Escort Website Succumbs to FOSTA
CityXGuide classifieds — Backpage alternative.
On June 17, 2020, a Bay Area man was arrested by federal agents and indicted on child sex trafficking charges due to operating websites involving escort advertisements. It was reported that he made over a whopping $20 million from his digital empire consisting of CityXGuide, 1Backpage, and other Backpage cop outs.
Wilhan Martono, 46, was charged in a 28-count federal indictment on June 2.
They include:
One count of promotion of prostitution and reckless disregard of sex trafficking.
One count of interstate racketeering conspiracy (facilitating prostitution).
Nine counts of interstate transportation in aid of racketeering (facilitating prostitution).
Seventeen counts of money laundering.
It gets better!
Martono was charged in part under FOSTA, a law passed in the wake of the Backpage scandal in April 2018 that allows the federal government to prosecute websites that facilitate sex trafficking.
Our first FOSTA prosecution. Awe! A true Kodak moment. Awe!!!
Whatever.
It took a pandemic and a fear of defunding the police to finally use FOSTA to generate some dollars for cops, ICE agents, and other government officers.
All the headlines reporting about a man who allegedly made millions with ‘sex trafficking websites’.
Cityxguide Was An Enterprise
I see the guy as a businessman.
Taking care of business… nothing more to see.
However, the media paints him as a pimp and child sex trafficker due to an alleged advertisement involving a 13-year-old on one of his many websites.
“As soon as DOJ shut down one despicable site, another popped up to take its place," said U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox in a statement. "Like the owners of Backpage, this defendant made millions facilitating the online exploitation of women and children. The Justice Department will not rest until these sites are eliminated and their owners held accountable for their crimes." — CBS News
He didn’t facilitate anything.
He made millions off of digital enterprise of classifieds websites. He simply hosted a website for a third party to utilize as advertising space to promote their own business. He didn’t post those ads of an underage minor himself. His websites also had info for users on how to report suspected human trafficking along with other trafficking related resources. Users could also flag ads that looked questionable. The more people that flag it, the more chances of the ad coming down and moderators have to personally check out the ad itself for any violations. If it has prohibited content, then the ad gets deleted.
Most escort malls do not want to be associated with trafficking, so they develop rules for users to follow along with a protocol on how to report suspicious ads and such. The system isn’t perfect. They realistically can’t stop every bad apple out there, but it’s better than NOTHING.
Random escort mall from Google Images.
If the Feds really want to fight trafficking, then they should team up with these escort malls and work together to find the odd one out and hopefully catch the actual wankers than a consensual worker.
“Feds take down sites that replaced prostitution and child sex trafficking portal Backpage.com”
Backpage Helped Fight Trafficking, So…
Cops use escort malls to find traffickers, so why the hell would they shut the malls down? If they shut them all down, then where else are they going to find victims & pimps?! I know damn good & well that cops are lazy as hell, and they won’t get off their ass to go catch pimps on the street.
“Prostitution, Sex Trafficking Website That Took Over For Backpage Shut Down; Owner Indicted”
Hell no! Too much work. They love the simplicity online ads brings as they sit in their comfy hotel room bothering consensual workers to come see them and arrest them as a victim of human trafficking to up their heroic game. Ugh.
Defund The Police For Trafficked Victims
ACAB.
Note that when BLM says America needs to “Defund the Police”, understand that this also relates to victims of human trafficking. Not just black lives.
Cops should not deal with trafficked victims.
Defund TO Lessen Harm
So, defund the cops and take some of that funding into health & human services to allow the right people who can provide the much needed & thorough care to these victims than some military style interrogation trying its hardest to be sympathetic. Like, no.
To lessen human trafficking, look deeper into the problems. Don’t criminalize people with problems. Cops do not have the time to sit down, talk to victims and empathize with them.
Social services, trafficking survivors and even local sex worker nonprofit organizations will be better equipped to handle them than cops.
To prevent this 13-year-old from being advertised again, find out:
Are they a runaway?
If so, what are they running away from?
Are they a foster child or adopted
Are they abused at home?
Cops are quick to arrest runaways and even trafficked victims (who aren’t underage), so they lack the mental capacity nor the empathy to sit down, discuss, and find solutions for trafficked victims to avoid them from running away again and so forth.
Defunding the police and moving the funds to other departments that are better suited for these situation of handling victims will be far less harm than criminalization.
Censoring Escort Ads Won’t End Trafficking
Criminalizing business owners as who have no direct involvement with the nefarious actions of their third party users along with shutting down & seizing websites helps no one. The Feds would be better off working with these webmasters than criminalizing them. They want trafficking to go away?
Then, deal with it head on.
Don’t just close websites hoping that’s the end of trafficking! Because it’s not. When there’s internet, there’s trafficking, drugs, scammers, and it will always find a way to stay online. No matter how much the government tries and fails at censoring it.
Craigslist has scammers and other questionable characters who use the digital classifieds website to promote their scams to gullible buyers, but is it Craigslist’s fault that someone was gullible enough to believe an ad with a deal that seems too good to be true. Further, the ad was posted by a third party and not Craigslist themselves?
No.
Craigslist has warnings for buyers to read to help hem avoid scams, so if they make the conscious choice to believe some bro in Nigeria with his fantastic deal, then that’s on them. Craigslist tried to warn their dumbass.
”ANY TOOL CAN BE MISUSED”
When FOSTA became law, Craigslist quickly removed their personals ads to avoid any potential liability for facilitating trafficking.
In the wake of FOSTA in early 2018, Craigslist quickly removed its personals ads.
FOSTA harms the most vital law of the internet: Section 230 — grants online platforms immunity from content posted by third parties who use their platform.
Craigslist’s message about FOSTA.
Backpage AlteRnative
Unlike Backpage, CityXGuide advertisers could verify their ages by showing their IDs and granted them a “Verified” status on their advertisements after ID verification.
CityXGuide ads with some showcasing the “CityXGuide Verified” feature.
ANTi-Sex Trafficking Funding
This case using FOSTA as a charge is alarming.
If the government seriously decides to defund cops, then don’t be surprised if we see more FOSTA arrests & shutdowns in order for law enforcement (LE) to try to gain funding from the multimillion dollar anti-sex trafficking industry. As long as FOSTA is around and LE makes continuous progress at closing down more escort venues, then anti-sex trafficking organizations will likely support LE’s efforts and fund them, generously.
