Some people in our government support crackdown on human trafficking, including sex trafficking. Those are my people.
Unfortunately, many other people in our government enthusiastically support it. Now they even want to restrict internet freedom, to shutdown Backpage.com, to “not enable traffic enablers” or some such?!?! Seriously?
The human-trafficking ads on Backpage.com are an alarm. They flag urgent work to be done. Shutting off the alarm would not put out the fire. But it could effectively return it to hiding. Back to being out-of-sight, out-of-mind. That would be a step in a not-good direction.
Allowing restrictions on the internet could also have serious effects.
Don’t let them do this. Put more resources on rescuing trafficking victims and prosecuting traffickers now! If their (our???) government agencies are somehow unable to find the human traffickers and trafficking victims which are all around us with the existing, extensive infrastructures they have put in place, then find them with these ads!
Also consider shutting down those expensive and clearly useless agencies.
Human trafficking customers are apparently able to use these ads to find these people. Are our law-enforcement and federal agencies claiming they are somehow unable to do the same thing?
Or, if they are claiming the task is bigger than the task forces they have allocated, then they should re-distribute, so that they can adequately address this emergency!
There was trafficking before the internet. And restricting the internet would not restrict trafficking. Do you know what
would restrict trafficking? So do these people. Cracking down on human traffickers. They need to do this, and now!
Our government should prioritize rescuing traffic victims and prosecuting traffickers, and stop using this communication decency double-speak to draw attention away from how they are not focusing adequate attention on either of these.
With the current administration, there have been significant arrests. This is quite new. This is quite good. It is not my intention to trivialize those arrests, or to dismiss them, (like our shameless mainstream media has done.) Our government should focus even more attention on doing more of this work, which is important and good.
This move to shut of the fire alarm that is Backpage.com, rather than to sincerely address the fire that is human trafficking, is not acceptable. Don’t let them do it.