SWFL Freedom Fighters

The truth about Backpage & Craigslist Jennifer A. Murphy, MS. AS. Parts 1 & 2 May 2018

On May 21, 2018 the Senate overwhelmingly passed the bipartisan Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA). The Act is intended to Amend the Communications Decency Act, Section 230 & shut down the online trafficking of human beings. Which means they are sold as sex slaves all over the internet. Sex Trafficking is a hideous crime that steals the victims’ dignity, innocence & self-respect. It happens to boys & girls. After working with victims/survivors since 1987 I can tell you with 100% certainty that it is the most soul-sucking experience that a child can experience.This legislation is extremely important in the fight against modern day slavery. It holds online websites like Backpage, Craigslist, Ashley Madison & so many others legally and criminally liable for what happens through 3rd parties that post on these sites. It makes them accountable for knowingly facilitating the sale of children on their web sites.

Imagine you are a 13 year old girl. You have little supervision, for a variety of reasons. You have unlimited access to the internet and online websites. You’ve been let down, beat down & in many cases sexually abused. You are angry! You are hurt! You feel desperate & vulnerable. You have been abandoned by the people who should love and take care of you the most. You have accounts on all the major social media sites as well as many phone apps.

Then some random guy sends you a connection request online and you think what harm is there in being “friends”. No big deal, right? The photo he sends you is of a gorgeous guy not too much older than you. He is charming. He says all the right things. He understands you. You chat

with him every day for awhile. He is going to be your knight in shining armor & sweep you off your feet for this amazing fairytale life he portrays. He asks you to meet him in the real world.

You are 13 and you think again, what harm could come to you. You believe you know him well enough and trust that he won’t hurt you. You don’t tell one single soul about your date. Your friends & family might not approve. You meet at the park or the mall. Once the date is set you are elated, excited, a little nervous but you never dream anything bad is going to happen.

Except you are about to walk into something very bad.The problem is that Prince Charming is a fat, hairy 60 year old man & sometimes a madam appears to draw the girls in. Now you are in the back of a vehicle with people you don’t know. You have no idea where you are going. They have taken your cell phone, your shoes and soon your clothes so you can’t escape. You will likely be drugged, blindfolded, beat & raped repeatedly to force you to comply.

Congratulations!! You’ve just been groomed by a “Romeo Pimp”!! They whisk you away to be sold so that multiple men can rape you daily for less money than it takes to fill the gas tank of an SUV for the traffickers profit. A profit that is estimated to be, in some cases, $150-250k per victim annually tax-free!! Now that you are “broke-in” your Pimp/trafficker needs to sell your body to customers. What better way than place a personal ad on a website. The pimp/trafficker/madame go to Backpage.com/Craigslist & many others. The mortality rate for victims is about 6 years without dying from natural causes. If you live that long you will likely experience several abortions, drug & alcohol addictions, STDs, other female issues due to the chronic rape & lack of adequate health care.

On May 22, 2018 I started seeing fellow advocates saying Thank You and praising Craigslist for reporting that due to SESTA they took down their Personal Ads & Sex Ads from their websites.

Advocates everywhere worked their social media fingers to the bone to get this passed for victims, myself included. However, I remained extremely skeptical. I did not believe that these vile sites would change much if anything. Not until the first guilty verdict would be announced from the first lawsuit alleging that they knowingly facilitated sex trafficking. But I’m an eternal optimist so we soldiered on. Sadly when i checked Craigslist and Backpage myself and it only confirmed my suspicion.

The problem is that Craigslist and Backpage did not take the sex ads down. They didn’t do it because it is wrong & morally reprehensible to sell human beings! They didn’t do it because advocates begged them to stop selling children and making huge amounts of money off enslaved persons. They didn’t do it prior to the vote in the Senate or even after the House passed it. They didn’t do it to be good citizens. They did it so they would or could not be held liable for this illegal & criminal wrongdoing. They did it because they fear litigation that could &

likely would hurt their big fat bottom line. They moved the stuff around like a game of whack-amole but changed ONLY where to find to sex ads. Go to Craigslist.com. Select: Personals.

Select “Therapeutic”. That will take you into the online sex ads barely disguised as legitimate “massage” services.

Backpage.com is even a bigger offender of the online sales of persons in that they went even further with their online ads by intentionally created a subcategory of sex services that were specifically designed to attract pedophiles into buying children. Backpage is used in 97 countries & 943 locations world wide. According to National Center for Missing & Exploited Children 73% of their cases of sex trafficking were minors sold on Backpage.com. This is not the first time Backpage has reported that they would remove the Personals related to sex.

January 9, 2017 they reported that they were taking down all personal ads from the website but only after their operations team was arrested for not appearing in front of a Congressional panel in which they were to testify about the legitimacy of their site and ads.The Operations Team includes Tony Ortega-Editor in Chief. Carl Ferrer-CEO, Michael Lacey-Editor, Jim LarkinPublisher. In September of 2017 Backpage reportedly earning more than $22 million dollars a year from sex ads. Today Village Voice Media which bought Backpage has done almost nothing to protect people from being sex slaves. What did they do? On May 22, 2018 Backpage added an Age Disclaimer that has to be AGREED to and then you have full access to the pornograpic images and sex services for sale,as if they are not the least bit concerned about litigation.

I write about this is to remind everyone to be vigilant about protecting your kids & yourself. We can not trust these websites to do the right thing & stop the facilitation of our children being sold for sex. For more information about sex abuse & sex trafficking including too book training sessions to learn the signs of sex abuse & sex trafficking please contact Jennifer A.Murphy with Fabulous Faithful Freedom Fighters on Facebook or email jmurphy13694@gmail.

Not everybody can do everything but everybody can do something!

Here is the UPDATE: You may have heard that in May of 2018 after a (secretive) joint federal investigation seized the accounts, shut down the websites Backpage & Craigslist. Backpage executives were also arrested under a 93 count indictment, charging the BP executive with, among other things, knowingly facilitating the sale of persons for sex also known as sex trafficking or pimping or trafficking.

We can all agree shutting down these vile sites was imperative to help us curb demand and save the lives of the people potentially harmed by their existence. So, this is a fantastic thing.

What it is difficult to comprehend is that it took a 93 count indictment to make one arrest. That means the feds waited until they had enough evidence to support a 93 count criminal indictment of illegal activity. How long do you think it took for ALL the investigators to collect enough evidence for 93 charges? How about how long did it take to accumulate that much evidence? At the time the government came in and did what they should have done a long time ago 73% of sex trafficking victims were bought and sold on Backpage.com. How much money was spent on resources to have a joint federal investigation? If it takes 6-10 LEOs to bust a sex buyer & only 2-3 LEOs to bust a sex seller where do you think the limited law enforcement resources are allocated for and which operation do you think is utilized more? Can you imagine how much money it cost to run, staff operate this investigation? The worst part is that federal, state & local authorities knew how evil these sites were for a very long time. The real issue is that while they waited & took their sweet time collecting enough evidence for a 93 count indictment, children were raped, beat, tortured, gang-raped, sold, bought, raped again, and murdered-if only there was mercy for their souls. So, now ask yourself...how many children had to be raped and murdered before the investigators really had the evidence they required to shut down these sites with a 1 count indictment of facilitating sex trafficking. Yes, 1 count of knowingly facilitating sex trafficking would have given the authorities to shut down the sites and arrest the executives.

During this time advocates, therapists, professionals, concerned citizens, other kids, church groups and the like launched a tireless social media, letter writing (snail mail & email) & phone call campaign to every legislator in the Congress. We worked endlessly to get FOSTA/SESTA passed to give victims of online sex trafficking legal recourse to sue for damages. How many children weren’t we out saving because we were doing what we believed the government wasn’t doing-trying to shut down these disgusting sites.

No surprise that my fellow abolitionists are more than a little disgusted, disturbed & a little enraged.by the these harsh realities. In response to these new charges Florida Abolitionists is broadening the scope of their lawsuit against the website Backpage.com on allegations it knowingly promoted sex trafficking. The new lawsuit alleges Backpage & its owners were also engaged in racketeering-defined as a broad organized scheme to make money by offering illegal services. These new allegations are an important step in identifying the failings of the US Government to identify these sites for what they were/are and shut them down immediately

upon having evidence of sex trafficking. These new allegations fall under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ( RICO). The RICO Act is a United States Federal Law that provides criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. Notice how this falls under federal jurisdiction. Passed in 1970, the RICO Act is federal law designed to combat organized crime in the United States. To violate RICO, a person must engage in a pattern of racketeering activity connected to an enterprise.

The law defines 27 federal offenses and 8 state crimes within a 10 year period, as constituting racketeering. RICO also permits a private individual “damages” in a civil law suit. Both the criminal and civil components allow the recovery of treble damages (damages in triple the amount of actual/compensatory damages). Although its primary intent was to deal with organized crime, Congress never intended it to merely apply to the “mob”.

Instead, the federal authorities allowed these websites & their executives to hide behind the Communications Decency Act (CDA) 230 all the while making obscene amounts of money, literally on the backs of our children who were being physically, emotionally, & psychologically scarred for life.

Florida Abolitionists is one of several organizations working in Florida to end sex trafficking in the Orlando area.

Fabulous Faithful Freedom Fighters just opened up its new offices in Fort Myers