Backpage

Backpage was a classified advertising website founded in 2004¹ by the alternative newspaper chain New Times Inc./New Times Media (later known as Village Voice Media or VVM) as a rival to Craigslist. Similar to Craigslist, Backpage let users post ads to categories such as personals, automotive, rentals, jobs and adult services. It soon became the second largest online classified site in the United States. Craigslist closed its "Adult Services" section in 2010 in response to pressure from state attorneys general and other critics claiming the section facilitated prostitution. Much of Craigslist's share of the adult ad market migrated to other sites, with Backpage being the main beneficiary. Craigslist's former critics focused on Backpage, which resisted moves to censor the site until January 2017, when Backpage closed their adult section prior to a Congressional hearing.

Backpage was a classified advertising website founded in 2004 by the alternative newspaper chain New Times Inc./New Times Media (later known as Village Voice Media or VVM) as a rival to Craigslist. Similar to Craigslist, Backpage let users post ads to categories such as personals, automotive, rentals, jobs and adult services. It soon became the second largest online classified site in the United States. Craigslist closed its "Adult Services" section in 2010 in response to pressure from state attorneys general and other critics claiming the section facilitated prostitution. Much of Craigslist's share of the adult ad market migrated to other sites, with Backpage being the main beneficiary. Craigslist's former critics focused on Backpage, which resisted moves to censor the site until January 2017, when Backpage closed their adult section prior to a Congressional hearing. === California prosecution=== On October 6, 2016, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced that Texas authorities had raided the Dallas headquarters of Backpage.com and arrested CEO Carl Ferrer at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston on felony charges of pimping, pimping a minor, and conspiracy to commit pimping. In a press release, Harris denounced Backpage as "the world's largest online brothel". The California arrest warrant alleged that 99% of Backpage's revenue was directly attributable to prostitution-related ads and that many of the ads involved victims of sex trafficking, including children under the age of 18. The State of Texas was also considering a money laundering charge pending its investigation. Arrest warrants were issued against former Backpage owners and founders Michael Lacey and James Larkin. Lacey and Larkin were charged with conspiracy to commit pimping. Backpage general counsel Liz McDougall dismissed the raid as an "election year stunt", which she said was not "a good-faith action by law enforcement". McDougall said that the company would "take all steps necessary to end this frivolous prosecution and will pursue its full remedies under federal law against the state actors who chose to ignore the law, as it has done successfully in other cases." Backpage accused California attorney general Kamala Harris, who was running for the U.S. Senate at the time, of an illegal prosecution. Harris's office fought against releasing the men on bail, and the three prisoners appeared together in court, confined to a cage inside a Sacramento courtroom, wearing orange jumpsuits. They were released on October 13, 2016, with bail set at $500,000 for Ferrer, and $250,000 each for Lacey and Larkin. All three pleaded not guilty. Writing for the magazine Pacific Standard, reporter Melissa Gira Grant observed that news outlets repeatedly referred to the three men as being charged with "sex trafficking", though the charges were actually related to prostitution. "None are accused with forcing anyone into prostitution", Grant wrote. "None are even accused of having had any physical contact with anyone in the sex trade. What the complaint claims the men did was earn money from a website where users could place advertisements for what Backpage categorized as 'adult' services." On October 17, 2016, attorneys for Ferrer, Larkin and Lacey sent a letter to Harris asking that all charges against their clients be dropped. Harris refused. The letter accused Harris of acting in bad faith, since she had signed a letter to Congress in 2013, along with 48 other state attorneys general, telling Congress that Section 230 of the CDA "prevents State and local law enforcement agencies from prosecuting" companies such as Backpage, and asking that Congress change the law. On November 17, 2016, Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman issued a tentative ruling on a motion to dismiss the charges, indicating that he would likely do so. He ruled that the many of Backpage's decisions regarding third-party content were "all traditional publishing decisions", which are "generally immunized under" Section 230. Bowman wrote, "In short, any victimization resulted from the third party's placement of the ad, not because Backpage [profited] from the ad placement." On December 9, 2016, Bowman issued his final ruling, dismissing all the charges in the complaint, stating that "Congress has precluded liability for online publishers for the action of publishing third party speech and thus provided for both a foreclosure from prosecution and an affirmative defense at trial. Congress has spoken on this matter and it is for Congress, not this Court, to revisit." On December 23, 2016, the state of California filed new charges against Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer and former Backpage owners Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin accusing them of pimping and money laundering. Lawyers for Backpage responded that the new charges rehashed the earlier case, which had been dismissed. The filing of new charges came just a few weeks before Kamala Harris was to be sworn in as U.S. Senator from California. Superior Court Judge Lawrence Brown dismissed the new pimping charges on August 23, 2017, writing that the state's "attempt to assign criminal liability to defendants who offered an online forum on which other people posted advertisements that led to prostitution ... confuse moral obligations with legal ones and have been rejected in other jurisdictions". Brown allowed most of the money-laundering counts to stand. The state alleges that Backpage illegally set up separate accounts to accept payments for ads from credit card companies that refused to do business with them after Sheriff Dart threatened them. Brown warned that prosecutors would be obliged to "show that the profits came solely from that underlying criminal activity." As part of his plea deal with the federal government, Ferrer pleaded guilty to one conspiracy count and three counts of money laundering in California state court, as well as to charges in Texas and in federal court. The California case against Lacey and Larkin for money laundering remains on hold pending the outcome of the federal trial. Ferrer has promised to testify against Lacey and Larkin in return for leniency. ==External links==

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