House Bill Banning Online Prostitution Ads Heads for Vote

WASHINGTON, D.C.—A bill that advocates say is aimed at curtailing online sex trafficking passed a major hurdle in Congress on Tuesday, when the legislation known as the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 passed the House Judiciary Committee—and is now headed to a full vote in the House of Representatives. But opponents of the bill say it is too broad, and rather than address sex trafficking directly, instead imposes a widespread ban against online advertising for prostitution services, a move that could actually push independent sex workers into the clutches of the very traffickers that the bill claims to target. “Digital advertising has revolutionized the sex trade, making it much more possible for women to work without the aid of abusive or controlling pimps; to screen clients before seeing them; and to generally take more control over their bodies, businesses, and personal safety,” wrote Elizabeth Nolan Brown of the libertarian magazine Reason on Tuesday. “It’s also been hugely useful to law enforcement and families for finding victims of exploitation,” Brown continued. Ann Wagner, a Missouri House Republican who co-sponsored the bill, described “FOSTA” as “a victims first bill that will shut down the websites that profit from modern-day sex slavery, send the people who operate them to jail, and ensure that vulnerable people are never sold online.” The new bill is a modified version of a previous bill that passed the House earlier this year, known as SESTA, the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act,” which raised the ire of big technology companies including Google and Facebook by making them liable for ads published on their massive platforms that facilitate sex trafficking, if those sites had “knowledge” of the advertising content. That bill has come under heavy fire from the tech companies, as well as online freedom advocates, who say that the bill actually discouraged the tech companies from policing their own platforms—because by looking for illegal ads, they could acquire “knowledge” that they exist and as a result, become criminally responsible for sex trafficking. The new FOSTA bill changes the “knowledge” requirement. Under the new bill, tech companies must actually intend to promote prostitution by publishing the ads. But the new approach fails to distinguish between prostitution and sex trafficking. Erasing that distinction, according to Brown, would cause authorities to “stop distinguishing between forced or underage prostitution and sex that free adults consent to have.” In other words, the new bill targets not merely forced sex slavery, but any form of prostitution at all. The new bill is supported, according to Wagner, by two Christian non-profit groups, the U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking and the right-wing Freedom Coalition.