The Demise of Backpage

Why is it that whenever someone “thinks of the children”, a sex worker is harmed in the process? In this episode, Hannah and Maia tell the story of Backpage - the classifieds website that came crashing down when instances of child sex trafficking was discovered in its seedy underbelly. But while the crusade against the site and its free-wheeling founders seemed well intentioned, the act that was used to take them down (FOSTA-SESTA) has had massive consequences for the freedom of the web, and most importantly, for sex workers. You can never be too altruistic if John McCain is in your corner. Listen for targets such as: Timothée Chalamet’s galaxy print leggings and Hannah being a wittle baby, and Taken (2008)'s continued gorilla grip on our culture. 

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SOURCES

Sofia Barrett-Ibarria, “Sex Workers Pioneered The Early Internet - Now It’s Screwing Them Over” (03/10/2018), Vice. https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvazy7/sex-workers-pioneered-the-early-internet

Samantha Cole, “Trump Just Signed SESTA/FOSTA, a Law Sex Workers Say Will Literally Kill Them” (11/04/2018), Vice https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvxeyq/trump-signed-fosta-sesta-into-law-sex-work 

Daniel Oberhaus, “The FBI Just Seized Backage.com” (06/05/2018), Motherboard. https://www.vice.com/en/article/j5avp3/fbi-seized-backpage-sex-trafficking

Samantha Cole, “‘Sex Trafficking’ Bill Will take Away Online Spaces Sex Workers Need to Survive” Vice (2018)

https://www.vice.com/en/article/neqxaw/sex-trafficking-bill-sesta-fosta-vote

Margaret Renkl, “The Alt-Weekly Crisis Hits Nashville. And Democracy.” The New York Times (2018). https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/opinion/nashville-scene-weekly-democracy.html 

Ryan Singel, “‘Adult Services’ Shutdown Is Permanent, Craigslist Tells Congress” Wired (2010) 

https://www.wired.com/2010/09/adult-services-shutdown-is-permanent-craigslist-tells-congress/  

Christine Biederman, “Inside Backpage.com’s Vicious Battle With The Feds” Wired (2019) https://web.archive.org/web/20190618114540/https://www.wired.com/story/inside-backpage-vicious-battle-feds/

Megan McKnelly, “Untangling SESTA/FOSTA: How The Internet’s ‘Knowledge’ Threatens Anti-sex Traffivking Law” Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol. 34, No. 4 (2019) https://www.jstor.org/stable/26954413 

Maia Hibbett, “Who Keeps Us Safe?: Mainstream feminism’s long alliance with the punitive state” The Baffler, No. 53 (SEPT-OCT 2020) https://www.jstor.org/stable/26975643 

Andrew O'Hehir “The Backpage.com sex-trafficking scandal, the death of the ‘alt-weekly’ and me” Salon (2018) https://www.salon.com/2018/04/14/the-backpage-com-sex-trafficking-scandal-the-death-of-the-alt-weekly-and-me/ 

Sara Morrison, “Section 230, the internet law that’s under threat, explained” Vox (2023) https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/28/21273241/section-230-explained-supreme-court-social-media 

Danielle Blunt and Ariel Wolk, “Erased: The impact of FOSTA-SESTA and the removal of Backpage on sex workers”, Anti Trafficking Review (2020)

https://www.antitraffickingreview.org/index.php/atrjournal/article/view/448/363

Cunningham et al “Did Craigslist’s Erotic Services Reduce Female Homicide and Rapes?” Journal of Human Resources. (2017)

Liara Roux, “Post-SESTA/FOSTA Self-Censoring for Twitter, Reddit, and other Social Media” Tits and Sass (2018) http://titsandsass.com/post-sesta-fosta-self-censoring-for-twitter-reddit-and-other-social-media/