Salon Village Voice Needs a Reality Check, How Backpage is Anything But an Ally in the Fight Against Human Trafficking
By Yasmin Vafa
May 15, 2012
Last week, the general counsel for Village Voice Media Holdings, the company that owns the online classifieds site, Backpage.com, wrote an op-ed to The Seattle Times entitled “Backpage.com is an ally in the fight against human trafficking.” Not only is this statement a misleading and offensive characterization of Backpage’s position, it is also staunchly refuted by law enforcement nationwide. Indeed, Rob McKenna, head of the National Association of Attorneys General, who has worked extensively on human trafficking, has gone so far as to state: “The idea that Backpage is somehow an ally of law enforcement is complete nonsense. They’re actually allies of the pimps, of the traffickers. They’re making it easy for men who exploit girls and women to get away with it.”
But McDougall does not simply stop there. Her piece goes on to weave a web of misleading positions and canned excuses for her employer’s despicable business model. First, she implies that she was somehow randomly selected to serve as general counsel for Backpage, a decision she had to weigh in accordance with her principles. Whereas in fact, it is perfectly clear why Backpage turned to her – she was previously part of the legal team that defended Craigslist when it was similarly mired in child sex trafficking scandals. The only difference is that Craigslist eventually shut down its adult services section in the face of overwhelming evidence that its site facilitated child sex trafficking. Backpage patently refuses to do so. It refuses to do so despite wholly admitting children are trafficked on its site nationwide. And it’s no surprise why.
In the last 12 months alone, Backpage has generated $26 million in revenue from online prostitution advertising. In fact, Backpage makes up 80 percent of all online prostitution ad revenue. Therefore, when McDougall and others argue that no good will come of shutting down Backpage’s adult services section, they are quite simply wrong. Of course no one denies that traffickers and buyers may shift their focuses elsewhere, but it will undoubtedly make an enormous impact to take down the forum with the overwhelming majority of all sex ads. In fact, after Craigslist shut down its adult services section, a study revealed that the site’s ban sparked a 48 percent drop in the overall volume of prostitution ads online. The fewer sites out there where children are subject to exploitation, the fewer children get victimized.
McDougall goes on to argue that another reason why their sex ads should remain online is that they can assist law enforcement by providing the forensic trail of those who buy and sell girls online. Sounds great in theory. However, as we have come to learn from law enforcement who investigate trafficking related crimes, both traffickers and buyers have long caught on to such tactics and have accordingly resorted to using temporary credit cards such as Visa, AMEX, and other gift cards in these types of transactions precisely to avoid any type of detection. Moreover, is Ms. McDougall really arguing that we should allow continued sexual exploitation of children and trafficking to occur in hopes of apprehending a few culprits along the way? Faulty logic to say the least.
Lawmakers, advocates, and law enforcement across the country have made it clear that they do not view Backpage as an ally in the fight against human trafficking, but as very much the proponent of it. These figures have publicly pleaded with Backpage to shut down its adult services section. For instance, 51 Attorneys General from over 48 states have written letters demanding that Backpage shut down its adult services section due to its facilitation of child sex trafficking. And just this week the U.S. Conference of Mayors sent a letter from Mayors in 50 cities criticizing the “inadequate safeguards” on the website that lead to the continued exploitation of children. Lawmakers have also joined the chorus of those criticizing the site for its role in child exploitation along with 27 former Village Voice advertisers that have recently pulled ads due to the company’s involvement in child sex trafficking. And all the while, Backpage sits back, enjoys profits, and makes excuses.
The simple fact of the matter is that Backpage reaps financial rewards by providing an online forum for the exploitation of children. They continue to make excuses despite almost daily evidence that women and particularly, children are being advertised and sold for sex through their site—and sometimes even killed after being advertised on their site. Backpage has a moral obligation to cease its role in child exploitation. As a high profile company, their persistence in maintaining these ads is normalizing a practice that results in the widespread victimization of girls. As Attorney General McKenna has put it, “we can’t allow this open casbah—this market place to exist in such a high profile fashion because it encourages others to do even more of it.” And as Congressmen Maloney and Nadler have stated, “when a company like the Village Voice is engaged in selling children or trafficking victims for sex, it legitimizes the industry.”
I understand that Ms. McDougall has to defend the company she works for and represents, but that is precisely why she is not being objective. Calling the very company that profits from sex trafficking an ally of sex trafficking is not only false but offensive to victims nationwide and those who fight on their behalf. Backpage has effectively made it as easy to order a child online for sex as it is to order a food delivery. Even more disturbing is the fact that by indulging excuses and doing nothing to stop such practices, we make it possible for companies such as Village Voice Media Holdings and others, to gain enormous profits at the expense of our nation’s most vulnerable youth.
Village Voice‘s attorney Liz McDougall has warned that shutting down the adult section of Backpage will drive criminal traffic underground and offshore. McDougall’s argument is debunked in the below Salon article. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, when Craigslist shuttered its adult section the total volume of ads dropped dramatically, and most of that has not come back. The NCMEC president, Ernie Allen, said that if Backpage were to do the same thing it would dramatically reduce the scale and scope of the problem. Some of it would relocate, but it would not proliferate at the same level. Shuttering Backpage’s adult section would make things better he said.
SALON
An uneasy Backpage alliance
Anti-trafficking activists may turn to the site for tips, but some say we’re ultimately better without it
May 12, 2012
By Tracy Clark-Flory
In the fight against child sex trafficking, Backpage.com is seen as both friend and foe. The online classified site screens ads, reports thousands of potential cases of exploitation, assists in police investigations and acts as a resource for those searching for trafficked kids. But even some activists who use the site for good see greater benefit in the site shutting down its adult section — a move called for recently in Senate and House resolutions. This uneasy alliance reveals the complexities of the problem at hand.
In the past 16 months — the length of time Backpage has been screening and reporting potential trafficking ads — the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received nearly 5,000 tips from the site. The center’s president, Ernie Allen, tells me, “There’s no question they have undertaken the screening and reporting process very aggressively.” Ultimately, though, the question is whether it’s enough.
After working with Craigslist in a similar fashion for almost two years, he says, “What we basically concluded was that it wasn’t working. The price you pay to allow this kind of activity to proliferate was too great.” Eventually, Craigslist shuttered its adult section and, Allen says, “the total volume of these ads dropped dramatically, and most of that has not come back.”
If Backpage were to do the same thing, “it would dramatically reduce the scale and scope of the problem,” he says. “Some of it would relocate, but I don’t think it would proliferate at the same level.” Allen says that NCMEC doesn’t make “public pronouncements about the policy stuff,” but his message is clear: Shuttering Backpage’s adult section would make things better — but, short of that, NCMEC is devoted to helping the site reduce harm.
While Backpage is a useful tool for investigating exploitation, Allen puts Backpage’s 5,000 tip-offs into perspective: Last year, NCMEC received a boggling 326,000 reports, including those of child pornography and missing kids. “The vast majority of reports, and the kids who are rescued, and the offenders who are identified and prosecuted, are not a result of [Backpage] ads,” he says.
Bradley Myles, executive director of Polaris Project, a non-profit devoted to fighting human trafficking, tells me, “We think that the harm it’s doing is outpacing the potential for good, the potential for research, the potential for working with law enforcement.” That is largely thanks to the sheer volume of ads: Polaris has manually counted the number of adult ads on Backpage on certain days and found that the number rose from 14,400 on a day in mid-February to 19,000 on a day in mid-April.
“When you think about 19,000 potential sex ads in a given day, how many of those can law enforcement realistically respond to? I think the answer is only a small fraction.” Yes, Backpage is an investigative resource, he admits, but the sheer volume of ads makes it impossible for law enforcement to adequately utilize it. “It’s kind of this runaway train,” he says.
Like Allen, Myles dismisses the concern that the ads will simply pop up elsewhere. When Craigslist shuttered, it was clear that Backpage, another all-purpose classified service, could act as a replacement. But now he says there is no “third heir apparent.” There are plenty of sites that specialize in selling sex, but none that are general interest and have “the volume and prominence and name recognition that Backpage currently enjoys.”
Myles says, “I’m still trying to figure out to what extent it’s increasing demand — or maybe it’s just doing a better job of harnessing and centralizing all of the preexisting demand that’s already out there,” he says. “Is it really causing more men to buy sex who wouldn’t have bought sex in the first place?” There’s no empirical evidence.
Allen’s concern is that “what the presence of these kinds of ads in a place like Craigslist or Backpage does is validate it, mainstream it.” Asked whether he believes that Backpage increases demand, he responded, “I think it facilitates demand.” He then added, “Going to a site where you can engage in a dozen legitimate communities, where you can do all kinds of things and, oh by the way, you can do this too, I think it legitimizes it.” The “it” being the sale of sex — and many anti-trafficking activists see the legitimization of trafficking as an inevitable result of that.
I asked Myles whether he thinks it’s possible for there to be a suitably ethical sex trade. “Our experience has been that wherever there is demand for some sort of commercial sex, where you begin to actually commodify the act of sex and there’s a demand for that, pimps and traffickers go toward that demand and try to meet that demand with women and children who are being forced,” he said. Myles argues, “Pimps and trafficking are inextricably intertwined with wherever there’s a market for sex.”
Even eliminating children from the picture, Myles says, “You’re still gonna have this problem of thousands of pimp-controlled adults who meet the federal definition of trafficking because they’re experiencing violence and threats and coercion.” Allen tells me, “One of the challenges we face is there is a presumption of many that because she’s had her 18th birthday, suddenly it is consensual and voluntary. In the cases we see, this is a mere accident of chronology.”
As I’ve written before, this conversation so often comes down to the basic question of whether it’s possible to effectively fight trafficking of children and adults without stamping out the sale of sex in general. At the same time, it’s a debate filled with complexities and contradiction, which is how organizations like NCMEC find themselves partnered with a company its leadership sees as part of the problem.
COOPER: Another “Keeping Them Honest” report about backpage.com, the leading web site for adult service ads. Now last week, we reported on the growing push to shut down the web site’s adult services section where law officials say underage girls are sold for sex. That was on Friday.
On Monday, U.S. Congressman Robert Turner from New York introduced a House resolution calling for Village Boys Media Holding, which owns backpage.com to shut down the ads immediately. Pressure on the web site has been building for months.
The country’s 51 attorneys general, 19 U.S. senators, 600 religious leaders, more than 50 NGOs and a petition with more than 230,000 signatures are all calling on the media company to shut down its classified ad adult services section.
But tonight backpage.com is not backing down one inch. To understand the outrage over backpage.com, take a look at what CNN’s Deborah Feyerick found in a recent report she did for 360.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN CHOI, RAMSEY COUNTY, MINNESOTTA ATTORNEY: When we get a case involving the trafficking of prostitution, usually the story is going to start on backpage.com.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The daughter I know is a kid that likes to color.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Dawn that’s where the story took her 15-year-old girl, a child who apparently ran away with a man who seduced her online.
Within days, that man had posted pictures of the child on backpage.com selling the girl into prostitution. Allegations detailed in a criminal complaint.
“DAWN,” MOTHER OF GIRL ADVERTISED ON BACKPAGE.COM: He officially took her and beat her into submission to raping her and then held her into prostitution. It totally, totally crushed me to know that somebody actually did this to her.
FEYERICK: The accused pimp in that case has pleaded not guilty pending trial. It’s one of more than 50 cases in 22 states of people charged with advertising underaged girls for sex on backpage.com.
(END VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: The New York City Council recently held hearings on a resolution to stop those Backpage ads. One of the people testified described how she ended up with a pimp after running away from home. She told her story from behind a screen to protect her privacy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
“BRIANNA,” GIRL ADVERTISED ON BACKPAGE.COM: The main way that he felt that he made the most money was through Backpage. At this time, I’m 12 years old and Backpage sent me at least 35 dates a night.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: She says 35 dates a night at the age of 12. Liz MacDougal the lawyer for backpage.com also testified at the hearing. She says shutting down Backpage will only make it harder to actually catch child predators and sex traffickers.
The ads people run in Backpage brought in almost $27 million last year according to the internet research firm, Aim Group, after Craigslist shut down its adult services section back in 2010.
The ads migrated to Backpage and that has obviously been something of a windfall for the parent company. Liz McDougal joins me now. Thanks very much for being with us.
You say that this is not a site for prostitution. But any reading of these ads, I mean, can you really say with a straight face it is not a prostitution site?
LIZ MCDOUGALL, LAWYER FOR VILLAGE VOICE MEDIA: What I say is that this is a site where any illegal activity is unwelcome, human trafficking, child sexual exploitation and illegal prostitution.
COOPER: But it is full of ads for illegal activity?
MCDOUGALL: Well, we actually have more than 85 percent of our content has nothing to do with the adult category.
COOPER: But that is where you make your money?
MCDOUGALL: No, we charge on a multitude of categories. This is one category where there is income. We are a business. We do make money.
But keep in mind that we have 80 percent of our staff dedicated to policing and to cooperating with law enforcement to prevent cases of exploitation from ever making it live on the internet.
So that we can facilitate rescues and so that we can cooperate with law enforcement to ensure convictions when there are those opportunities.
COOPER: But there are ads, which are just clearly for prostitution. I mean, I looked at these ads for a brief amount of time. You can find ones, you know, saying very slim Filipino Dominican hottie. She says I’m all about good times and freaky pleasures. Another one says come to my garden and enjoy the rose bush. Do you think she is a gardener, I mean?
MCDOUGALL: I don’t think she is a gardener. But there’s no — one of the challenges in this area is that there is not a black and white line between legal sex work and illegal sex work.
Prostitution is illegal, but there is legal sex work of a variety of kinds and particularly in this economy. There are people who are engaging in legal sex works as the only means to be able to pay their bills and to survive.
COOPER: So you believe –
MCDOUGALL: And we are doing our best to find the lines between what is illegal activity and what is not. To do that better and we want to do that better, we need more collaboration with law enforcement and with NGOs and with projects like CNN’s freedom program that is trying to focus on preventing exploitation.
COOPER: But to say that you want to be the sheriff’s of the internet, which is what you’ve said in interviews before. It just seems disingenuous. The actually sheriffs the states attorneys general want to shut you down.
MCDOUGALL: The states attorneys general aren’t the actual sheriff. If you talk to the vice officers on the ground and I provided a list of those officers to your producer to talk to. They say just the opposite. They say that Backpage is the most cooperative and one of the most valuable tools they have –
COOPER: I have also talked to law enforcement –
MCDOUGALL: — for rescuing victims and for getting the evidence for a conviction furthermore –
COOPER: You do respond to law enforcement and they appreciate that as does the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I have talked to law enforcement though who also say, you know, they wish you would shut down. There are plenty of police out there who believe you are basically just providing a huge street corner for prostitutes to work on.
MCDOUGALL: Well, I would disagree because the law enforcement that we talk to repeatedly — we have hundreds and thousands of e-mails of accolades for our assistance. But the point is not just to assist them in stings and stalking the perpetrators when they’re online.
We are actively pursuing rescues. Since January of this year, I can give you at least four examples of rescues. In January, we rescued a child in Seattle, Washington because our moderators — before the ad got online, identified this as a potentially exploited minor. We reported to Nick Mick … NCMEC. [National Center for Missing and Exploited Children]
COOPER: There are other ads, which, you know, — there was an ad that a woman writes about make me beg, spit on me, degrade me that CNN found just recently. MCDOUGALL: As I explained to Deborah if that language got through it should not have. That was a mistake and mistakes happen with human moderation –
COOPER: But you are saying in order to stop prostitution, which is an illegal activity you need to give pimps websites. Does that make sense?
MCDOUGALL: What you say doesn’t make sense because we are not giving the pimps web sites.
COOPER: You’re giving them advertising.
MCDOUGALL: That is a factor of the internet and the internet is not going away.
COOPER: There are plenty of places to advertise, but you are giving them the most well organized, biggest one since Craiglist has gone away.
MCDOUGALL: Actually My Red Book is currently the biggest one — if you would like to call them. But the fact is –
COOPER: You are a big slice of this pie.
MCDOUGALL: There are according to Shared Hope International approximately 5,000 web sites that permit adult advertising and we could drive this traffic to other ones like Arrows, like My Red Book that are off shore and that have no interest in cooperating. And that two, we can’t get when they are off shore.
COOPER: Just because there are other bad actors doesn’t mean that what you are doing is right.
MCDOUGALL: It’s right because we enable rescues and convictions. The other sites won’t and don’t.
COOPER: You say you don’t allow underage people. You have no way of verifying whether or not somebody is underage. You just have to check off whether the person just says I’m over 18.
MCDOUGALL: We do far more. We have filters for terms and two tiers –
COOPER: They can lie in the ad about it though.
MCDOUGALL: They can lie in the ad. We have people examining the images to try to identify if someone is underage.
COOPER: The U.S. Conference of Mayors has asked you just this week to actually have physical verification. There are some websites that somebody who wants to place an ad actually has to go to an office and show an ID. You could have that in every city that you’re offering.
Why don’t you do that?
MCDOUGALL: I was so glad to get that letter from the mayors this week because finally, some elected officials are taking an intelligent approach to this problem.
COOPER: So would you consent to do that?
MCDOUGALL: That is something that we have been exploring for months and are continuing to explore. When you’re talking about the internet
–
COOPER: What does that mean continuing to explore that? You guys have been in business for a very long period of time. There are been plenty of people who wanted you to do this before. This is not the first time you considered this idea. So why not just say we’re going to do this.
I know it costs you money, but if that is the right thing to do.
MCDOUGALL: Money is not the issue. The issue is how do you functionally implement this? There are already technologies where you can verify the age of the poster, but that’s not helpful to verifying the age of the person in the image. There is no technology to do that currently –
COOPER: Unless the person comes directly in.
MCDOUGALL: Which –
COOPER: And you have to show an ID.
MCDOUGALL: If you have any knowledge and understanding of how the internet works is a practical impossibility in the internet realm.
What we are exploring is ways to make it a possibility.
COOPER: You have –
MCDOUGALL: When we do we will set that standard not just for us but for the entire online service provider community.
COOPER: Do you know when you will be able to decide whether or not you can actually do that?
MCDOUGALL: It’s not a matter of decision. It’s a matter of exploring and programming and collaboration with other online service providers, other technology providers, with law enforcement. There are some experts who have looked at how to better identify whether an image is somebody who is underage or not.
COOPER: But whether you are talking about internet verification you could just say anybody photographed in an ad has to come to your office in whatever city it is. You have these set up by cities and states and just show an ID why would that not –
MCDOUGALL: That’s where you have a complete misunderstanding of the functioning of the internet.
COOPER: I’m not talking about the internet I’m talking about physical location –
MCDOUGALL: Exactly. COOPER: This is — you say this isn’t about money, but it seems like this is only about money.
MCDOUGALL: No. There — in no way is this only about money. This is about the functionality. Setting up an office in every place that we have — that we have a site you would be asking Craigslist to do the same thing.
COOPER: Craigslist stopped the service and you benefitted from that.
MCDOUGALL: We certainly achieved some of the — obtained some of the ad advertising from that, but to claim that Craigslist is out of this business is grossly ignorant. And that’s one of the ridiculous fallacies that has been perpetuated with saying taking down the adult category is going to cure human trafficking online?
COOPER: I’m not saying this will eliminate human trafficking. It seems to me the only reason you are in this business is to make money. And you’re making an awful lot of money. It’s helping the parent company, which is having losses in other areas of the business.
This is a hugely profitable area of business. So you are coming up with all these reasons to explain why you are doing this, but the bottom line is you are in the business to make money and this is a way to make money.
MCDOUGALL: That is your articulation of the bottom line. I joined Backpage a couple of months ago with more than a decade of fighting cybercrime and in anti-trafficking.
This — this political campaign to shut down an adult category so we can say, look we did something effective here is — it’s a ridiculous ineffective approach and taking attention from the serious issues here.
The social conditions that create the vulnerabilities of the people who are trafficked and the demand issue. Let’s face the issue there is demand that drives this. I came here to stop this problem. I don’t make money from this.
COOPER: Your salary is paid by this.
MCDOUGALL: My salary is paid, but it has nothing to do with how much money the company makes.
COOPER: It does. This is how your company makes money. This is a big money — according to this group, Aim. I don’t know if their figures are accurate.
MCDOUGALL: That’s true, but does that mean that every business that is out there because they are making money is doing it for some level and purpose?
COOPER: No, but if it is illegal activity and you are giving them ad space or you’re allowing them to advertise and you’re making money off that it seems harder to take a really firm stand. And say we are not in the prostitution business we want to be the sheriffs of the internet when all of these states attorneys general are saying please stop this.
MCDOUGALL: We are in the classified ad business. As I’ve explained, the adult category is less than 15 percent of our business. The attorneys general are pounding their chest on this issue, but talk to the people who really know how the internet works and what’s going on, on the ground and they don’t agree.
Talk to Dana Boyd at Harvard from the Berkman Institute on Internet and Society, talk to David Finkelhor at the University of New Hampshire and talk to Dr. Mark Latinero who is now heading research on human trafficking and technology.
And there are multitude of academics out there who are saying as well as the vice cops on the ground, this is not the answer.
COOPER: Appreciate your perspective and you coming in to talk about it. Thank you very much.
A few items of interest on the developing Village Voice child trafficking scandal:
1. You can always refer to our up-to-date alphabetized list of advertisers jumping ship here: http://villagevoicepimp.com/advertisers/ Bookmark that page for easy reference.
2. A highly-reliable journalist has reported to us that the prestigious and world-renowned Guggenheim Museum in New York has dropped its advertising with Village Voice Media.
3. Our friends at Change.org and Groundswell report that more advertisers have yanked their ads:
ASPCA
Colorado Mammoth Lacrosse
LG
US Bank
5. And last but not least, Village Voice’s attorney has been going on national TV saying that if Village Voice shuts down its child trafficking ad business
then all the crime will go offshore.
That argument has been totally demolished by Congressman Nadler and Maloney who respond to that in the Capital:
“While that may be true, it is also true that if the business transferred to a less prominent location, it might be harder for the casual user to find and, therefore, might make this business less lucrative,” the congressmembers wrote. “Furthermore, when a company like the Village Voice is engaged in selling children or trafficking victims for sex, it legitimizes the industry. Given the magnitude of the business done by Backpage.com involving trafficked persons, it is hard to believe that your controls are as comprehensive as you claim.”
Kevin Roderick reported in the LA Observed yesterday: “The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art announced that it would suspend all advertising in SF Weekly, citing the trafficking of children for sex through parent Village Voice Media‘s Backpage.com. Via release”
If we come across that actual press release we will post it for you.
In addition, yesterday, a reporter contacted us at villagevoicepimps.com with a message from another NYC advertiser:
Mary Fiance Fuss, Director of Public Relations for Jazz at Lincoln Center said: “We alerted our marketing department to the Backpage.com controversy, and told them to no longer advertise in the Village Voice.”
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, a leading figure in the effort to combat sex-trafficking, addresses the current state of affairs with the main facilitator of online sex-trafficking – Backpage.com, owned by Village Voice Media.
Mayor McGinn stated outright that the assertion by Village Voice Media that they are allies in the war against exploitation of minors is “doublespeak” and that the safeguards they claim to have put in place are not working. The Mayor said that the Seattle Police have rescued 22 minors from prostitution, all of whom were advertised on Backpage.com.
In this video, the Mayor, Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles and Jim Pugil, an assistant chief in the Seattle Police Department give important information in what is being done to fight against this online scourge.
Seattle Times
Mayors urge firm to require IDs from people posting escort ads
The mayors of nearly 50 cities across the country are urging Village Voice Media to require identification for people posting escort ads on Backpage.com — its online ad service that has come under scrutiny from authorities for allegations that it’s used to promote the prostitution of children.
The Associated Press
By MANUEL VALDES
May 7, 2012
Mayors of nearly 50 cities across the country are urging Village Voice Media to require identification for people posting escort ads on Backpage.com — its online ad service that has come under scrutiny from authorities for allegations that it’s used to promote the prostitution of children.
“There is an urgent need to act quickly, as cities continue to find advertisements on your site that reflect underage sex trafficking,” the letter by the United States Conference of Mayors said Monday. “We are making every effort to stop the ongoing trafficking of underage individuals, but these efforts are made more difficult by the inadequate safeguards of your website, Backpage.com, to prevent underage sex trafficking.”
The leaders criticizing the ads include the mayors of Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Philadelphia and Austin, Texas.
Backpage.com critics say the site is used to advertise juveniles who often are victims of sex trafficking. The mayors join state attorneys general, clergy, anti-sex-trafficking groups and others who have put pressure on Village Voice Media, Backpage.com’s parent company.
But in an op-ed published in The Seattle Times on Monday, Village Voice attorney Liz McDougall argued that sites such as Backpage.com help law enforcement by attracting traffickers who leave forensic footprints of their activities and can then be traced by law-enforcement agencies.
“Backpage.com already employs a triple-tiered policing system that includes automated filtering and two levels of manual review of the adult and personal categories,” she wrote. “It also responds to law-enforcement subpoenas within 24 hours or less in almost all cases. It uses its own technological tools to voluntarily collect and submit additional evidence to law enforcement from across the Internet. And it is ready to do more.”
A message left on McDougall’s cellphone was not immediately returned.
A law recently enacted in Washington state makes representatives of classified-advertising companies that publish or cause publication of sex-related ads peddling children subject to criminal prosecution. Proof of a good-faith attempt to verify the age of the advertised person is considered a defense under the law.
At a news conference at Seattle City Hall on Monday, state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, one of the sponsors of the new legislation requiring in-person age verification, said McDougall’s assertion that Backpage.com is “an ally in the fight against human trafficking” is like a pimp calling himself “a guardian or protector” of children.
“It’s crazy,” she said.
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, who last summer ordered the city to yank paid ads from Seattle Weekly, which Village Voice owns, said he hopes Backpage.com officials will comply with the new law, which goes into effect next month.
“We will see what they do but … my guess is they’ll choose to challenge it” in court, McGinn said.
While it’s obvious adult women are being sexually exploited on the site alongside juveniles, McGinn said age verification is “an appropriate starting point” because there is “absolutely no argument about consent” when a minor, rather than an adult, is advertised.
Since 2010, Seattle police have recovered 24 juveniles advertised on Backpage.com, two of them in the past two months, said Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel.
On Thursday, detectives with the department’s Vice & High Risk Victims Unit set up a “date” with a girl who advertised herself as 22 but had really just turned 17 — and later learned she’d posted an ad on Backpage.com from a public library, Pugel said. She was taken to the King County Jail, where the automatic fingerprinting system alerted detectives that the girl wasn’t who she said she was. Instead of being booked, she was taken to a shelter and then released to her mother, he said.
In their letter sent Monday to Village Voice CEO Jim Larkin, the 48 mayors argued that placing an ad on Backpage.com is too easy for those exploiting underage people. They urged Village Voice to implement a policy in which people placing ads on Backpage.com must show up in person to verify their age.
Backpage.com has been the nation’s leading source of online sex-escort ads since Craigslist.org shuttered its adult-services section in September 2010. McDougall was a lawyer for Craigslist.org, providing counsel on safety, security and abuse, and she testified before a U.S. House of Representatives judiciary subcommittee on domestic sex trafficking days after the online advertiser stopped accepting adult-services ads.
Shared Hope International has compiled a list of dozens of cases in 15 states in which girls were allegedly offered for sex on Backpage.com, most within the past year.
Village Voice Media owns 13 alternative weekly newspapers around the country, including Seattle Weekly. Unlike Backpage.com, Seattle Weekly requires ID from those depicted in sex-related ads in its pages.
Seattle Times staff reporter Sara Jean Green contributed to this report.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And good evening, everyone. It’s 10:00 here on the East Coast.
And we begin tonight “Keeping Them Honest” in a corner of the Internet that’s accused of being a marketplace for pimps to peddle prostitution and exploit young women.
That’s the allegation being leveled against Backpage.com’s adult services classified ads. Fifty-one attorneys general in the United States want it shut down. So do 19 U.S. senators, 600 religious leaders, nearly a quarter million people who have already signed a petition.
They want it shut down for running ads like these, from the escort section of Backpage’s New York site. One reads, “You will feel right at home at our place. Stress relief by beautiful Asian girls.” Stress relief.
Or this, “Seductive, ready to rock your world. Call me,” the ad says, “to enjoy all you can handle.” The advertiser claims to be 19 years old. Now those are two of literally thousands of ads that you might find on Backpage right now. That company, Back Page defends the adult section saying that if pimps are going to advertise it’s better to do it someplace where authorities can track activity and help women in trouble.
But “Keeping Them Honest,” are they? We spoke to Backpage and some of the mothers of teen victims. Now, we have changed their names to protect their children.
Deborah Feyerick tonight reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): How would you feel, for example, I mean, as a mother if you saw an ad like this, or an ad like this? Or I mean, this — this girl, she says she’s 19. If you saw your daughter in this, like this, what –
LIZ MCDOUGALL, VILLAGE VOICE MEDIA, LLC: I would be horrified and I’m horrified for those mothers, and my heart goes out to those mothers.
And to their daughters who are victims of exploitation.
FEYERICK (on camera): Am I wrong? Isn’t prostitution simply illegal?
MCDOUGALL: Prostitution is illegal. And we don’t permit illegal activity on the Web site.
FEYERICK: What are they selling?
MCDOUGALL: But we have — there are legal adult entertainment services.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are playing a role in this problem.
FEYERICK: Attorney Liz McDougall is doing at Backpage.com which she tried and arguably failed to do as a lawyer for the Web site Craigslist. com, specifically try to convince people what’s advertised in the adult section is legal, not only the services for sale, but the ages of girls selling it. It’s not an easy job when prosecutors are demanding it be shut down.
JOHN CHOI, RAMSEY COUNTY, MINNESOTA, ATTORNEY: When we get a case involving the trafficking of prostitution, usually the story is going to start on Backpage.com.
DAWN, MOTHER: The daughter I know is a kid that likes to color.
FEYERICK (voice-over): For Dawn, that’s exactly where the story took her 15-year-old girl. A child who apparently ran away with a man who seduced her online. Within days that man had posted pictures of the child on Backpage.com, selling the girl into prostitution. Allegations detailed in a criminal complaint.
DAWN: He officially took her and beat her into submission to raping her, and then held her into prostitution. It totally, totally crushed me to know that somebody actually did this to her.
FEYERICK: The accused pimp in that case has pleaded not guilty pending trial. It’s one of more than 50 cases in 22 states, of people charged with advertising under aged girls for sex on Backpage.com. The classified ad Web site, similar to Craig’s list, lets people post all kinds of ads in different states. When you look at the escort section, there’s little doubt what’s for sale.
(on camera): Some would say all you’re doing is legitimizing prostitution. That you’re in the prostitution business.
MCDOUGALL: We’re not in the prostitution business when we’re doing everything possible to impede prostitution, to impede the exploitation of women, children, boys, men, laborers, sex trafficking. We’re — the Internet is, unfortunately, the vehicle for this. We are trying to be the sheriff.
FEYERICK (voice-over): Backpage is the leading Web site for adult service ads in the U.S. McDougall argues it’s better to have these ads on a Web site that works with law enforcement to stop child exploitation than it is to drive it underground or offshore where U.S.
laws don’t apply.
“Keeping Them Honest,” we asked Backpage if it considers itself part of the problem. MCDOUGALL: If we had a silver bullet to eradicate it, we would. But in the meantime what we can do is to be the best allies possible with law enforcement.
FEYERICK (on camera): But isn’t the silver bullet shutting it down?
MCDOUGALL: No. I wish that it were. You — as you can see, when Craigslist shut down, people had said that was the silver bullet and that made no difference.
FEYERICK (voice-over): No difference because people simply moved their erotic ads over to Backpage.com. And that’s meant huge dollars, almost
$27 million last year, according to aim, an Internet research group.
You benefited, you picked up the slack, you filled the void, you made –
MCDOUGALL: You’re right. A tremendous number of the ads came to us.
FEYERICK: Adult service ad sales were $3 million in March, up more than 30 percent from a year ago. Backpage says they monitor ad content, targeting some 25,000 terms and code words used by traffickers. It then checks ads manually before posting. Yet ads like this are not hard to find.
(on camera): I’m having a hard time with this, too. Make me beg, smack me, spit on me, degrade me, choke me –
MCDOUGALL: But that’s online. That’s a mistake. That should never be permitted. That violates our terms of use and our policies.
FEYERICK (voice-over): The policy prohibits ads selling sex for money.
Yet ask this mom we’ll call Violet.
What was your initial reaction when you clicked on escorts?
VIOLET, MOTHER: I was actually disgusted. All I saw was naked behinds.
Naked breasts.
FEYERICK: Violet’s 14-year-old daughter ran away. And police say she was later prostituted by a man she met at a bus stop who advertised her on Backpage. co Backpage.com.
VIOLET: The worst part was the torture I had to hear about. You know the torture she endured from different people along her way.
FEYERICK (on camera): Her daughter was missing for more than three years. It just seems morally wrong to have this as a business model, no?
MCDOUGALL: To me it would be morally wrong to have the opportunity to rescue women, children, boys, out of exploitation, and to walk away from that opportunity. (END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, that was Deb Feyerick reporting.
“New York times” columnist Nicholas Kristof has been on the front lines in the fight against human trafficking and California’s attorney general, Kamala Harris, signed that petition calling on Backpage to shut down the ads. I spoke to them earlier this week.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: You’ve been tireless on shining a light on sex trafficking, and especially of children. It is one thing for it to be overseas somewhere, you know, brothels in Cambodia that you follow. But it’s another thing for it to be in the United States and to have large corporations profiting off it.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF, COLUMNIST, “THE NEW YORK TIMES”: Yes. I mean, I think that I was also struck by the fact that it’s not just foreign women being smuggled into the U.S. The great majority of it seems to be local, domestic girls who are being trafficked in every city around the country, and on a Web site that is run by a substantial company that also owns “Village Voice.” And that was, until recently, owned by some major financiers on wall street.
COOPER: And then they make a lot of money off this thing. Assuming –
KRISTOF: We think that they make around $23 million a year on those online revenues. I must say that the company itself has been losing money like a lot of newspapers on the rest of the business.
COOPER: Right. But for the company, it’s a profit center that funds other things that they’re losing money on.
KRISTOF: Really the prostitution ad is what is keeping the rest of the company going to some degree.
COOPER: Attorney Kamala Harris, late last year I interviewed a guy named Ed McNally. He was then Backpage.com law enforcement adviser. I just want to play a clip of what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: You also said your company is committed on the Web site to quote “preventing those who are intent on misusing the site for illegal purposes.” Isn’t prostitution an illegal purpose?
ED MCNALLY, BACKPAGE.COM: Well, first of all, what we are really focused on more than anything is the protection of the people in our society who are most vulnerable. And most of our filters, most of our mitigation efforts, most of our law enforcement efforts are really focused on preventing human trafficking and especially the most vulnerable, which is children.
(END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Do you buy that? I mean, they’re painting themselves here as kind of heroes, that they’re the ones looking out for the best interests of children, of the most vulnerable in society, and they claim they have all these mitigation efforts and lots of letters from local law enforcement who said they’re doing a great job.
KAMALA HARRIS, CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, they’re also in possession of a letter from all of the attorneys general of the United States expressing deep concern about what they have done in terms of facilitating human trafficking, exploitation of children.
COOPER: How is what they’re doing legal? I mean, if prostitution is illegal, how is what they’re doing legal?
HARRIS: I have heard them make a first amendment argument. But here’s the reality of it. This is not just an international issue. This is something that very much is an issue of the kid in Kansas who’s the runaway, who’s trafficked to Las Vegas and then brought in to be prostituted on Hollywood boulevard. It’s a very real issue.
Backpage.com has been proven to be the marketplace with which these illegal transactions occur. And they need to be responsible. They need to be responsible corporate citizens. We have a history of this issue with Craigslist, and they did the right thing and I think Backpage needs to do it, too.
COOPER: But, Nick, as you know, Backpage says that they’re actually, you know, being responsible. They have mitigation efforts. They have review efforts. And that they’re being responsible on this.
KRISTOF: It’s true that Backpage does respond very quickly to subpoenas, for example, and they do cooperate with law enforcement.
COOPER: But they also, you know, supporters of this will say, well, look, you eliminate it from Backpage, you eliminate it from Craigslist, it’s going to go elsewhere. It is going to go to some other site that doesn’t have, you know — that doesn’t respond to subpoenas, that isn’t as public as Backpage.com.
KRISTOF: Some of it will go elsewhere. I mean, if you arrest ten bank robbers there may well be five more to take your place. But they won’t be fully replaced. And Backpage right now, as far as we can tell, controls 80 percent of the prostitution ad market. That’s a huge amount. They attract mainstream customers. Some of the other Web sites are really more pornographic. If Backpage gets out of the escort ad business that will make a real dent in this trade.
COOPER: Attorney general Harris, as you said earlier you, along with others attorneys general have written letters demanding Backpage shut down the adult services section. Is there anything legally can you do to actually force them to close?
HARRIS: We can issue subpoenas. We certainly are, and in fact, have requested a great deal of information from them about what they are seeing in terms of the complaints they have received. What knowledge they have about underage individuals being trafficked on their site.
But it doesn’t mean that because we are constantly in the pursuit of justice and we are constantly challenged with — with criminal justice issues that we don’t begin and we don’t deal with any of them. The reality is Backpage has proven to be a thriving marketplace. In the issue of human trafficking is a $32 billion industry in this country
– in the world. And let’s be very clear about the underlying issue here. It’s not necessarily a vice issue.
It’s the issue that — that there are individuals, and companies, and they can be cartels or they can be Backpage, who are making a huge amount of money off the trafficking of human beings. Many of them who are underage girls. And that should be an issue of concern and therefore priority for all of us.
COOPER: Craigslist bowed ultimately to public pressure. Has Backpage so far, Nick, has not done that. You say targeting advertisers in the “Village Voice” would be most effective.
KRISTOF: Yes. I think that public pressure is helpful on Backpage and there is, indeed, a petition on change. org to put pressure on them.
But ultimately I think what matters to them is money. And I think if they see that they’re going to lose more money in advertising in “Village Voice” and the other regional newspapers they control, then, it’s not worth it to them. And then they will exit the — this prostitution ad market.
COOPER: “The Village Voice,” Nick, as you know, is questioning your reporting, particularly one article about a former prostitute name Alissa, who says she was sold on Backpage.com at a time when it didn’t exist in cities that she was in. How do you respond?
KRISTOF: That’s completely false. I applied to them, they said that she had turned 16, in I think 2003. She turned 16 on December 30, 2003. And indeed throughout 2004, she was 16 years old. And was being marketed on Backpage, in one city after another, and I could show them that Backpage was operating, and of course, throughout that time.
And, I mean, there’s no shortage of girls, underage girls, 12-, 13-, 14-year-old girls who are being marketed on Backpage as we speak. I really encourage your viewers should go to Backpage in your city and look at it. And I think they’ll be horrified by what they see.
COOPER: Nick Kristof. Appreciate it. Attorney General Harris, thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Do you believe that Backpage.com when they say they’re not running a site for legal prostitution and if they are do you believe shutting them down will make a difference?
Let me know. We’re on Facebook, Google+ or talk to me on Twitter right now @AndersonCooper.
3. News commonly associated with Village Voice is prostitution and child trafficking but murders? Yes, that’s right, murders!.
We offer our condolences to the families of the Backpage murders. See original story from www.villagevoicepimps.com here:
here: http://villagevoicepimp.com/village-voice-backpage-murders/
4. Seattle Mayor sends letter to Village Voice: Your policies don’t work! “The efforts Backpage.com is making to address this problem do not appear to be having an impact on the ease with which its services can be used to exploit children in our city and in cities across America.” Link: http://villagevoicepimp.com/seattle-mayor-sends-new-letter-to-village-voice-ceo/
5. The national news scheduled for last night has now been rescheduled for tonight – 360º Friday, A website hosts ads selling underage girls who are victims of online sex trafficking. Anderson Cooper reports on Thursday. Watch AC360° at 8 and 10 p.m. ET.http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/10/ridiculist-people-who-missed-dyngus-day/
6. U.S. Senate resolution calls for Village Voice “to act as a responsible global citizen and immediately eliminate the ‘adult entertainment’ section of the classified advertising website Backpage.com to terminate the website’s rampant facilitation of online sex trafficking.” Link: http://villagevoicepimp.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Senate-Resolution.pdf
Underage sex trafficking, assault and now murder – all linked to the sex trafficking and prostitution ads in the adult section of Village Voice Media’s Backpage.com.
Two men have been arrested in connection with the slayings last December of four Detroit women whose bodies were discovered in car trunks.
The killings were widely dubbed by the press as the “Backpage murders,” after three of the women placed online escort ads on the site, police said.
The men, ages 32 and 24, were arrested by a federal, state and local law enforcement task force in Sterling Heights, a mostly middle-class community north of Detroit.
The men were taken into custody after a four-month investigation.
In the raid, officers confiscated cell phones, a computer and financial records. Evidence showed, according to sources, that one of the men communicated with the victims and may have solicited them for sex through a Backpage.com ad.
Investigators cracked the case by tracking the computer IP address to a location in Sterling Heights.
The men were “placed in police custody for questioning in regard to the Backpage cases,” Det. Eran Stephens said.
Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee has said that three of the slain women had placed ads for “prearranged adult dating services” on Backpage.com, prompting investigators to publicly say late last year that someone may have been targeting escorts.
Godbee stopped short of saying the slayings were the work of a serial killer.
Little other news about the cases had surfaced since the women’s bodies were found in December.
The bodies of 24-year-old Demesha Hunt and her 23-year-old cousin, Renisha Landers, were discovered Dec. 19 in separate car trunks in Detroit. The bodies of two more women – friends Natasha Curtis and Vernithea McCrary – were found Christmas Day in the trunk of a burning car parked in a garage.
Backpage.com said in late December that it had provided police with information about ads that a suspect may have posted on numerous websites.
That news came too little – and too late – for the victims who all appear to have been connected to their killers by way of the adult ads on Backpage.com.
In other Backpage.com news:
Reports out of Greeley, Colorado reveal that a grandmother and her daughter have been arrested for running a place of prostitution in their home where the two-year-old grandson also lived.
Greeley Police arrested 43-year-old Sherry Whitacre and her daughter, 25-year-old Amanda Becker on Tuesday after an undercover sting.
Cops had gotten a tip that the two were running the prostitution operation with a child in the house and advertising their services on Backpage.com.
Whitacre and Becker are being held on one charge each of child abuse and prostitution charges.
The toddler is now in the custody of social services.
Meanwhile, in Clayton County, Georgia, the sheriff’s office has issued a stark warning about Backpage.com as a haven for pimps and criminals.
The grandmother of a teenage girl said she was lured into prostitution through the site.
“We were devastated. We were absolutely so shocked and so surprised,” the grandmother said.
She says she found photographs of her 19-year-old granddaughter on Backpage.com after the teen disappeared in December from her job at a local McDonald’s.
After days of searching, they got a clue: a phone number. When investigators entered it online, they said they found suggestive pictures of the teen, posing as an escort.
“They have different people that will go out and recruit for them. They promise these girls the world,” Sgt. Robert Hitchcock said.
Hitchcock said the teen met a man at the McDonald’s who convinced her to stay with him and another woman. He said they quickly pushed her to take the pictures and sent her out for prostitution jobs.
“She was beaten with a belt to make her do what he wanted her to do,” the grandmother said.
“They use Backpage almost exclusively now to advertise their prostitution escort business,” Hitchcock said.
Then, in February, investigators conducted a prostitution sting in which they arrested several people who advertised on Backpage.com. They were hoping to find the missing 19-year-old, but she was already out of state.
“These guys move these girls across state boundaries, and if you get too close to them, these girls disappear and you’ll never find them,” Hitchcock said.
In late March, the grandmother got a call from the 19-year-old, who was in Portland, Ore., and wanted to come home.
“I know a lot of lives are being wrecked, and I’m sure a lot ruined. I think we’re one of the lucky ones,” the grandmother said.
And, showing that no one is immune from the ravages of Backpage.com, police in Ogden, Utah performed a prostitution sting operation, arresting women whom officers contacted through the Village Voice Media web site.
“We’ve been noticing an increase in advertisement,” Police Lt. Scott Conley said.
Officers have seen more and more women advertised as escorts on Backpage.com.
“You will see things like, ‘We’ll be in town from such and such date, come see me,’ ” Conley said.
The police are aware of the situation and are trying to eradicate it from the community, Conley said.
Police made an agreement with a local apartment complex for the sting. In one apartment, officers set up their command post, while another served as the meeting location.
Officers made contact with 12 to 14 women, saying to the women that they were looking for companionship.
Upon a woman’s arrival, the conversation would go from her role as an escort to a discussion of the value of a sexual act.
Police made six arrests and issued one citation. Charges included prostitution and running a business without a license.
Finally, in a stinging rebuke to Village Voice editor Tony Ortega, yesterday the Huffington Post posted a column that took direct aim at the immorality of Village Voice Media and Ortega, in particular.
The author of the column, Malika Saada Sarr, Director, Human Rights Project for Girls, had the following to say about Ortega’s stewardship of the Voice:
“The Village Voice is now largely funded through Backpage.com, an online classified ads site, in which you can purchase furniture, cars, or underage girls for sex. Backpage is owned by Village Voice Media which also owns the Village Voice weekly. Like Craigslist used to, the Village Voice’s Backpage is reaping huge profits off the sale and sexual exploitation of children…
“Unlike Craigslist, whose founder Craig Newmark finally recognized the moral abhorrence of his site being used to sell children for sex, Backpage has expressed nothing but shamelessness. Perhaps that is because Craigslist didn’t need the revenue from its sex ad sales to survive. The Village Voice does.
“Because of its desperation, Village Voice’s Backpage is using a multitude of asinine excuses to defend its online girl trade. Defenses such as their site needs to exist to assist law enforcement, that it is safer for children to be peddled for sex online than for the sordid transaction to be pushed underground, or that criticism surrounding its sex ads amount to censorship.”
Asinine, indeed.
Those are the same excuses that Village Voice Media owners Jim Larkin and Michael Lacey have been trotting out through their mouthpiece, lawyer Elizabeth McDougall, who has been pilloried in the press and, recently, during her testimony defending Backpage.com before the New York City Council.
So far, the only thing McDougall has been able to accomplish is to put a muzzle on Ortega, the long-time company hatchet man and chief water carrier for Larkin and Lacey.
