THIS GUIDE WAS PREPARED BY:
Elizabeth Swanson, Ph.D. Professor, Literature and Human Rights Arts and Humanities Division, Babson College 2017 T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
PART I: INTRODUCTION 1-22 Director’s Statement 1-2 About Trafficking 3-6 About Backpage.com 7-9 About the Jane Doe Cases 10-13 About the Communications Decency Act 14-16 Related Cases: Precedents 17-18 Amending the CDA 19-22
PART II: TEACHING GUIDE 23-54 Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Child Sex Trafficking 23-30 Gender Socialization and Social Media 31-37 Social Media and Girls 33-34 “Porn Culture” and Boys 34-35 Lesbian, Gay, and Transgender Youth 35-37 Freedom of Speech and Online Commerce 38-42 Stakeholder Analysis 42-49 The Jane Does and their Families 43 Law Enforcement 44-45 Congress & the Courts 45-46 Corporations & Alternative Newspapers 47-48 Non-governmental Organizations 48-49 Witness, Testimonial, and Empowerment 50-54
PART III: APPENDICES 55-64 Appendix I: I Am Jane Doe Timeline 55-57 Appendix II: Classroom Role-Play Exercise 57-59 Appendix III: Classroom Research Resources by Topic 60-64
P A R T I: I N T R O D U C T I O N
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT Statement of the Director of I AM JANE DOE, Mary Mazzio
It’s after midnight and your daughter hasn’t come home. You don’t know where she is. Her friends don’t know where she is. You wait until 5AM and then call the police. This heartbreak happens every night in America, in every city, and every town. Children go missing. Rich children and poor children. Children of all ethnicities and colors. Mostly girls, but also boys and transgender children. Many are preyed upon and seduced in online chat rooms, at the mall, or even fast-food restaurants. And then these children simply disappear.
What happens to them? Estimates vary, but thousands of children who go missing are bought and sold for sex. Online. Officials call this “sex trafficking,” which is a sanitized description of a child who is shuttled from motel room to motel room and repeatedly raped. The children most at risk for child sex trafficking are those who are homeless, LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex), runaway, adopted and in foster care. 73% of the children trafficked online who were reported by the public to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in 2016, were bought and sold on Backpage.com, a company formerly owned by the Village Voice. According to a Senate report, Backpage is worth between $450-$600 million dollars, the bulk of its profitability attributable to ads selling children and adults for commercial sex.
Several young victims and their mothers decided to file lawsuits against Backpage, seeking to hold the company partially responsible for the damage and trauma to their daughters. Most of these cases have not gone well for these children (who are referred to as “Jane Doe” in legal filings.) Most of their cases have been dismissed under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects websites from liability for third-party posts. Thus far, Backpage has successfully argued that although it hosts ads for the sale of these children, it does not create the ads, and thus is immune from all liability. The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals recently agreed, and in a stunning decision, expanded the protection of Section 230 to cover alleged criminal activity by a website owner. The court ruled that even if Backpage had profited from or participated in child sex trafficking as a co-conspirator or otherwise, it still could not be held criminally liable. Meanwhile, Backpage has made millions of dollars from these types of sex ads, and children continue to be bought and sold every day on Backpage.com.
- 1 - When I read about Jane Doe No. 1, Jane Doe No. 2, and Jane Doe No. 3, all middle-school girls from Boston who had filed suit against Backpage, three things struck me. First, I was shocked to learn about the breadth and scope of child sex trafficking, and that it happened in such alarming numbers in the United States. Second, I remember thinking how brave these young girls were, putting a face to the pain and a voice to the trauma they had experienced. They were standing up and fighting back on behalf of thousands of other children who had been sold online. Third, it was clear from reading various court documents that many federal judges didn’t understand the actual crime of child sex trafficking. How could hosting child sex ads be legal in the United States?
My goal with this project was to ask that very question. And to create awareness about the institutions that are enabling this crime against children to proliferate online, including federal judges and special interest groups (supported by technology companies). The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Center for Democracy and Technology, two high profile special interest groups dedicated to internet freedom, have been actively supporting Backpage with these legal cases against the Jane Doe children.
Given the damage that is happening to children on sites such as Backpage (and there are many other websites like Backpage), we hope this project gives rise to two specific discussions. First, that members of Congress, tech companies, website operators, NGOs, and internet freedom groups come together to discuss ways that internet freedom can be vigorously maintained while better protecting children victimized by online sex trafficking. Second, there is a larger question about whether website companies should bear more responsibility for harm that occurs on their sites. The evolution of doing business online has resulted in greater efficiency and profitability for companies, but now that the market has matured, why are websites still protected under Section 230 when off-line brick and mortar companies do not enjoy such protection?
Whether adults sell themselves on Backpage for consensual sex (which they do), or whether Backpage sells couches (which it does), are not topics of concern to us. Our only concern with this project is the purchase and sale of children for rape and sexual abuse, and examining who should bear responsibility for that harm.
-Mary Mazzio
______Mary Mazzio is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, Olympic athlete, recovering lawyer, wife of one and mother of two. For more about I AM JANE DOE, www.IamJaneDoeFilm.com. For more about Mary: http://www.50eggs.com/about-50-eggs/. Mary’s most recent film, Underwater Dreams, raised approximately $100 million dollars in public and private commitments to fund STEM education for under- represented students in partnership with the White House, where the film was screened with introductory remarks by President Obama. The film, with funding from the Gates Foundation, Bezos Family Foundation, Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, and others, is doing a deep dive in major cities across the US. For more about this project, which has reached hundreds of thousands of underserved children—including press, our partnership with NBC Universal/Comcast, Epix, and other information—the website is www.UnderwaterDreamsFilm.com. President Obama’s remarks are here: https://vimeo.com/131891915.
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ABOUT SEX TRAFFICKING
According to the International Labor Organization, over $99 billion per year in profits is generated by the global trade of humans for sex—including pornography, sex-trafficking, prostitution, and sex tourism—and nearly one- third of those profits ($32 billion) are generated in the United States.1 There are no clear statistics on the number of children (defined as being under the age of 18) exploited on an annual basis, but many non-profits serving children agree that approximately one in six, or 15%, of all homeless and runaway children have been trafficked for sex.2 The Department of Justice estimates in its NISMART 2 Report that 1.6 million children are on the street at any given time—and that estimate is as high as 2.5 million, according to The National Center on Family Homelessness.3 Thus,
1 “Global Estimate of Forced Labour Executive Summary.” International Labor Organization, 2012. http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_norm/@declaration/documents/publication/wcms_18195 3.pdf 2 The most frequently cited reports for such statistics include the US Department of Justice, National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART 2) Report, October, 2002.
- 3 - extrapolating out 15% to the general population of children most at risk— homeless and runaway—nets a figure that is 1.6–2.5 million in the hundreds of thousands. A new study Children on the from the University of Louisville paints a starker picture: 40% of all homeless children street at any given they surveyed in Southern Indiana and parts time. of Kentucky were victims of child sex trafficking.4 Furthermore, this crime is one that is very rarely reported and discussed, Up to 40% of yet remains one of the darkest human rights violations existing within US borders. homeless or runaway children are Child sex-trafficking is clearly defined under federal statutes enacted by Congress. The trafficked for sex. Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) was enacted in 2000 and subsequently reauthorized as the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), with the most recent reauthorization taking place in 2015. The TVPRA is a federal criminal statute designed to combat trafficking in persons, especially into the sex trade, slavery, and involuntary servitude.
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) Sex trafficking of children is a “severe form of trafficking” under the TVPRA. Child sex trafficking, in particular, carries severe penalties for any person who engages in trafficking children under the age of 18 years old for a commercial sex act. For anyone 18 or older, sex trafficking is deemed to have occurred if “a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion.” The statute makes clear that the commercial exploitation of a child is a violation of the TVPRA, whether or not force, fraud, or coercion occurred.
4 J.S. Middleton, R. Ghent, et al. “Youth Experiences Survey (YES): Exploring the Scope and Complexity of Sex Trafficking in a Sample of Youth Experiencing Homelessness in Kentuckiana.” Report submitted by the Human Trafficking Research Initiative, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, 2016. https://louisville.edu/kent/research-special-programs-projects/special-projects/kentucky-2016-yes-report
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Child sex trafficking, in particular, is defined as “a commercial sex act… in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age.” The commercial exploitation of a child is a violation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, whether or not force, fraud, or coercion occurred.
Later amendments to the TVPRA created Section 1595, which establishes that a victim of sex trafficking can bring a civil lawsuit for damages against anyone who “knowingly benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value from participation in a venture which that person knew or should have known has engaged in an act” of sex trafficking. It is under Section 1595 that many of the Jane Doe children have filed suit against Backpage, one of the largest online destinations for commercial sex.
The most recent numbers available from the International Labor Organization, widely considered to be the most reliable source for measuring statistics related to forced labor and trafficking, estimate that nearly 21 million people have been trafficked or are engaged in forced labor; of these, 4.5 million are victims of forced sexual exploitation, or sex trafficking (International Labor Organization). The United States Department of State estimates that 600,000-800,000 people are trafficked across international borders for sex per year; of those, up to 50% are children.5 In its 2015 Trafficking in Persons Report, the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons informs that “Particularly vulnerable populations in the United States include: children in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems; runaway and homeless youth; American Indians and Alaska Natives; migrant laborers, including participants in visa programs for temporary workers; foreign national domestic workers in diplomatic households; persons with limited English proficiency; persons with disabilities; and LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex) individuals. Non-governmental organizations working in the field noted an increase in cases of traffickers targeting victims with disabilities and by using drugs or withholding medication to coerce victims into prostitution” (388).
5 US State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Trafficking in Persons Report. Washington, DC, 2005. 19.
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Palermo Protocol Six weeks after the US passed the TVPRA in 2000, the United Nations passed the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children as part of its Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, commonly known as the Palermo Protocol, which constitutes international law on the subject of trafficking. Implemented by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Palermo Protocol shares with the TVPRA the recognition that victims of trafficking need not have been moved across international borders, but rather need only demonstrate that their participation in the commercial sex trade resulted from force, fraud, or coercion—or that they are of minor age. Domestic or international, all minors engaged in commercial sex are defined by law as trafficked persons.
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ABOUT BACKPAGE.COM
Figure 1 Backpage ad
Traditionally, and before the rise of the internet, the commercial sex trade flourished on the street and through sex ads published in the backs of many alternative newspapers. One such newspaper was The Village Voice, founded in 1955 by Pulitzer Prize winner Norman Mailer and three others. Originally established quite literally to be the “voice” of Greenwich Village, a thriving neighborhood in downtown Manhattan that was, at the time, a mecca for intellectuals and artists, many of whom were refugees from the ashes of WWII, the Voice enjoyed a rich and mostly positive reputation for investigative journalism and coverage in arts and culture. As it claims on its website, “As the nation's first alternative newsweekly, the Voice today carries on the same tradition of no-holds-barred reporting and criticism it embraced when it began publishing 60 years ago.” The Village Voice is a recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes for stories it published in 1981, 1986, and 2000, for political cartooning, feature writing, and investigative reporting, respectively. The Village Voice, like many other alternative newspapers, was also a venue for classified and personal ads—sometimes up to one-third of the newspaper’s content—which provided steady revenue. In short, its reputation as a progressive, “watchdog” news organization which investigated politicians and corporate officials for malfeasance does not fully
- 7 - account for its own long history as a hub for commercial sex ads. The Village Voice empire was acquired in 2005 by The New Times, owned by James Larkin and Michael Lacey. Like the Village Voice, The New Times was a muckraking alternative newspaper dedicated to liberal and progressive values. Still, the commitment to classifieds and sex ads continued unabated, and, in fact, exploded with the development of Backpage.com, the brainchild, according to a recent Senate Report about online sex trafficking, of Carl Ferrer, Backpage’s CEO.6
Early in the new millennium, as print classifieds were being overrun by websites, Lacey and Larkin were quick to capitalize on this shift and the rapidly evolving internet technology that enabled it. In 2004, they launched Backpage.com, a classified advertising website that soon became the second largest in the country (after Craigslist). One year later, New Times purchased Village Voice Media, which owned The Village Voice and 17 other alternative newspapers. Backpage hosts ads in many categories, but by far the most profitable division of its website is the “Escorts” section, which, according to a recent Senate report, accounts for 80% of the entire online adult services market in the United States and 99% of its own revenues, reported to be $135 million in 2014 (Backpage revenues soared after its competitor Craigslist, under pressure, closed its adult services section in 2010).
Backpage’s “Escorts” section:
…accounts for 80% of the entire online adult services market in the U.S.
…accounts for 99% of its own revenues (~$135 million in 2014).
On December 29, 2014, Backpage was reportedly sold for $526 million to Atlantische Bedrijven, a Dutch corporation that, according to Senate reports, turns out actually to be owned by Ferrer. Backpage also expanded oversees and is now in 97 countries and 943 locations across the world, according to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Report. Corporate ownership of Backpage.com, described in the Senate
6 “Backpage.com’s Knowing Facilitation of Child Sex Trafficking.” Staff Report, US Senate Permanent Sub-Committee on Investigations, 2017. https://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2017.01.10%20Backpage%20Report.pdf
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Report as “an unusual structure—involving multiple layers of holding companies, both domestic and foreign,” turns out to lead directly back to Carl Ferrer, and behind him, to Lacey and Larkin, who loaned him the money to purchase Backpage in exchange for significant operational control and profits (each reportedly received $10 million bonuses in 2014, in addition to other financial benefits).
Even as Ferrer, Lacey, and Larkin were building this online empire, they were subject to legal challenges to their facilitation of online sex trafficking—by the victims themselves.
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ABOUT THE JANE DOE CASES
Here are brief summaries of the cases brought on behalf of the Jane Does and similar child victims against Backpage.com to date, all of which are explored in I Am Jane Doe:
St. Louis: M.A. v. Village Voice Media Holdings LLC d/b/a Backpage.com The first case brought against Backpage, filed on September 16, 2010 in US District Court, Missouri, on behalf of M.A., daughter of Kubiiki Pride, involves a 13-year old child who was recruited at a fast food restaurant after she snuck out of her mother’s house to attend a party. The child was missing for 270 days and raped repeatedly as a result of being sold online via Backpage. M.A.’s Figure 2 On set; Kubiiki Pride case asked the court to hold Backpage liable for violating Section 2252A (prohibiting knowing distribution of child pornography) and other U.S. federal criminal statues, as well as the Optional Protocol to the United Nations International Covenant on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography. On August 15, 2011, the Court decided against M.A., dismissing the case on the basis that Backpage is protected under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, federal legislation that protects internet service providers from litigation based on content that third parties post on their sites. No appeals were filed.
Tacoma, WA: J.S., S.L., and L.C. v. Village Voice Media Holdings and Backpage.com This case involved a 15-year old who ran away from home and was recruited at a teen homeless shelter in Tacoma by an older woman to “go to the beach.” Within hours, the child was being sold repeatedly on Backpage. She was missing for 180 days. This case is the only case filed by a child against Backpage to survive a motion to dismiss. In this potentially precedent overturning (and re-setting) case, the Washington Supreme Court decided that “Subsection 230(c)(2)(A) of the CDA protects providers from civil liability when they act in good faith to limit access to objectionable content, regardless of their status as a publisher or speaker…[T]his provision clearly shows that Congress
- 10 - contemplated defenses for good faith actions that do not rely on an ISP's status as a publisher or speaker. But it would be absurd to ignore this language in order to protect the actions of Backpage.com, taken in bad faith, that have nothing to do with publishing or speaking another's content.”7 In other words, the court agreed with Attorney Erik Bauer on behalf of the plaintiffs that there Figure 3 On set; Attorney Erik Bauer was enough evidence to suggest that Backpage had gone beyond the role of a publisher to actually be responsible for creating content, thus becoming an author of content—and open to litigation about that content. Some of the allegations that the court found persuasive included evidence that Backpage “coached” traffickers on how to post ads and how to avoid law enforcement attention. The court decided to allow that evidence to be fully developed and presented at trial: “We find the plaintiffs have pleaded a case that survives the motion to dismiss. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”8
Boston, MA: Jane Doe No. 1, et al. v. Backpage, et al. This case was brought in 2014 by Attorney John Montgomery of Ropes & Gray, LLP on behalf of three minor children trafficked for sex in Massachusetts and Rhode Island via online advertisements on Backpage. Like the others, this suit sought to hold Backpage accountable for alleged criminal actions to facilitate the efforts of sex traffickers to sell children on its Figure 4 On set; Attorney Montgomery and his team site. It also alleged that in posting ads
7 J.S., S.L., and L.C. v. Village Voice Media Holdings et al., NO. 90510-0 (Wiggins, J., concurring). 8 JS., S.L., and L.C. v. Village Voice Media Holdings. NO. 90510-0 Supreme Court of the State of Washington, 2015. http://law.justia.com/cases/washington/supreme-court/2015/90510-0.html
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for the sale of minors for sex, Backpage had violated the TVPRA. More specifically, Doe attempted to persuade the court that Backpage could be held liable for civil damages under the TVPRA’s civil remedy provision, which allows a plaintiff to file a civil suit against any party who “knowingly benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value from participation in a venture which that person knew or should have known has engaged in an act” of sex trafficking.” Backpage’s Motion to Dismiss was granted by the federal district court judge in May of 2015 on the basis that Backpage was acting as a publisher of third party content and thus, protected by the CDA. The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling in March of 2016, expanding the protective coverage of Section 230 to an unprecedented extent: that Section 230 would protect a publisher who was a co- conspirator in a federal crime–-in this case, the crime of child sex trafficking. A last challenge was filed by Montgomery on behalf of the Jane Does in the US Supreme Court, which declined in January 2017 to hear the case.
Cook County, Illinois: Backpage.com, LLC v. Tom Dart, Sheriff of Cook County, Illinois Concerned about the increasing number of cases of commercial sexual exploitation of minors online, and having unsuccessfully tried to sue Craigslist in 2009, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart decided to get creative. On June 29, 2015, Dart sent letters to both MasterCard and Visa advising them that they have been conducting business with a company involved in human trafficking (Backpage) and requested them to cease and desist from continuing processing payments to Backpage. Both companies stopped doing business with Backpage; in turn, Backpage reacted by offering free adult ads with “upgrades” available to be paid with personal check or Bitcoin. They also sued Dart under the First Amendment and Section 230 for violating their rights of free expression as a publisher of online content. The lower court judge found in favor of Sheriff Dart, prompting Backpage to file an appeal with the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. That case was decided on November 30, 2015. In that decision, Judge Posner, writing for the 7th Circuit, acknowledged that a majority of ads on Backpage’s adult section are for sex, but went on to assert that “a majority is not all, and not all advertisements for sex are advertisements for illegal sex.” Judge Posner’s response raises the issue of cultural attitudes toward gender, sex, and the commercial sex trade in comments like this one, made in open court during the Dart appeal: “What about also old people, old men who like to be seen with a young woman, right. That is an aspect of escort service, it’s not all sex.” Citing ads for phone sex, striptease, and fetish sex, none of which are illegal, Posner’s decision
- 12 - essentially determined that if a little bit of protected activity existed on Backpage, then the entire site was protected.9
Although the civil cases filed against Backpage have largely been dismissed, there are new efforts by criminal prosecutors to hold the company to account. The first criminal action was brought by the California Attorney General in October of 2016, when Ferrer, Lacey, and Larkin were arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit pimping; Ferrer also faced charges of pimping minor and adult victims. The charges were dismissed the next month by a Sacramento Superior Court judge on the grounds that Ferrer, Lacey, and Larkin were protected as publishers of “third-party content” under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (summarized below). In December of 2016, California Attorney General Kamala Harris re-filed criminal charges of pimping, conspiracy to commit pimping, and money laundering against all three defendants, who were arraigned in Sacramento on January 11, 2017. Additionally, a federal grand jury investigation of Ferrer, Lacey and Larkin was launched in early 2017.
Figure 5 On set; Sheriff Tom Dart
9 Backpage.com LLC v. Tom Dart, Sherriff of Cook County, Illinois. No. 15-3047. US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. November 2015. http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi- bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2015/D11-30/C:15-3047:J:Posner:aut:T:fnOp:N:1663542:S:0
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ABOUT THE COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT
The Communications Decency Act is Section V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which revised the Communications Act of 1934, which regulated telephone and radio transmissions, to include internet as a medium of communication. Introduced by Senator James Exon of Nebraska, its purpose was to address concerns about the ease of access to pornography afforded by the internet, particularly for children, at a time when the internet was still in its infancy. Congress was clear that its intent with the legislation was to “target content providers, not access providers or users;” however, Congress also made clear that “owners of telecommunication facilities are liable where they knowingly permit their facilities to be used in a manner that violates the CDA.” Significantly, the CDA was struck down as unconstitutional on First and Fifth Amendment grounds in the 1997 case Reno v. ACLU, leaving intact only Section 230, which protects internet service providers from lawsuits based on content posted by third parties.
The most controversial aspect of the CDA, Section 230 was not found in the original Act, but rather was added by the House of Representatives as “The Internet Freedom and Family Empowerment Act.” The law, which states that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider,” was prompted by a lawsuit filed in 1995 by Stratton Oakmont (a firm founded by Jordan Belfort and made famous by the Leonardo DiCaprio film, “Wolf of Wall Street”).10 Stratton Oakmont filed suit against Prodigy (one of the earlier internet message boards) because someone had posted a comment effectively stating that Stratton Oakmont had been criminally manipulating stocks. Belfort’s firm argued that the posting was defamatory and that because Prodigy filtered content but missed this post, it should be held responsible for third party content on its site. The court agreed and Belfort’s firm won. The irony is that had Prodigy not initiated any attempts to monitor and filter content—in other words, if it had done nothing to protect against indecency or defamation—it would not have been held responsible, and would have suffered no penalties. But because it had initiated such efforts and failed to catch a “defaming” post, it was held liable by the court. This, of course, was seen as a major disincentive for internet service providers (ISPs, such as AOL, Google…and Backpage) to take any steps toward monitoring the content posted by third parties on their sites. In response, Section 230 essentially overruled the Stratton decision
10 Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services, Inc., 1995 WL 323710 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. May 26, 1995).
- 14 - by protecting from such liability those providers who had made “good faith efforts” to monitor the content posted on their sites.
The substantive language of Section 230 contains two sections: c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material (1) Treatment of publisher or speaker No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. (2) Civil liability No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of— (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
(B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).[1]
Courts have interpreted C(1) of Section 230 as conferring broad immunity on any publisher, irrespective of whether monitoring or filtering attempts are made. In fact, the protection of Section 230 was dramatically extended by the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Doe v. Backpage when the court ruled that even if Backpage had engaged or participated in child-sex trafficking (a federal criminal offense), it was shielded from liability by Section 230. The opinion also stated that the children filing suit should seek a legislative change, rather than pursuing action through the courts. . There have been upwards of 300 Section 230 cases litigated over the past 20 years, the vast majority of which involve defamation, rather than alleged criminal participation by a website operator. Although Congress intended for Section 230 to protect companies which try to filter content but don’t catch everything, that protection has been expanded by federal judges to provide a full immunity for online content, even if that content was encouraged by an ISP. And even if the website, in acting like a publisher, violated another criminal statute.
As a side note, it is worth pointing out that Section 230 is only enjoyed by online publishers and does not cover “old media” (e.g., printed magazines and newspapers),
- 15 - which have to defend themselves from third party content lawsuits. Although some advocates of internet freedom argue that Section 230 is synonymous with the First Amendment, Section 230, at its core, is a mechanism to avoid the cost of defending against lawsuits. These lawsuits do not implicate the First Amendment in any way. As a further side note and in an ironic twist, Jordan Belfort later pled guilty to securities fraud—which means that the posting on the Prodigy site was actually true.
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RELATED CASES: PRECEDENTS
In addition to the Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy case discussed above, which catalyzed the legislation providing immunity to ISPs based upon their “good faith” efforts to monitor third-party posts for indecency and defamation, Section 230 of the CDA builds upon several precedents:
Zeran v. America Online and the Doe Cases Zeran v. America Online (129 F.3d 327, 4th Cir. 1997) set another precedent crucial to the Jane Doe cases against Backpage, this time by defining ISPs such as AOL as publishers, not authors, of harmful material, even if they are aware of defamatory or obscene material among the content they enable to be posted. In reaching its decision, the court argued that distributors of material are a subset of publishers and are simply “exercising ordinary and legitimate publishing functions such as editing and disseminating content.”
In this case, defamatory posts naming Kenneth M. Zeran were made on an AOL bulletin board. After Zeran complained to AOL, he expected that the posts would be taken down. And while AOL did take down the posts, it continued to allow the same content to be reposted repeatedly, resulting in serious disruption to Zeran’s life and work. Zeran sued AOL on the basis that, once he had alerted AOL to the defamatory nature of the messages’ content, AOL had a "duty to remove the defamatory posting promptly, to notify its subscribers of the message's false nature, and to effectively screen future defamatory material.” The court, however, disagreed, arguing that "both the negligent communication of a defamatory statement and the failure to remove such a statement when first communicated by another party...constitute publication.”
This broad interpretation of the functions of a publisher by judges, which effectively absolves websites of responsibility for third-party content, has provided the basis for comprehensive immunity from lawsuits against ISPs, resulting in the dismissal of nearly every case brought by a minor plaintiff against Backpage.com. And prior to that, several similar suits (Doe v. Bates, (U.S. District Court Texas 2006); Doe v. SexSearch.com, (6th Circuit Court of Appeals 2008); and Doe v. MySpace Inc., (5th Circuit Court of Appeals 2008) were also dismissed. In Doe v. Bates, parents sued Yahoo! for posting a profile made by their child on one of its message boards, an online pornography group called Candyman. As the presiding judge argued, “While the facts of a child pornography case such as this one may be highly offensive, Congress has decided that the parties to be punished and deterred are not the internet service providers but rather those who created and posted the illegal material.” This case extended immunity to an ISP that knowingly profited from child pornography, setting the stage for cases such as Doe v. SexSearch.com and Doe v.
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MySpace Inc., both of which held that the ISP was immune from civil lawsuits seeking damages related to sexual assault or statutory rape of children who had met their attackers through ads posted on the websites.
Collectively, these decisions inform the climate in which the cases against Backpage by minors trafficked for sex have been made: ISP’s have no obligation to remove harmful materials, to prevent reposting of such materials, or to help victims to track down the content providers who are responsible for the materials. With one exception, all of the cases brought against Backpage.com repeat and affirm this precedent. And in each one, the federal district court judge or appellate panel presiding over the case has passed the buck to Congress, arguing that it is up to Congress to change the CDA if it does not want ISPs to be protected as publishers against claims resulting from defamatory or indecent or even criminal material posted to their websites. In point of fact, the 1st Circuit Court in Boston in Doe v Backpage stated that even if Backpage had profited from or participated in the crime of child-sex trafficking, its actions were in the context of “being a publisher” and thus had to be dismissed under Section 230. The 1st Circuit noted that the children needed to seek a legislative change in Congress.
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AMENDING THE CDA
One way to understand the judicial losses of the Jane Does against Backpage is to consider the distribution of responsibility among the different branches of government. While the legislative branch sets the rules that guide conflicts between, on the one hand, the principle of freedom of speech, commerce on the internet, and minimizing the cost of litigation based upon third party content (the CDA) and, on the other, the principle of protection from commercial sexual exploitation (the TVPRA and related federal and state statutes), it is, of course, up to the courts to interpret those rules as written when cases are brought that challenge them. In each of the Jane Doe cases that were dismissed, however, the court’s opinion bounced the matter back to Congress, claiming to be upholding Congress’s original intent and suggesting that parties concerned with the protections of the CDA should take the matter up with Congress itself. For instance, the Opinion of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Jane Doe No. 1 et al. v. Backpage concludes that “Congress did not sound an uncertain trumpet when it enacted the CDA, and it chose to grant broad protections to internet publishers. Showing that a website operates through a meretricious business model is not enough to strip away those protections. If the evils that the appellants have identified are deemed to outweigh the First Amendment values that drive the CDA, the remedy is through legislation, not through litigation.”
The most significant and least intrusive CDA amendment necessary to protect children from commercial sexual exploitation on the internet is for Congress to allow civil actions, or private rights of claim—in other words, to permit child victims to sue the website in addition to the actual author of the content. The private right of claim is permitted under the TVPRA and allows the victim to pursue a civil claim against all participants of child- sex trafficking for damages they incurred.
Given this punting back and forth between Congress and the courts, advocates have called for just such a revamp of Section 230, which came into force over twenty years ago and is overdue for review, especially given the swift changes in the tech sector. As legal scholar Katy Noeth asserts, “Section 230 should be amended to reflect contemporary developments on the Internet to impose civil liability upon ISPs that knowingly allow the sexual exploitation of children on their sites.”11And while lobbying toward this legislative change is underway—and since legislation can never keep pace with developments on the internet—Noeth and other experts suggest that it is up to the courts to mitigate
11 Katy Noeth. “The Never-Ending Limits of § 230: Extending ISP Immunity to the Sexual Exploitation of Children.” Federal Communications Law Journal 61:3, 2009. 784.
- 19 - damage in the meantime by refusing to apply the rationale from Zeran v. AOL, which was about defamation, to sex trafficking cases, which are about grave harm to minors who have been exploited.
Most significantly, back when Section 230 was enacted, the internet was in its infancy and Congress wanted to protect this industry from frivolous lawsuits, defamatory in nature, as bulletin boards were dealing with large amounts of content and had no way to effectively monitor every post. However, today, data mining tools make managing enormous amounts of data relatively easy. Section 230 allowed the early internet companies to thrive, unshackled from the cost of defending lawsuits based on content—a concept, that as stated above, does not exist to protect newspapers or old offline media. Technology has allowed these companies to grow, to become profitable and efficient. However, the cost has been increased harm online, specifically increased criminal activity and crimes against children. Rethinking whether websites, which now have low-cost tools to better eradicate harm, ought to bear responsibility is a fruitful exercise and long overdue.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
SEE THE FILM I AM JANE DOE, which opened in select theaters, is now available for special screenings and events, and can be seen on iTunes, Netflix and elsewhere. See www.IamJaneDoeFilm.com for more details. 50% of all profits from this project will be donated back to support services and prevention efforts for child sex trafficking.
CONTACT MEMBERS OF CONGRESS A new piece of bipartisan legislation which responds to the issues raised in I Am Jane Doe has recently been introduced in the House of Representatives by Ann Wagner (R- Missouri). A Senate version is also underway on a bipartisan basis. Please go to Democracy.io, enter your address, and write to your Representatives and Senators a letter to make them aware of the 1st Circuit ruling in the Doe v. Backpage case. Consider this template:
“Dear Member of Congress:
Children are advertised for commercial sex on Backpage, which, according to a Senate Report, is the market leader for sex ads. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reports that 73% of all its cases of online child-sex trafficking have occurred on Backpage. Several of these child victims have filed lawsuits against Backpage
- 20 - seeking to determine the extent of Backpage’s liability for this harm. However, most of these cases have been dismissed under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects websites from third party content. However, in Doe v. Backpage, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that even if Backpage had engaged in criminal activity by participating in and profiting from child-sex trafficking, Section 230 still required the case to be dismissed. The judges in the case specifically said that the children needed a legislative remedy, meaning that Section 230 needs to be reviewed and amended to make it clear that judges can not dismiss lawsuits where the publisher is alleged to have engaged in criminal conduct. We do not understand how it can be legal in the United States to host advertisements of children for sale. Please support an amendment to Section 230.”
Consider tweeting support of the current House members who have joined Ann Wagner: Representatives Joyce Beatty (D-OH), Ed Royce (R-CA), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Ted Poe (R-TX), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Martha Roby (R- AL), and Lynn Jenkins (R-KS).
CONTACT THE LARGEST DONORS TO THE CDT The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology, two high profile internet freedom groups, have publicly embraced and defended Backpage. They have also actively intervened in the cases filed by the Jane Doe children, filing briefs in support of Backpage. Technology companies are the primary donors of both organizations. In 2014, the largest donor to the CDT was Google (but other significant donors include Facebook and Microsoft). Meaning that the funds from these companies are going to support Backpage (against the Jane Doe children).
Consider writing letters to the CEOs of these companies asking them to (a) disavow the intervention by the EFF and CDT in these lawsuits filed by the children, and (b) discuss legislative changes to Section 230 to incentivize websites to better protect children from online sex trafficking and other online crimes.
Google: Sundar Pichai, CEO. c/o Google, 1600 Apitheatre Parkway, Mountain View CA 94043
Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg, CEO. c/o Facebook, 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Microsoft: Satya Nadella, CEO. c/o Microsoft, One Microsoft Way, Redmond WA 98502
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SOCIAL MEDIA We invite your support on our twitter feed (@IamJaneDoeFilm), our Facebook page, and our Instagram account (@IamJaneDoeFilm). Kindly use the hashtags #SpeakOutFightBack and #WithJaneDoe.
Sample Tweets: @MissingKids estimates that 1 out of every 6 underage runaways is sex trafficked. #SpeakOutFightBack www.IamJaneDoeFilm.com
@HHSgov says kids are targeted for trafficking in malls, bus stops, and fast-food restaurants. #SpeakOutFightBack www.IamJaneDoeFilm.com
@MissingKids says that 73% of all suspected child sex trafficking cases have a link to Backpage. #SpeakOutFightBack IamJaneDoeFilm.com
We, too, cherish internet freedom, but need safeguards to protect children from online harm. #SpeakOutFightBack IamJaneDoeFilm.com
Section 230 is different from the 1st Amendment. See more at www.IamJaneDoeFilm.com
The law has not kept pace with evolving technology. #SpeakOutFightBack IAmJaneDoeFilm.com
HELP ERADICATE CHILD-SEX TRAFFICKING
SUSPECTED CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING If you suspect a child is being sexually exploited or trafficked, please call 1-800-THE-LOST or 1 (888) 373-7888.
CONSIDER A DONATION TO THE ORGANIZATIONS BELOW My Life My Choice Fair Girls National Center for Missing & Exploited Children Legal Momentum ECPAT USA Deliver Fund Covenant House PA Trafficking in America Taskforce Polaris Project Shared Hope Vital Voices
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P A R T II: T E A C H I N G G U I D E
In her Director’s Statement (page one of this Viewing Guide), award-winning Director Mary Mazzio shares that her goal in making I Am Jane Doe was explicitly to inspire and facilitate greater awareness and dialogue about the crime of online child sex trafficking, with particular focus on how to balance internet freedom while protecting the rights of children not to be trafficked for sex online, as well as on the question of whether internet service providers (ISPs) should bear greater responsibility for crimes against children perpetrated on their websites.
Section I of this guide offers background information on current law related to human trafficking and to oversight of ISPs, as well as the history and evolution of Backpage.com as the largest adult services website in the world. It also features summaries of the various cases brought against Backpage by child victims bought and sold for sex via its website, describing the different legal strategies used by attorneys representing victims in several states, as well as the outcomes of those cases. Such material, along with the printable timeline (Appendix I) keyed to the film, should be useful to teachers for situating the film in context prior to or after viewing, in order that students may more fully understand the issues at stake and the different cases under analysis in the film.
Section II of the Guide is specifically designed to provide more context for teachers of middle school, high school, and college students. We begin with several potential areas for discussion, including commercial sexual exploitation; gender socialization and social media; freedom of speech, commerce, and the internet; and the various stakeholders in the Backpage.com cases before concluding with perhaps the most significant section of this Guide: on the survivors, the Jane Does, themselves. These sections provide context for the decisions on the part of the Jane Does and their mothers to pursue legal remedy for the crimes committed against them. They also provide a framework using theories of witness to teach the film as a testimonial document, a rare encounter with the voices and experiences of those who directly experienced the harm debated in courtrooms and legislatures around the country.
Instructors at different levels will be able to adapt this contextual material and potential discussion topics according to the developmental levels and competencies of their students.
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COMMERCIAL SEXUAL EXPLOITATION AND CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING
It is important to emphasize, especially for young viewers, that any exchange of sex for money involving a minor by definition constitutes trafficking and rape. Depending on their age and experience, students may be surprised to learn that minors are trafficked for sex online in the United States—a surprise shared by the families depicted in the film. Many will have heard of sex trafficking as a problem that affects “other” countries, but that does not happen “here;” others may have learned about it through such Hollywood blockbusters as Taken, a thoroughly unrealistic account of both trafficking and its typical outcomes. Most notably, unlike the representations in Taken, most victims of human trafficking overall are not white; most minor US victims of trafficking are trafficked domestically, rather than being snatched while overseas; and likely very few victims are as dramatically and heroically rescued from sexual exploitation by their CIA agent dads.
Here are the most recent statistics related to trafficking worldwide, found in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Report on Human Trafficking, 2016:
• 70% of all trafficking victims are women and girls. While men and boys are trafficked internationally, it is most often for labor rather than sex—although boys and transgender youth in the US are vulnerable to sex trafficking.
• 35-30% of trafficking victims worldwide are children.
• 54% of trafficking victims have been trafficked for sexual exploitation (the rest were subjected to trafficking for labor, organs, or “other” purposes such as forced begging, adoption, or child soldiering).
• Most, but not all, traffickers are male: roughly 6 in 10 worldwide.
• Approximately 150,000 minors are trafficked for sex each year in the United States (although this number is debated, as more particularly described below).
• Of these, 77% are black, Hispanic, or Asian.12
12Kyckelhahn, Tracey, et al., Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, “Characteristics of Human Trafficking Incidents 2007-2008.” January, 2009. 8.
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Statistics concerning the number of children each year who are victimized are hotly debated. Those who support Backpage or who support leaving Section 230 in its current state will assert that the 150,000 number is overblown. However, most advocates generally agree that approximately 15% of all homeless and runaway children are victimized. The Department of Justice and other organizations estimate that anywhere between 1.2 million and 2.5 million children are missing at any one time.13 Extrapolated out, then, 150,000 children appears to be on the low end of assumptions. In fact, the University of Louisville, in a recent study, found that 40% of homeless and runaway children in parts of Kentucky and Southern Indiana were victimized.14 If extrapolated out to the larger population of homeless and runaway children in America, the numbers become staggering.
The advent of the internet has proven to be a boon for traffickers and pimps, who can now advertise girls and women online and facilitate the transaction efficiently, hour by hour, in the privacy of an apartment, house, or hotel room, as opposed to risking encounters with law enforcement on the street. It is within this context that viewers meet the sex trafficking survivors in I Am Jane Doe. Too, the opioid crisis taking hold across the US has also fueled the commercial sex trade, in that vulnerable children with substance abuse problems are targets for pimps and traffickers, who, according to a recent report in the Boston Herald, often recruit from right outside methodone or other substance abuse treatment centers.15
13 US Department of Justice, National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART 2) Report. October 2002.
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D I S C U S S I O N P O I N T
It may be useful for teachers at all levels to begin before or just after viewing the film by taking students’ temperatures as to what knowledge they bring to the discussion, as well as to clear up relevant misconceptions. Students may begin by brainstorming their existing knowledge, and then move on to explore research questions posted below in order to acquire background knowledge and context for understanding the Jane Doe stories. Appendix III of this Guide provides resources and links for each of the questions below that can be distributed to students to guide their research.
RESEARCH QUESTION: WHAT IS CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING? Key to this classroom discussion is the fact that by law any commercial sex act by a minor constitutes trafficking, period. Sex trafficking occurs when people buy, sell, or trade sexual acts with a minor. Sex trafficking includes children sold for sexual acts as well as for pornography, and need not involve moving the child across state or national borders.
The global commercial sex trade generates $99 billion in profits annually, according to the International Labor Organization. While it may generate slightly less profit than the illegal trade in weapons and in drugs, sex trafficking is significantly more profitable for those engaged in it in the sense that while drugs and weapons may only be sold once, persons trafficked for sex are sold over and over again. For this reason, sex trafficking yields a whopping 100 – 1000% return on investment, making it highly attractive to traffickers. Thus, Human Rights First reports that “While only 22% of victims are trafficked for sex, sexual exploitation earns 66% of the global profits of human trafficking. The average annual profits generated by each woman in forced sexual servitude ($100,000) is estimated to be six times more than the average profits generated by each trafficking victim worldwide ($21,800).”16
Students may refer to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children “Fact Sheet” on the commercial sexual exploitation of minors for more information.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2017/03/special_report_opiate_crisis_pushes_addicts _to_sex_trade 16 “Human Trafficking By the Numbers: A Fact Sheet.” Human Rights First, January 7, 2016. http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/resource/human-trafficking-numbers
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RESEARCH QUESTION: WHO IS SUSCEPTIBLE TO TRAFFICKING? The main risk factor for child commercial sexual exploitation is vulnerability, including:
unstable home environments and family dysfunction; abuse or violence in or outside the home, including dating violence; poverty; mental illness; learning disability; substance abuse; emotional distress; and lack of social support systems
Covenant House reports that in a prevalence study conducted by Fordham University, approximately 14.9% of the homeless young people (aged 18-21) served by Covenant House New York had experienced some form of trafficking before their time at the shelter. This same study also found that an additional 8% of its young people (aged 18-21) had engaged in “survival sex” (trading sex not for money but for basic subsistence needs such as food, clothing, or shelter), and that shelter was the number one commodity traded by exploited children in return for sexual activity. Of those who engaged in commercial sex activity, almost half – 48% in total – said they did it because they did not have a place to stay.
RESEARCH QUESTION: WHO EXPLOITS CHILDREN SEXUALLY? Based on information from their National Human Trafficking Hotline, anti-trafficking organization the Polaris Project has identified traffickers as family members, friends, intimate partners, business owners, gang members, drug dealers, and members of other criminal networks who benefit from trafficking because of its high profitability and low risk.
As for the “johns,” or buyers of sex, according to Demand Abolition, a leading NGO that fights commercial sexual exploitation by fighting demand for it, approximately 1 in 7 men have purchased sex. Their reasons for purchasing sex include seeking intimacy, seeking sex without intimacy, seeking variety, and thrill-seeking. Their demographics?
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A recent study cited by Demand Abolition found the following characteristics in men who purchase sex online:
• Average age: 49.5 (range: 22-79) • Average income: $141,500 (range: $0-300,000) • 84.9% Caucasian • 97.3% heterosexual/2.7% bisexual • 66.3% married • 41.1% had a graduate degree, 38% had a college degree, 18% had attended some college and 2.9% completed high school or a GED • Average age of first contact with a prostitute: 32.2 • 94.5% had met prostituted people in a hotel or motel • 66.3% indicated they had met less than monthly with a prostituted person, while 24.7% indicated he paid for sex once or twice weekly • 45% had been looking for paid sex online for over five years • 72% of respondents indicated they wanted to interact with someone who “acted like a girlfriend and not like a prostitute”17
Unfortunately, studies have shown that men often are not deterred from purchasing sex even if they think that the girl was trafficked or could be a minor, or if they suspected that she was being subjected to force or coercion. On the contrary, more than half of men who participated in a major study conducted by the NGO Prostitution Research and Education reported purchasing sex from someone they knew had been trafficked or was under the control of a pimp, and the same percentage of men believed that prostituted women “could not be raped” or that prostitution decreases the incidence of rape (as one subject of the study put it, “Sometimes you might rape someone. You can go to a prostitute instead”).18 The same study finds that most men who have purchased sex are also regular porn users (see below for more about the link between pornography and commercial sexual exploitation).
17 The original study is Christine Milrod and Martin A. Monto. “The Hobbyist and the Girlfriend Experience: Behaviors and Preferences of Male Customers of Internet Sexual Service Providers.” Deviant Behavior 33:10, 2012. 792-810. Summary available at “Facts About Men Who Buy Sex.” Demand Abolition https://www.demandabolition.org/resources/facts-men-buy-sex/ 18 Melissa Farley, Julie Bindel, and Jacqueline M. Golding. “Men who buy sex Who they buy and what they know: A research study of 103 men who describe their use of trafficked and non-trafficked women in prostitution, and their awareness of coercion and violence.” Eaves, London; Prostitution Research and Education, San Francisco. December, 2009. https://i1.cmsfiles.com/eaves/2012/04/MenWhoBuySex- 89396b.pdf
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RESEARCH QUESTION: WHERE AND HOW ARE CHILDREN RECRUITED FOR SEX?
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that nearly two thirds of children sold for sex are trafficked online; other places where recruitment for trafficking commonly occurs:
public places (e.g., around shopping malls, bus stops, or fast-food restaurants) around youth shelters where runaway and homeless youth are easily targeted in the vicinity of schools and group homes where children served by the child welfare system can be found
According to the same study, LGBTI youth are five times more likely to be victims of trafficking than their heterosexual counterparts, due to feelings of isolation and alienation.
Finally, The National Center for Safe Supportive Learning Environments reports that “many teenage girls may be at risk of being recruited into the commercial sex industry simply by virtue of their normal maturation process”: 19 wanting to take risks, feeling misunderstood by parents, experiencing low self-esteem as a result of school failure or social anxiety, and seeking romantic relationships can increase girls’ susceptibility to the recruitment tactics of sex traffickers or pimps.
The four most typical methods used to recruit children for commercial sexual exploitation are:
Brute Force Threats against the minor or her loved ones Gestures of friendship made to a vulnerable, isolated, or runaway child can often be the first lure to a situation of exploitation Seduction by a pimp or trafficker who engages the minor in a romantic relationship in order to gain control before commercially sexually exploiting her. Studies have shown that this is the most prevalent method for recruiting children for commercial sexual exploitation.
19 “Human Trafficking in America’s Schools.” American Institutes for Research. National Center for Safe Supportive Learning Environments, 2017. https://safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/human-trafficking- americas-schools
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As is clear from these methods, traffickers and pimps use a combination of “force, fraud, and coercion” (from the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act definition of trafficking) that utilizes psychological manipulation and dependency in order to recruit and exploit children.
Teachers may also invite students to consider the following warning signs (adapted from the “Risks and Indicators” section of the National Center for Safe Supportive Learning Environments report, Human Trafficking in America’s Schools) of child commercial sexual exploitation in order to increase awareness for themselves and others:
unexplained absences from school frequent running away from home bruises or other signs of physical trauma, withdrawn behavior, depression, anxiety, or fear signs of drug addiction an older and/or controlling boyfriend or girlfriend a sudden change in dress or hygiene tattoos (a form of branding) displaying the name or moniker of a trafficker, such as “daddy” hyperarousal or symptoms of anger, panic, phobia, irritability, hyperactivity, frequent crying, temper tantrums, regressive behavior, and/or clinging behavior
As part of this discussion, should they ever suspect or encounter a situation involving commercial sexual exploitation, students should be encouraged to share concerns about themselves and others with a trusted adult.
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GENDER AND SOCIAL MEDIA – A STARTING POINT FOR OBJECTIFICATION
According to the Bureau of Justice, 98.9% of child sex trafficking victims are girls. Of course, statistics related to trafficking are notoriously difficult to pin down definitively, given the illicit nature of the phenomenon and problems with under-reporting, particularly by youth from groups exposed to ongoing shame and violence due to their identities. In particular, LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex) youth are more vulnerable to bullying, violence, and rejection by family, which informs the fact that although this group makes up only 3-5% of the general population, LGBTI youth account for 40% of homeless, runaway, or thrownaway children.20 Of these, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children estimate that at least one in six will be vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation.
This section addresses the convergence of gender socialization and social media in producing what some have called “porn culture.” We start with a discussion of porn because the buyer/john in I am Jane Doe states that his purchase of commercial sex grew out of an addiction to pornography. And, as the studies cited above confirm, many “johns” or buyers of commercial sex mention a porn addiction as a gateway to purchasing commercial sex.
According to sociology and women studies professor Gail Dines, “porn culture” is a hypersexualized dominant culture that influences media, fashion, games, and attitudes,
20 Lonnie James Bean. US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. “LGBTI Youth at High Risk for Becoming Human Trafficking Victims.” June 26, 2013.
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shaping “how we think about gender, sexuality, relationships, intimacy, sexual violence and gender equality.”21 Messages that a person’s value is linked to looks and sexuality start early, with Disney images of an always vulnerable Princess being claimed by a never- violent Prince Charming; indeed, even the much-beloved Beauty and the Beast can easily be read as an example of Stockholm Syndrome, whereby a kidnapping victim or hostage under extreme duress begins to identify with her captor. As an article about the latest film remake of the story claims, “When Beauty at last tells the Beast that she loves him, it doesn’t feel like a genuine romantic decision made by a fully empowered woman under her own free will. It feels like the culmination of a whole story’s worth of emotional abuse and grooming.”22 Even more explicitly, classic films such as Pretty Woman or popular TV series like The Girlfriend Experience glamorize and normalize commercial sexual exploitation as a potentially positive path to security and success for young women. Such representations are baked into the mainstream cultural machine, providing an easy leap to porn culture and with it, commercial sexual exploitation. We hear echoes of this easy acceptance of “the world’s oldest profession” in the responses of some of the judges to the Jane Doe cases, as discussed below.
Girls report feeling pressure to conform to the bombardment of “pornified” images of their bodies and sexualities coming at them from selfie culture, social media, all forms of mainstream media and entertainment, as well as, underneath it all, the pornography that is available with a simple click on any smart device. Boys have reported feeling that their sexuality has been hijacked, shaped by the porn images that they are able to view early and frequently, limited only by their access to the internet. We will focus here on three relevant areas with regard to gender and social media:
the objectification and sexualization of young girls “porn culture” and its impacts the experiences of gay, lesbian, and transgender youth
21 Gail Dines. “Is Porn Immoral? That Doesn’t Matter. It’s a Public Health Crisis.” The Washington Post. April 16, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/04/08/is-porn-immoral- that-doesnt-matter-its-a-public-health-crisis/?utm_term=.e3ac4fa39bc0 22 Constance Grady. “Is Beauty and the Beast a Tale as Old as Stockholm Syndrome? Depends How You Read It.” March 23, 2017. Vox. http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/23/15000768/beauty-and-the-beast- feminist-stockholm-syndrome
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Social Media and Girls The objectification of the female body for its physical and reproductive properties is not a new problem—in fact, it is evident in the earliest representations of human life. From celebratory indigenous imagery and sculptures representing the fertile female body to portraiture in the pre- modern western tradition, from the pin-up girls of the mid-twentieth century to today’s Instagram stars, male-oriented imagery of the female body has been a cultural constant. As art historian John Berger wrote in his influential study Ways of Seeing, a survey of culture, art, and media from across cultures and histories reveals one basic principle: “men act, women appear.” By way of illustration, Berger offers the following scenario: when a man walks across a crowded room at a party to get a drink, he is a man walking across a crowded room at a party to get a drink. When a woman does the same, she is that woman walking to get the drink, but she is also conscious of being the object of the male gaze as she walks across the room. Berger describes a double or split consciousness, engrained in girls and women via cultural socialization, whereby a woman not only acts in her daily life, but also must see herself acting through that male gaze that has taken hold of her own consciousness, a mental process that involves comparing her image with the standard beauty ideal against which women are measured. As Berger writes, “Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.”23
As Berger shows, image-making in the western world has for centuries solidified these gender relations; however, the advent of the internet and the rise of plastic surgery as a way to “perfect” the gendered body have intensified their effects. If media imagery serves as a kind of toxic mirror for girls as they mature into their bodies, the combination of photoshop and airbrush techniques that scrub “imperfections,” along with the promotion
23 Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. New York: Penguin, 1972; 2009. 47. Berger made a four-part BBC TV series based on his book, which provides excellent material for a brief classroom exercise on gender and imagery, available on youtube. Here is the first of four parts.
- 33 - of a multitude of cosmetic surgery alterations—silicone lip plumping, nose jobs, breast augmentation, liposuction and “body sculpting,” “butt” implants or lifts, and even the removal of ribs or surgery on the labia—make it nearly impossible for most girls to naturally “live up to” the imagery comprising ideal beauty standards in the 21st century.
Enter: social media. In addition to pervasive media and advertising images, girls are now immersed in a 24-7 online culture that swirls around Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram, smartphone apps that invite posting of photos and images as part of the ubiquitous “selfie culture.” Now, in addition to images of often unattainable “beauty” represented by celebrity and media culture, girls must negotiate their own online “profiles,” posting and viewing an endless stream of photos that invite comparison, envy, and a constant scrutiny of their own and others’ bodies and lives. It is a culture that depends upon “likes” and “shares” and “friends,” and that gives both the positive feedback and affirmation for which adolescent and teen girls may yearn, but that also may further distort their body images and contribute to increased insecurity and low self-esteem. It may also send the message that girls are valued first and foremost for their bodies, especially bodies that conform to a beauty ideal that increasingly matches that found in porn culture.
“Porn Culture” and Boys As girls are socialized into a culture that objectifies and sexualizes them according to dominant heterosexual ideals, boys increasingly turn to online porn for information about sex and relationships. Again, statistics are difficult to come by, but studies in the UK and Canada show that at the very least, more than half of boys aged 12-16 have already viewed porn, and for some, such viewing is habitual. Some dangerous outcomes of porn exposure in adolescent and teen boys include:
a sense that the representations of sexual relations in pornography are realistic a desire to emulate the sexual relations represented in porn a decreased focus on consent, intimacy, and commitment in romantic or sexual relationships
According to marriage and family therapist Alexandra Kalahatis, unrealistic expectations about everything from body image to sexual desire generated through pornography are profoundly harmful over time: “Pornography shows us a world where relationships mean nothing and immediate sexual gratification means everything. Therefore, the adolescent viewer's brain is being wired to expect that sex and relationships are separate from one another, and that men and women's bodies should be sexually exaggerated as they are
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in porn—which can lead to shame about one's own body as well as failure to be aroused by the bodies of others.”24
As boys’ expectations about sex, desire, and intimacy are being shaped by access to online pornography, girls are increasingly made aware of these expectations, which in turn shape their own sense of sex, desire, intimacy, and their bodies/body images. Acutely aware of and likely pressured by the conditions of “hook-up” culture, minor girls are positioned at the vortex of a perfect storm of unattainable body ideals coupled with expectations for romantic and sexual relationships shaped by online porn. Socialization into these dominant images and their accompanying gender roles renders both girls and boys far more vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation, and may initiate men’s participation in the commercial sex industry as buyers.
Lesbian, Gay, and Transgender Youth Youth who identify as gay, lesbian, or transgender—whether or not they are “out,” as such—experience an added layer of vulnerability in the context of gender socialization and social media. All of the ideals of beauty, body, and sex discussed above are firmly situated within mainstream heterosexual norms; despite significant progress in equality and justice for GLBTI people in general (including marriage equality and shifting cultural representations and perceptions), entrenched social discrimination and violence against GLBTI individuals and communities remain prevalent. This is especially true for youth, who are often bullied and vilified at school and via social media—and sadly, many LGBTI youth suffer rejection by their families and religious communities as well. As a report from the US Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families details, “Although LGBTI individuals only account for three to five percent of the population, they account for up to 40 percent of the runaway and homeless youth population. It is estimated that 26 percent of LGBTI adolescents are rejected by their families and put out of their homes for no other reason than being open about who they are. Once on the streets, they face a significant chance of becoming victims of human trafficking.”25
24 Alexandra Katahakis. “Effects of Porn on Adolescent Boys.” Psychology Today, July 28, 2011. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-lies-trauma/201107/effects-porn-adolescent-boys 25 Bean, Lonnie James. “LGBTI Youth at High Risk for Becoming Trafficking Victims.” June 26, 2013.
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D I S C U S S I O N P O I N T While I Am Jane Doe does not directly address the issue of gender socialization and social media, their convergence is precisely what the “john” in the film begins with in his porn addiction and is a major force undergirding the problem of child sex trafficking. Questions for discussion might invite students to reflect critically upon their own experiences of gender socialization, social media, and porn culture:
What are your perceptions and experiences of pressure around physical appearance or body image?
How are such pressures different for boys or girls, and/or for LGBTI youth, respectively?
How are these pressures connected to self-esteem, and how might low self- esteem contribute to vulnerability to commercial sexual exploitation?
What strategies can you imagine to resist such pressures?
Let’s have a “brain dump” of all you know about online porn culture and its impacts on relationships. Do you perceive early access to online pornography to be a problem?
Do you see connections between social media, porn culture, and sex trafficking?
In what ways do you understand the consumption of pornography to provide a gateway to purchasing sex? And if you do, how and why?
What solutions can you imagine to support young people in taking control of their own relationships and sexuality?
Lawyers in the Boston and Tacoma cases felt that the part of the problem with the courts handling of the Jane Doe cases was at least in part a cultural one based on common conceptions of gender and commercial sex—such as Judge Posner’s comments in Backpage v. Dart about sexual services that are legal: “Fetishism? Phone sex? Performances by striptease artists? Vulgar is not violent. One ad in the category “dom & fetish” is for the services of a ‘professional dominatrix’—a woman who is paid to whip or otherwise humiliate a customer in order to arouse him sexually…It’s not obvious that such conduct endangers women or children or violates any laws, including
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laws against prostitution.” In the same case, Posner also affirms the right of an “old man” to be seen with a “young girl” via escort services.
How does the gendered and cultural nature of the crimes occurring because of third-party content posted on Backpage impact the court’s repeated decisions in favor of the website under Section 230?
How do you see the “pretty woman” story of the commercial sex trade playing out in the judges’ language and decisions?
Do you think judges would be likely to decide differently if the crimes being committed via online postings were not of a gendered nature (such as a murder for hire site in which the website only posted third party content and took a fee)?
What are the connections between heterosexism, bullying, and vulnerability of gay, lesbian, and trans youth?
How might this vulnerability lead to commercial sexual exploitation, and what might be done to make neighborhoods, schools, and communities more accepting and supportive of GLBT youth?
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FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND ONLINE COMMERCE
Freedom of speech as protected in the First Amendment to the Constitution is the cornerstone of democracy in the United States—a hard-fought and fiercely defended right affirmed in court decisions at all levels. And yet, this freedom raises innumerable conflicts as it intersects with other interests and rights, and so the fundamental question arises of what limits, if any, may be allowed when it comes to freedom of speech, especially as that freedom rests upon constantly shifting cultural, political, and legal terrain. When does protecting one person’s or entity’s freedom of speech impinge upon another person’s or entity’s rights to be free from slander, libel, hate, or harm?
Such has been the framing of the debate about Section 230 by Backpage and its supporters, and yet I Am Jane Doe shows that when it comes to the Jane Doe cases, this debate is not a First Amendment debate at all. Instead, the issue boils down to whether websites should be free from all responsibility relating to third party content, even if that website has alleged to be involved criminally with hosting that content. In fact, Section 230 has been used by ISPs such as Backpage as a mechanism to avoid legal fees, benefiting from its protection of online media and exclusion of newspapers, radio or “offline” media, all of which have to appear in court to defend cases related to third party content. A recent article in The Economist calls this “digital exceptionalism,” arguing that “online platforms have been inhabiting a parallel legal universe. Broadly speaking, they are not legally responsible, either for what their users do or for the harm that their services can cause in the real world.” The opinion of The Economist is that the distorted protections of Section 230 serve as an “implicit subsidy” to businesses operating online.26
Background on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act can be found on page 14 of Section I in this Guide, and should provide information for student viewing and discussion of the relevant issues in the film. Here we provide additional information on the connections between internet freedom advocacy and the Jane Doe cases.
Advocates supporting Backpage assert that it should not be responsible for third party content and that it has full rights under the First Amendment to host free speech. As a refresher, the First Amendment “guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression,
26 “Eroding Exceptionalism.” The Economist. February 11, 2017. http://www.economist.com/news/business/21716661-platforms-have-benefited-greatly-special-legal-and- regulatory-treatment-internet-firms
- 38 - assembly, and the right to petition. It forbids Congress from both promoting one religion over others and also restricting an individual’s religious practices. It guarantees freedom of expression by prohibiting Congress from restricting the press or the rights of individuals to speak freely. It also guarantees the right of citizens to assemble peaceably and to petition their government.” The most important mode of expression protected via this Amendment is that of speech, which, according to the Cornell University Legal Information Institute, “allows individuals to express themselves without interference or constraint from the government.” Protection of this freedom includes other modes of communication through which speech is conveyed, including, since its inception, the internet.
Free speech advocates argue that government or judicial intervention in the editorial practices of ISPs like Backpage will have a “chilling effect” on freedom of expression. As Emma Llansó, Director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology (seen in I Am Jane Doe), argues, when governments attempt to intervene in the operations of internet service providers, “Operators become unwilling to host controversial, but wholly protected speech, out of fear that doing so could subject them to similar scrutiny by the government.” The effect, she argues, may cause ISPs to restrict content preemptively so as to avoid potentially expensive court battles, thereby creating a “chokehold” on freedom of speech (mostly regarding “adult content”) via the internet.
Rather than cracking down on websites that host ads for commercial sex with minors such as Backpage, free speech advocates like the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation instead fully support and defend Backpage and its practices, arguing that the courts have repeatedly found in favor of Section 230 (which references free speech and a robust internet in the statute), and that this protection should be without regard to whether a website engaged in criminality, profited from a crime, or otherwise encouraged illegal content. When presented with arguments as to why Section 230 needs to be amended, these special interest groups respond that any attempts by Congress to revise Section 230 in order to hold ISPs liable for criminal activity perpetrated through the vehicle of their sites would constitute governmental overreach and a “chilling effect” on freedom of internet speech and commerce.
In terms of the Jane Doe cases, such First Amendment arguments are simply a distraction from the fact that certain forms of speech are not permissible and not protected by the First Amendment: for instance, you can’t shout fire in a crowded theater. You can’t paint a swastika on a temple because it is a hate crime, in addition to being criminal trespass. And criminal speech is not protected by the First Amendment. Child sex ads are, by definition, criminal, and therefore do not constitute protected speech—in spite of Backpage’s efforts to define them as such.
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D I S C U S S I O N P O I N T
In what ways is the First Amendment different from Section 230? What does each law protect?
What is the problem with constructing a defense against claims by Jane Does based on Section 230 as a “free speech” defense?
The goal of Section 230 was to protect ISPs from excessive litigation based on content posted by third parties on their sites, and thus to support a robust, free internet. After reading the Senate Report on Backpage.com (paying particular attention to evidence in the Findings section that Backpage.com edits ads; deletes incriminating words prior to publication; coached its users on how to evade law enforcement; and knowingly facilitated sex trafficking), do you believe that the government is “badgering” Backpage, as it and its defenders contend, or do you believe that the investigation serves a legitimate and necessary interest?
SECTION 230 V. TVPRA Experts who reject the arguments of free speech advocates instead argue that the Jane Doe cases pit two federal statutes against each other: on the one hand, Section 230’s protection of ISPs against liability for content posted by users, and on the other, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, which was enacted to stop trafficking, including the trafficking of minors for sex. As a group of law professors articulate in their Amicus Brief in support of the Boston Jane Doe plaintiffs, courts are instructed to interpret federal statutes, to the extent possible, so as not to create conflict with other federal statutes. These professors and other experts object to the language of the Massachusetts District Court decision against the Jane Doe plaintiffs, which states that
Congress [through the CDA] has made the determination “ that the balance between suppression of trafficking and freedom of expression should be struck in favor of the latter insofar as the Internet is concerned.
”
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Indeed, these experts argue that precisely the opposite is true, given that Congress included the following clause in Section 230:
Nothing in this section shall be construed to impair the “ enforcement of section 223 or 231 of this title, chapter 71 (relating to obscenity) or 110 (relating to sexual exploitation of children) of title 18, or any other Federal criminal statute.
” As attorney Erik Bauer, who represented JS and the other plaintiffs in the Tacoma case, argues,
This is not about freedom of speech…it’s about the “ freedom of a kid to get raped by someone who has paid a pimp for the pleasure. It’s about a company that has allowed that to happen on a massive scale, a company that has taken advantage of this miracle of marketing called the internet, and they’re blowing human sex trafficking right through the roof. The law is basically saying it’s OK to sell kids as long as it’s online. This is wrong. Protecting kids is one of the cornerstones of the law.27
” D I S C U S S I O N P O I N T
The conflict between freedom of speech and what Section 230 really intends—which is freedom from litigation costs and freedom from criminal harm, as represented in I Am Jane Doe—goes directly to the heart of US identity as a democracy. Studying the laws and court decisions at stake in the cases against Backpage.com offers an important lesson for students in the problems that arise from competing rights and freedoms within our democratic society, and the balances that can and must be struck between them.
27 Erik Bauer, Interview with author. July 2016.
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Teachers of students at all levels might ask students to research Section 230 and the criminal statutes related to sex trafficking and the exploitation of minors in preparation for a discussion or debate about the competing principles and obligations at stake. This lesson lends itself particularly well to a role-play exercise in which students are asked to represent the different stakeholders in this issue.
Should Section 230 protect internet service providers from liability for the content posted on their sites by users, even if that content comprises criminal activity? Defend your opinion using resources from I Am Jane Doe and the relevant laws.
What if the website itself is encouraging illegality? Like the sale of children? How about murder for hire? The sale of drugs or guns, as in the case of the Silk Road website?
In your opinion, is it enough for law enforcement to prosecute pimps, traffickers, or even johns who commercially exploit minors for sex? Why is it important to extend that prosecution to the ISPs who host ads for sexual encounters with minors? Is there a difference if the ISP knew about the content? If the ISP is specifically a site that sells sexual services?
What evidence was provided in the film to show that Backpage.com did more than simply host the ads in question, but actually contributed to the activity of trafficking minors? Did you understand those actions to constitute enough responsibility that Backpage could no longer be considered simply a “publisher” of the ads, but also a participant in creating them? The US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Report on Backpage.com, particularly the Findings section, will be helpful for students researching this question.
In his decision for the First Circuit Court decision in Boston, Justice Bruce Selya acknowledged that plaintiffs had made a strong case that Backpage facilitated the trafficking of minors for sex; however, he, like other justices in similar cases, shifted responsibility back to Congress, whom, he argues, “did not sound an uncertain trumpet when it enacted the CDA, and it chose to grant broad protections to internet publishers…If the evils that the appellants have identified are deemed to outweigh the First Amendment values that drive the CDA, the remedy is through legislation, not through litigation.”
Whose responsibility do you think it is to remedy the problem posed by Section 230: the courts or Congress? Or both? How do you support your answer?
If you were to amend Section 230, how would you do it, balancing the need to better eradicate child sex trafficking and keeping a fully robust internet?
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STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS Another way for teachers to approach discussion of I Am Jane Doe is to invite students to participate in an analysis of the various stakeholders in the cases. Students can then better identify the investments that various groups have in the positions they have taken, and will be able to situate themselves within the larger issues at stake, as well as to imagine solutions to the problems at the heart of the Jane Doe cases.
Who are the stakeholders in the Jane Doe cases? The following is a list that could help to organize a class discussion or role-play about the struggle to end child sex trafficking. In addition to offering Discussion Points for each stakeholder below, a worksheet with guidelines for a role-playing roundtable discussion can be found as Appendix II at the end of this Teaching Guide.
1. The Jane Does and their families First and foremost are the victims, survivors, and “secondary survivors” (families, friends, and loved ones) of the atrocity of commercial sexual exploitation. This group arguably has the most at stake in the fight to prevent and redress sex trafficking, given the harm they have suffered and the potential harm to future victims. Students might watch the film with an eye toward the testimonies of survivors and their families, and teachers might guide them using the section on witness and testimonial below (page 50).
D I S C U S S I O N P O I N T
Discuss the representation of survivors and their families in I Am Jane Doe. In what ways were they harmed by the ads posted on Backpage.com? What were some of the most profound challenges that you witnessed for survivors and their families in the film?
What qualities were necessary for survivors and their families to speak out and to bring lawsuits against a powerful corporation such as Backpage?
What were the consequences to survivors and their families of their decisions to seek accountability from Backpage.com?
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2) Law Enforcement I Am Jane Doe features the case of Cook County Illinois Sheriff Tom Dart, who issued letters to Mastercard and Visa, informing them that they had been doing business with a company that was heavily involved with child sex trafficking and asking that they cease and desist from continuing to process payments for Backpage. This was an extraordinary and creative action on the part of law enforcement to move beyond the usual “law and order” policing of prostitution to hold all parties to commercial sex transactions accountable—and to help stop the trafficking of minors for commercial sex, as opposed to criminalizing them for it. While Backpage sued Dart and won, Dart was still able to get Mastercard and Visa to stop processing credit card payments through Backpage, and to shed more light on the business model of Backpage, particularly in terms of how it enables the trafficking of minors.
D I S C U S S I O N P O I N T
Unlike the Jane Doe cases, Backpage.com v. Sheriff Thomas J. Dart was primarily a First Amendment case, with the 7th Circuit Court finding against Sheriff Dart on the basis that he sent his letters to credit card companies in his capacity as Sheriff, rather than as a private citizen, and that as a result, he impermissibly trampled Backpage’s rights to free speech.
Why did the court in this case not allow Dart his own rights to free speech?
Were you troubled by the language Judge Posner used, that services such as phone sex, escort (which is virtually always a euphemism for sex), or BDSM/Fetish are legal and must be protected, or should sex sites that might be 99% illegal be protected if 1% of their content is legal?
How could Sheriff Dart have conveyed his message without subjecting himself to legal challenge?
Criminal Prosecutions Also featured in the film are the efforts of California Attorney General Kamala Harris to bring Ferrer, Lacey, and Larkin to justice by coordinating with the help of Texas law enforcement to arrest them in October 2016 on felony charges of pimping a minor, pimping, and conspiracy to commit pimping. The courts quickly dismissed the case on the grounds provided by Section 230 that as owner- operators of an ISP, the three could not be held responsible for criminal content posted by users on their site. The state of California filed new charges in December 2016, this time including 26 counts of money laundering and 7 counts of pimping
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a minor. It remains to be seen whether these charges will stick; however, it is important for students to consider the role and incentives for law enforcement to take an aggressive role in going up against the Section 230 loophole that enables ISPs to benefit from criminal activity, including the trafficking of minors.
D I S C U S S I O N P O I N T
• Using this explanation of California pimping laws as a basis for discussion, should Ferrer be prosecuted either for conspiracy to commit pimping or for pimping?
• Should Larkin and Lacey, who are co-owners of Backpage but not its primary operators, also be held criminally liable for conspiracy to commit pimping or pimping, or should such charges apply only to Ferrer, who is in charge of Backpage operations? Does your opinion change after reading the Senate Report?
• Anti-trafficking organization Demand Abolition is part of a movement to criminalize the purchase of sex, rather than its sale, in an effort to change the problem that those who sell sex (whether or not they have been coerced or trafficked) are far more likely to be held criminally liable than those who purchase sex. Using this information from Demand Abolition about legislative efforts to hold men who buy sex accountable, discuss the pros and cons of law enforcement approaches to ending commercial sexual exploitation. Should the purchaser of commercial sex, the seller, or both be criminalized? What are the best deterrents to the commercial sex trade: fines? Prison time? Publicity? “John Schools”? Other?
3. Congress and the Courts John Montgomery, lead attorney representing the Boston Jane Does, sums up the struggle between the courts and Congress regarding the interpretation of Section 230 by pointing out that “[the courts] think Congress should fix this, not the courts. And we think it’s actually their job and they’re not doing it.” Senator John McCain, a member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that held hearings on the problem of child sex trafficking on Backpage.com asserts, “All I know is that I’d like to meet the member of the judiciary or a member of Congress that thinks that this situation, the status quo is satisfactory.”
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In virtually all of the court opinions issued in cases brought by Jane Does against Backpage, justices articulate some form of sympathy for the victims and even outrage at the situation whereby Backpage is protected by the law, but nonetheless affirm that they must uphold what they interpret as the will of Congress expressed in Section 230 to protect ISPs from liability for third-party postings on their sites. At the same time, the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has investigated Backpage.com for its role in child sex trafficking. It is also worth considering that Section 230 contains an exception for a federal criminal prosecution, which has never been initiated. It is unclear why no federal prosecution was ever undertaken until now. A federal grand jury investigation is now underway against Backpage.
D I S C U S S I O N P O I N T
What does this conflict between the Courts and Congress have to do with the separation of powers—the role of the legislative v. the judicial branch of government?
In your opinion, which body—or both—is ultimately responsible for fixing the problem of child sex trafficking occurring within the loophole of Section 230?
Representative Wagner (R-Missouri) recently introduced a bipartisan bill to amend Section 230. Debate the merits of this bill. Is it fair? Goes too far? Not far enough?
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4. Corporations and Alternative Newspapers I Am Jane Doe captures the outrage felt by news professionals from The Village Voice that “serious newsmen” like Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin would make the choice to own Backpage rather than to own The Village Voice. As reporter Tom Robbins contends in the film, “They couldn’t walk away from the real money. Here are these guys who had presented themselves to us as like, ‘We really care about journalism. We really care about the news.’ And they decided to go with this money for this absolutely atrocious sex marketing operation that they were running.”
Unfortunately, this outrage does not acknowledge the history of alternative newspapers, which may play a progressive and ethical role in their reportage, but which have also depended heavily upon the revenue from classified ads for sexual services in order to survive (see section About Backpage.com on page 7). As I Am Jane Doe reveals, as an online entity, Backpage.com was generating massive profits—$135 million in 2014, and on track for $150 million in 2015 until MasterCard and Visa stopped accepting Backpage credit card payments. The bulk of the revenue was attributable to sex ads. Research in this area, as documented in I Am Jane Doe, also reveals that major donors to the Center for Democracy and Technology (a special interest group devoted to protecting internet freedom that supports Backpage.com in its efforts to fend off child trafficking cases) include Facebook, Microsoft, and Google—all ISPs with vested interests in avoiding litigation about content posted through their systems. In addition to Backpage, a look into who profits from the commercial sex trade also includes the hospitality industry, including the hotels and motels where sexual exploitation takes place.
D I S C U S S I O N P O I N T
• What is the role of corporations, including alternative newspapers and websites in profiting from the trafficking of minors for sex?
• Backpage asserts it is the leader in combatting online sex trafficking. What evidence does it offer to support its claim?
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• Backpage asserts that it would be too cumbersome to impose age identification for people who seek to post ads for sexual services on their site. In your opinion, would this added step help to stop the problem of online child sex trafficking?
• Internet freedom advocates argue that, given the massive volume of content posted on ISPs such as Backpage (or Facebook, etc.) it is too difficult and expensive for websites to monitor content effectively. Is this true?
• An Uber driver in California recently helped law enforcement officials to find a teen who had been trafficked for sex, and to arrest those who had trafficked her. In your opinion, is it the responsibility of “bystanders” in related industries such as transportation and hospitality to intervene in such situations? How might hotels and motels, and even transportation companies such as taxis and Uber, improve their practices so as to fight child commercial sexual exploitation?
5. Special Interest Groups and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) A final group of stakeholders in the Jane Doe cases includes special interest groups and NGOs that either lobby for their position on the issue or provide services to one side or the other. Most relevant are, on the one hand, groups that support internet freedom, such as the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, both of which advocate for civil liberties—particularly freedom of speech—in the online world and vigorously defend ISPs as hosts who ought not to be held accountable for the content posted by users. Both of these organizations were signatories to an Amicus Brief to the Senate investigation into Backpage, as well as to Amicus Briefs filed against the children in the Tacoma and Sheriff Dart cases.
On the other side of this issue are the many organizations that work on behalf of children, particularly to stop their exploitation and abuse. Chief among them are the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and Covenant House, along with anti-trafficking advocacy groups such as the ECPAT USA and the Polaris Project, and survivor support organizations including My Life My Choice, FAIRGirls, and Shared Hope.
As NCMEC General Counsel, Yiota Souras, articulates in I Am Jane Doe, NCMEC, the country’s largest nonprofit organization for missing and exploited children, attempted to provide guidance to Backpage over the course of several years to share concerns
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and recommend certain tools to fight child commercial sexual exploitation (e.g. that photos not be stripped of identifying information, and the like); however, Souras reveals that “It became apparent to us at NCMEC that Backpage likely would not be adopting any of the measures that we recommended.” NCMEC has estimated that of all of the cases of suspected online child sex trafficking reported to NCMEC, 73% of those cases occur on Backpage.
D I S C U S S I O N P O I N T
Look up Look up the mission statements of The Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and take a look at their Amicus Briefs against the children in the Seattle and Dart cases. How do these statements inform your position on the Jane Doe cases?
How would you refute the claims of those who argue that the defense of internet freedom comes at the cost of irreparable harm to children who are being commercially sexually exploited?
Look up the mission statements of NCMEC, Covenant House, and/or My Life My Choice. How do these statements inform your position on the Jane Doe cases, as expressed in I Am Jane Doe and in your Amicus Briefs against Backpage in the Jane Doe cases?
How would you refute the claims of those who argue that the defense of children’s rights comes at the cost of a chilling effect on internet freedom, and that only those parties directly responsible for the commercial sexual exploitation of children (pimps, traffickers, and johns) should be held accountable for this crime?
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WITNESS, TESTIMONIAL, AND EMPOWERMENT
As one of the few documentary feature films that brings the voices of survivors of child sex trafficking to audiences, I Am Jane Doe is situated within the genre of testimonial or witness literature and film, and theories of witness and testimonial provide powerful frameworks for teaching the film. Both terms—witness and testimonial—originate in legal contexts and are central to psychological processes, but have also manifested as major genres in both literature and film.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “witness” comes from Old English meaning “knowledge, understanding, wisdom;” its second definition is “attestation to a fact, event, or statement; testimony; evidence given in a court of law.” Two principles are important here: first, that “witnessing” presumes not only knowledge of an event, but also understanding of and wisdom about that event, and second, that a witness is empowered to provide formal evidence or testimony to an event. Survivors are primary witnesses to the atrocity of sex trafficking, with an “expert” knowledge and deep understanding that they did not gain willingly, and yet they are rarely heard or consulted with regard to the problem—and, as viewers of I Am Jane Doe can attest, their efforts to give legal testimony to the injury they have suffered are often met with indifference or resistance. Significantly, the word testimony comes from the Latin testis—testicles; or “bearing witness to male virility”28—and is thus linked at its root with masculine power. As always, gender bears a central role in this analysis: while the vast majority of children trafficked for sex—and all of the plaintiffs in the Backpage cases—are girls, the attorneys and judges in the courtroom are overwhelmingly male.
It is perhaps this gender imbalance, deeply embedded in US culture, that helps to account for the misunderstandings of the problem of commercial sexual exploitation of children seen in the film; for instance, when Judge Posner dismisses Sheriff Tom Dart’s efforts to interrupt the business of Backpage by arguing that some commercial sexual acts—phone sex, escort, fetish—are legal and allowable. Posner goes so far as to ask, “And what about also old people, old men who like to be seen with a young woman, right. That is an aspect of escort service, it’s not all sex.” As an associate who helped to bring the Jane Doe cases forward in Boston comments in the film, “I wasn’t really sure that Judge Posner had a firm
28 “Testis.” Online Etymological Dictionary. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=testis&allowed_in_frame=0
- 50 - grip on what happens on Backpage.com.” Tacoma attorney Erik Bauer concurred, responding that, “The part that really bothered me was the part where he indicated that ‘sometimes a man just wants to be seen in the company of a younger female.’ I mean, in my case, I had kids that are posed in thong underwear, with their butts faced up at the camera. I mean, you want to be seen in company with a kid dressed in her underwear, well, what's that?”
Central to the power of witness to survivor testimonials is empathy, the action of understanding another’s suffering. Literally, empathy means “to put one’s feeling into another” (prefix “em,” to put into, combined with “pathy,” or feeling). In other words, empathy goes beyond pity or sympathy, which imply feeling badly for another about her situation and wanting to alleviate it, to understanding that situation from that person’s perspective. As psychiatrist Neel Burton explains, “For me to share in someone else’s perspective, I must do more than merely put myself into his position. Instead, I must imagine myself as him, and, more than that, imagine myself as him in the particular situation in which he finds himself. I cannot empathize with an abstract or detached feeling. To empathize with a particular person, I need to have at least some knowledge of who he is and what he is doing or trying to do. As John Steinbeck wrote, ‘It means very little to know that a million Chinese are starving unless you know one Chinese who is starving.’”29
Herein lies the power of I Am Jane Doe, which provides testimony from survivors and their families and situates that testimony within a documentary narrative of the complexity of online sex trafficking and legal efforts to prevent it. This framework provides viewers with a way to identify with individuals who have suffered the atrocity of sex trafficking, while also evoking the suffering of all those who have experienced this crime in an effort to raise audience awareness and engagement with the problem. Such informed identification with the protagonists of the film cultivates in viewers the kind of empathy missing in the courtrooms, in which, for instance, a judge concludes his brief introduction to the case with the simple sentence, “The tale follows” (Doe et al., v. Backpage.com, LLC, p. 1). To preface one’s rationale for an opinion that destroys a person’s ability to pursue
29 Burton, Neel. “Empathy v. Sympathy.” Psychology Today, May 22, 2015. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201505/empathy-vs-sympathy
- 51 - justice by introducing it as a “tale” (“a story imaginatively told,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary online) is to trivialize the very real narrative of suffering experienced by but not limited to the three plaintiffs in the case. In that same opinion, the judge characterizes the repeated rape of minors via online sex trafficking as a “venture” (Doe, et al., v. Backpage.com, LLC, p. 17), rendering the pain and suffering of victims invisible within the euphemism of trafficking as a “business” like any other, thereby highlighting the massive gap between the experience of the judge, who must interpret the law, and the plaintiff who has already suffered, and who will suffer more with a judgment that does not recognize that suffering.
Highlighting this gap and consciously bearing witness to the testimony of the Jane Does and their families, I Am Jane Doe bears many of the characteristics of the witness or testimonial genre; specifically
it contains testimony or witness from survivors;
the survivor narratives are individual, but are also related to the experiences of larger collectives of victims and survivors who may not have access to such vehicles for telling their stories;
it invites its audience to bear witness to and validate its claims; and
it employs testimonies as a tool to seek collective justice
Before viewing the film, teachers might introduce students to the term testimonial, preparing them that the testimonies they will hear in the film from survivors and their families (also known as “secondary survivors”) present an ethical demand that they serve as witnesses to the survivors’ experiences of extreme pain and trauma. Dori Laub, who survived the Nazi holocaust and went on to become a professor of psychiatry at Yale and co-Founder of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale, describes the complex relationship between the survivor-testimonial and listener-witness:
The testimony to the trauma…includes its hearer, who is, so to speak, the blank screen on which the event comes to be inscribed for the first time. By extension, the listener to trauma comes to be a participant and a co-owner of the traumatic event…She has to feel the victim’s victories, defeats and silences…so that they can assume the form of testimony.30 D I S C U S S I O N P O I N T
30 Laub, Dori. “Bearing Witness, or the Vicissitudes of Listening.” Testimony: Crises of witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History. Ed. Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub. New York: Routledge, 1992.
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Teachers can frame the discussion of the ethical relationship between survivors and witnesses—or between the Jane Does and the film’s audiences—at a level appropriate to the students, asking them to reflect upon how they listen to and acknowledge the pain of friends, family members, or even strangers encountered in their daily lives or through the media, and asking them to pay conscious attention to the testimonies presented throughout the film.
Importantly, the film opens and closes with the voices of survivors and their families, and foregrounds their perspectives as the narrative of the Backpage cases unfolds. The following represent several testimonial topics and moments in the film that provide excellent fodder for class discussion:
How do you listen to and acknowledge the pain of friends, family members, or even strangers encountered in person or via the media? What are the challenges of being a “witness” to another’s pain? What are the rewards?
What were some commonalities shared by survivors in terms of the pain and trauma of their experiences?
What were some commonalities shared by parents in terms of the pain and trauma of their own experiences, via their daughter’s experiencing of rape and exploitation via ads posted on Backpage?
What strategies did survivors and their families use to get through these agonizing situations?
What changes and transformations did you see in survivors and their families from the beginning to the end of the film?
In the film, Tacoma survivor JS’s mother, Nacole, asserts, “I don’t think everybody goes through life thinking about child sex trafficking in the United States. I know for me I didn’t, not until it happened to my family. I always believed it was something that happened in foreign countries. You hear about it on the news. But to find out that it happened in my own backyard and that it can happen to the most normal of families and the most normal of children and how quickly it could happen. That’s when I decided to take up the fight pursue trying to shut down Backpage.com.”
How do the legal and advocacy actions taken by survivors and their families extend beyond their own circumstances to include all victims of commercial sex trafficking, and how is this an important function of the testimonial form? Testimony to pain itself is very difficult because it is nearly impossible to put pain into words, and nearly impossible for one person to truly feel another person’s pain. As scholar Elaine Scarry has written, “For the person in pain, pain is the
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definition of what it is to have certainty. For the person witnessing another’s pain, pain is the definition of what it is to have doubt.”31
In what ways did you perceive survivors and their families or attorneys grappling with this challenge in order to make visible the pain and trauma experienced as a result of online child sex trafficking?
St. Louis survivor MA shares that “Every time I think about it, I get sad and depressed, and I’m like having flashbacks.” JS talks about struggling with guilt and shame, not only for herself but also because of the impact upon her parents: “I have to live every single day of my life now with everything that’s happened to me. And my parents have to live with the grief in knowing that I go through that every single day.”
What other testimonies to the painful aftermath of child sexual exploitation did you witness in the film? What insights do these testimonies offer into the long- term effects of trauma?
How does the testimony in the film illustrate the power of voice as an antidote to the dismissal of Jane Doe claims to injury, again, not just for the individual survivors and their families, but to all who have suffered or could be vulnerable to such exploitation?
(Some examples from the film’s concluding scene include: o She doesn’t have to let what has happened in her past hold her back. o It’s time for us all to stand up and be strong. o That’s the only way to make change, to make your voice known. o If I could talk to the other Jane Does in the case, I would tell them don’t give up the fight. o I just don’t want it to happen to my sisters, or your kids or the next kid. o I am smart, I am beautiful, I am strong, snappy, loving. I am a survivor. o I am a sex trafficking survivor. I am Jane Doe. o I am Jane Doe
31 Elaine Scarry. The Body in Pain. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985. 5.
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P A R T III: A P P E N D I C E S
APPENDIX I: I AM JANE DOE TIMELINE This timeline corresponds to the film with time stamps added for the purposes of facilitating class discussion by revisiting specific scenes.
August 12, 2009, St. Louis, 3:09 Kubiiki Pride begins searching for her daughter M.A. online and ultimately locates her on the Escort section of Backpage. M.A. has been missing for 270 days.
March 15, 2010, St. Louis, 5:53 Kubiiki and her daughter file suit against Backpage and its parent company, Village Voice Media Holdings. Represented by Attorney Robert Pedroli, they are the first to sue Backpage on behalf of a trafficked minor.
July 24, 2010, Tacoma, 7:58 Parents of “J.S.” who is 15 years old (Nacole and Tom) begin searching for their daughter, who is missing.
September 19, 2010, St. Louis, 10:05 Attorney Robert Pedroli receives a telephone call from Village Voice Media that he describes as “feeling him out” about the possibility of a settlement that would make the case go away. Pedroli and Kubiiki confirm that this is not about money, but rather about accountability and justice.
September 26, 2010, Tacoma, 11:12 Nacole and Tom’s daughter, J.S., 15-years old, has been missing for 108 days. A police detective sees a photo of J.S. on Backpage and initiates a sting operation. J.S. is found. She confirms that she had been raped and sold for sex.
October 2010, Washington D.C., 12:53 Craigslist shuts down its escort section and the number of adult ads on Backpage skyrockets.
August 15, 2011, St. Louis, 14:13 Kubiiki’s daughter M.A.’s case is decided: dismissed based on protections from Section 230.
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September 2011, Tacoma, 15:55 Nacole retains Attorney Erik Bauer to represent J.S. in her lawsuit.
April 2012, New York City, 20:16 Anti-trafficking groups pressure Backpage to shut down its escort section with lobbying and protests. Attorney Liz McDougall represents Backpage and testifies at a hearing held by a subcommittee of the New York City Council, stating in an oft-repeated remark that “We're doing everything possible to impede prostitution, to impede the exploitation of women, children, sex trafficking. The internet is, unfortunately, the vehicle for this. We are trying to be the sheriff.” Council member Julissa Ferreras responds, “You're making a profit off these pimps putting these girls on your website…I have to tell you this is something—this is the 4th hearing that I have, and I’ve said this throughout this afternoon. In every one of my hearings, Backpage is mentioned.”
March 25, 2013, Tacoma, 34:05 Backpage files motion to dismiss J.S.’s case, claiming Section 230 immunity.
October 2014, Tacoma, 43.26 Hearing scheduled for J.S.’s case in Washington State Supreme Court. Attorney Erik Bauer to make oral arguments. Court to decide if Section 230 protects Backpage.
October 21, 2014, Olympia Washington, 45:19 Oral arguments heard. Washington State Supreme Court.
April 15, 2015, Washington D.C., 52.01 U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations begins investigating online sex trafficking. All leads point to Backpage.
June 29, 2015, Chicago, 54.01 Cook County Illinois Sheriff Tom Dart sends letters to MasterCard and Visa advising them that they have been conducting business with company involved in human trafficking (Backpage). Both companies stop doing business with Backpage. Backpage reacts by offering free adult ads with “upgrades” which can be paid with personal check or Bitcoin.
September 2015, Tacoma, 55:47 Washington State Supreme Court. On September 3, 2015, the family hears that the court found in their favor, and did not dismiss their case at the outset, allowing the case to proceed to trial.
November 19, 2015, Washington D.C., 1:02:00 Senate Subcommittee on Investigations convenes on child sex trafficking. Astonishingly, Backpage CEO does not appear to respond to Congressional Subpoena.
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February 10, 2016, Washington D.C., 1:13:13 Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigationsmeets to vote on whether to proceed against Backpage to enforce its subpoena. Unanimous vote among subcommittee members to recommend to the full Senate that it will direct Senate Counsel to begin legal proceedings to enforce its subpoena.
March 14, 2016, Boston, 1:15:40 The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals issues its decision in Doe v. Backpage. Backpage wins and the case is dismissed.
January 9, 2017, Boston, 1:26:49 U.S. Supreme Court denies Doe’s petition to hear Doe v. Backpage.
January 10, 2017, Washington D.C., 1:24:23 Senate Subcommittee compels Backpage executives and its owners Carl Ferrer, Michael Lacey, and James Larkin to testify at a Senate hearing. Just prior to the hearing, Backpage shut down its Escorts section. All three refuse to testify, asserting their First and Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
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APPENDIX II: CLASSROOM ROLE-PLAY EXERCISE
Roundtable Role-Play Assignment: Stakeholder Analysis in I Am Jane Doe The overall goal of this assignment is to gain a better understanding of a question or topic related to the film from lively, interactive discussion with informed, prepared peers. In the process, the students will demonstrate skills in critical thinking, analysis and discussion, speaking, listening, and group interaction.
Sample Discussion Questions:
• Should ISPs be held liable for criminal harm such as child sex trafficking that occurs as a result of advertisements posted on their sites? If so, to what extent? What if the ISP is a content neutral site such as Facebook or Google, as opposed to a site that offers sexual services? • Should Congress amend Section 230 of the CDA? If so, why and in what ways? If not, why not? • Should the courts intervene in the loophole created by Section 230 by refusing to dismiss cases brought on behalf of victims who have suffered criminal harm? Why or why not? Did the 1st Circuit go too far in its interpretation that Section 230 protects even websites which participate in federal crimes? • Should corporate executives such as Carl Ferrer, Michael Lacey, and Jim Larkin be held criminally responsible for the harm to child sex trafficking victims committed by ads posted on their sites? • What can be done to better prevent and stop the crime of child sexual exploitation?
Role-Play Guidelines:
• Students should be assigned a role representing one of the stakeholders represented in I Am Jane Doe. When considering questions about the film, they will speak from the perspective of that stakeholder—whether or not that perspective represents their own opinion. For instance, teachers might assign one student or group of students to represent Backpage; The Center for Democracy and Technology; a Jane Doe in Tacoma; a Jane Doe in Boston; and Sheriff Dart in Chicago.
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• The goal of this activity is to discuss an important question thoroughly and thoughtfully, considering a wide array of points of view, using evidence and critical thinking to cover as many of the relevant aspects of the question as possible. Depending on the classroom level, the teacher may be involved in the discussion, or could refrain from participating. In secondary and college classrooms, conducting the role-play discussion without teacher intervention allows students to practice maintaining a substantive and productive dialogue.
• Each member of the class prepares to discuss the question from the perspective assigned to them, and should prepare to
o advance their own idea or argument using research and evidence o respond to objections made by other parties and o document all sources and evidence
• Everyone participates. Each student must come prepared to participate and to ensure that everyone is encouraged to say something that advances the discussion. Leaving someone out of the discussion should result in a lower overall grade for the class. Everyone is required to stick to the topic.
• The use of evidence is crucial; students should be encouraged in a manner appropriate to their level to find relevant factual and conceptual evidence, including cases and examples. Depending on the role they are assigned, students will sometimes find themselves arguing against their actual opinion. This provides excellent practice in critical thinking skills, and in the importance of considering all sides of a topic. As a sidenote, www.IamJaneDoeFilm.com has all sorts of information, updates, and brief descriptions of the cases, as well as resources.
• Careful listening counts as much as speaking. Students should be encouraged not to monopolize the discussion, to allow others to finish before making their point, and to invite others to participate. Students should take notes as the dialogue progresses in order to ensure that their remarks are relevant and on point.
• Disagreement is normal and, in fact, productive. It should, however, be respectful and thoughtful. Be sure to remind students to disagree with the idea, and not with the person expressing it.
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APPENDIX III: RESEARCH RESOURCES & LINKS BY TOPIC
Child Sex Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation
Bassuk, Ellen, et al. America’s Youngest Outcasts: A Report Card on Child Homelessness. The National Center on Family Homelessness, 2014. http://www.air.org/sites/default/files/downloads/report/Americas-Youngest-Outcasts- Child-Homelessness-Nov2014.pdf
Bean, Lonnie James. US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. “LGBTI Youth at High Risk for Becoming Human Trafficking Victims.” June 26, 2013.
Covenant House, “Homelessness, Survival Sex and Human Trafficking: As Experienced by the Youth of Covenant House New York,” 2013. https://d28whvbyjonrpc.cloudfront.net/s3fs-public/attachments/Covenant-House- trafficking-study.pdf
Estes, Richard and Neil Alan Weiner, “The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U. S., Canada and Mexico, Executive Summary,” 2001. http://www.gems-girls.org/Estes%20Wiener%202001.pdf
“Global Estimate of Forced Labour Executive Summary.” International Labor Organization, 2012. http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_norm/@declaration/documents/public ation/wcms_181953.pdf
Human Trafficking By the Numbers: A Fact Sheet.” Human Rights First, January 7, 2016. http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/resource/human-trafficking-numbers
“Human Trafficking in America’s Schools.” American Institutes for Research. National Center for Safe Supportive Learning Environments. 2017. https://safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/human-trafficking-americas-schools
“Key Facts,” National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. http://www.missingkids.org/keyfacts.
Kyckelhahn, Tracey, et al. Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, “Characteristics of Human Trafficking Incidents 2007-2008.” January, 2009. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cshti08.pdf
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Middleton, J.S. and R. Ghent, et al. “Youth Experiences Survey (YES): Exploring the Scope and Complexity of Sex Trafficking in a Sample of Youth Experiencing Homelessness in Kentuckiana.” Report submitted by the Human Trafficking Research Initiative, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, 2016. https://louisville.edu/kent/research-special-programs- projects/special-projects/kentucky-2016-yes-report
Polaris Project, Sex Trafficking https://polarisproject.org/sex-trafficking
US Department of Justice, National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART 2) Report, October, 2002. http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/nismart2_runaway.pdf
UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Global Report on Trafficking in Persons. 2016. http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and- analysis/glotip/2016_Global_Report_on_Trafficking_in_Persons.pdf
US State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Trafficking in Persons Report. Washington, DC, 2005. https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/47255.pdf
Pornography and Demand for Child Sexual Exploitation
Demand Abolition, “Facts About Men Who Buy Sex.” https://www.demandabolition.org/resources/facts-men-buy-sex/
“John School.” Demand Abolition. http://www.demandforum.net/john-school/
Farley, Melissa, Julie Bindel, and Jacqueline M. Golding. “Men who Buy Sex: Who they buy and what they know: A research study of 103 men who describe their use of trafficked and non-trafficked women in prostitution, and their awareness of coercion and violence.” Eaves, London; Prostitution Research and Education, San Francisco. December, 2009. https://i1.cmsfiles.com/eaves/2012/04/MenWhoBuySex-89396b.pdf
Grady, Constance. “Is Beauty and the Beast a Tale as Old as Stockholm Syndrome? Depends How You Read It.” Vox, March 23, 2017. http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/23/15000768/beauty-and-the-beast-feminist- stockholm-syndrome
Katahakis, Alexandra. “Effects of Porn on Adolescent Boys.” Psychology Today, July 28, 2011. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-lies-trauma/201107/effects-porn- adolescent-boys
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Gail Dines. “Is Porn Immoral? That Doesn’t Matter. It’s a Public Health Crisis.” The Washington Post. April 16, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/04/08/is-porn-immoral- that-doesnt-matter-its-a-public-health-crisis/?utm_term=.e3ac4fa39bc0
National and International Legislation
Section 230 (of Communications Decency Act) 47 U.S. Code § 230 - Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPRA) https://www.state.gov/j/tip/laws/
22 U.S. Code Section 7102, Sex Trafficking https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/7102
18 U.S. Code Section 1591 - Sex Trafficking of Children or by Force, Fraud, or Coercion https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1591
18 U.S. Code Section 1595 - Civil remedy (establishes that a victim of sex trafficking can bring a civil lawsuit for damages against anyone who benefited from such trafficking) https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1595
18 U.S. Section 2252a - Certain Activities Relating to Material Constituting or Containing Child Pornography https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2252A
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (the Palermo Protocol) http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/ProtocolTraffickingInPersons.aspx
Senate Investigation: Backpage.com
U.S. Senate, Staff Report, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. “Backpage.com’s Knowing Facilitation of Online Sex Trafficking.” file:///C:/Users/egoldberg/Downloads/Backpage%20Report%202017.01.10%20FINAL%2 0(6).pdf
Cases Against Backpage.com
St. Louis: M.A. v. Village Voice Media Holdings LLC d/b/a Backpage.com http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/CourtDecision.pdf
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Tacoma, WA: J.S., S.L., and L.C. v. Village Voice Media Holdings and Backpage.com http://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/905100.pdf
Cook County, Illinois: Backpage.com, LLC v. Tom Dart, Sheriff of Cook County, Illinois https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=11419977392901106820&q=backpage+ v.+dart&hl=en&as_sdt=2006&as_vis=1
Boston, MA: Jane Doe No. 1, et al. v. Backpage, et al. http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/15-1724P-01A.pdf
Selected Amicus Briefs Relating to Cases Against Backpage
“Amicus Brief in Backpage v. Dart.” Center for Democracy and Technology, November 3, 2015. https://cdt.org/insight/amicus-brief-in-backpage-v-dart/
“Amicus Brief in Support of Appellants” in J.S., et al. v. Backpage.com, LLC. Electronic Frontier Foundation and Center for Democracy and Technology, September 5, 2014. http://d34q5zng4744bn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2014-09-05-Backpage- Amici-Curiae-Brief-of-the-Electronic-Fronier-Foundation-and-the-Center.pdf
“Amicus Brief in Support of Plaintiffs’ Opposition to Motion to Dismiss,” in Jane Doe, et al., v. Backpage.com, LLC, Boston, MA. Attorney General Maura Healey. February 20, 2015. http://d34q5zng4744bn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2014-09-05-Backpage- Amici-Curiae-Brief-of-the-Electronic-Fronier-Foundation-and-the-Center.pdf
“Amicus Brief in Support of Petitioners,” in Jane Doe, et al., v. Backpage.com, LLC, Boston MA. Professor Chad Flanders, et al. September 29, 2015. http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/16-276-cert-amicus- flanders.pdf
“Amicus Brief in Support of Petitioners,” in Jane Doe, et al., v. Backpage.com, LLC, Boston, MA. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children September 27, 2016. http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/16-276-cert-amicus- NCMEC.pdf
Precedents for Backpage.com Cases
Stratton-Oakmont Inc. v. Prodigy Services Company https://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/Stratton_Oakmont_Porush_v_Prodigy/stratton- oakmont_porush_v_prodigy_et-al.decision http://www.dmlp.org/threats/stratton-oakmont-v-prodigy
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Kenneth M. Zeran v. America Online, Inc. https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3112726467460676187&q=zeran+v.+am erican+online+129+F.+3d+327&hl=en&as_sdt=2006&as_vis=1
Johnny Doe v. Mark Bates and Yahoo! Inc. http://www.internetlibrary.com/pdf/Doe-Bates.pdf
John Doe v. SexSearch.com, et al. https://www.eff.org/files/doe-v-sexsearch.pdf
Jane Doe v. MySpace, Inc. https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=7723885977876502124&hl=en&as_sdt= 6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr
Section 230, Backpage.com, and Internet Freedom
Backpage.com, Center for Democracy and Technology https://cdt.org/?s=backpage.com
Backpage.com, Electronic Frontier Foundation https://www.eff.org/search/site/backpage.com
“Eroding Exceptionalism.” The Economist. February 11, 2017. http://www.economist.com/news/business/21716661-platforms-have-benefited-greatly- special-legal-and-regulatory-treatment-internet-firms
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