advertisements will get up to 10 years in prison.

All this means that US directories will gradually dissapear (IMO), problem is that prostitution will not. So the trade will go "underground", that would mean back to the streets like in the good ol days or directories shifting to the dark web. Once prostitution crosses into the dark web trafficking is absolutely impossible to control. Perfect example of this: Escort Ireland, one of the country?s biggest sex work websites, is concealing itself through Tor, an anonymous web browser that routes traffic through encryption software so users cannot be traced. It comes after a law enacted in February that made it illegal to pay for sex in Ireland.

the big question: Is this new draconian policy going to cross the atlantic into Europe and feck us all???

Oh well.... As per now the EU parliament supports internet freedom  through their "EP amendment 138" law, meaning: directories are not held liable to the content posted by second individuals. However (and this is the bad news): we are getting out of Europe in the next couple of years. The UK won't be under EU laws any more and the tory government has made very clear that one of the things they are planning to supress is amendment 138 and get rid of "porn, smut & prostitution". Meaning: we will be in a similar situation to the US. Hooray for Brexit (insert sarcastic tone in this space).

In conclusion: future of sex services advertising is NOT looking good.


Ladies: Thor will soon be your best friend. 

Some information on the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act 2017 legislation


wwwportman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=9C0739AB-CF54-406A-BD55-70ED11D4AC9B

Forget about SESTA being stopped. The senate has just passed the law and it just needs to be signed by Trumpf in order to start being enforced. Ivanka has just praised it on twitter and rumour is he can't wait  to sign it 

I also read the 53 page United States senate report that was commissioned around backpage.com knowingly facilitating child exploitation on their site. If Backpage were not so greedy for a dollar and morally bankrupt then I dont think things would have gotten this bad for them

I agree to some extent with that. However: backpage did had a screening and censoring mechanism, they were going through those ads one by one and tracing posters through with credit cards (before all the bruaha fell on them and they had to switch to bitcoin) and totally complaying with law enforcement. Dodgy ads or those that didn't look "right" would get automatically deleted. In fact, police were stating how helpful and collaborative Backpage was whenever there was a problem. There have been countless pimps arrested thanks to the effective collaboration between Backpage and law enforcement. Had backpage been really greedy for the dollar they would have passed on this 

Behind the backpage witchhunt there was a very strong political agenda that had little to do with trafficking and more to do with a Californian district atorney wanted to get elected to senate.