Topic: Sesta

A male sex worker named Nate provides an update on the industry following the government crackdown on Backpage and Craigslist. He confirms the "Dvorak Rule" that sex workers get more attractive as the economy worsens. Nate notes that the industry has moved to sites like RentMen.com and argues that the crackdown was more about taxation than stopping trafficking.

The passage of SESTA and FOSTA legislation has led to the shutdown of platforms like Backpage.com, forcing sex workers to migrate to decentralized platforms like Mastodon. Specifically, many have moved to the "switter.at" instance to post advertisements via hashtags. This shift highlights the potential for distributed, non-walled garden platforms to gain adoption as traditional social media sites increase censorship and tracking.

Senator Richard Blumenthal accuses Facebook of "willful blindness" and violating an FTC consent decree. The discussion covers the monetization of user information, the role of data brokers like FICO, and Facebook's support for the SESTA sex trafficking legislation.

Following the passage of anti-sex trafficking legislation (FOSTA-SESTA), Craigslist shut down its personals section. This has forced sex workers to find new ways to advertise, such as using coded language in "items for sale" listings or creating independent websites. The shift highlights the difficulty of censoring the internet, as users can easily move to Amazon S3 buckets or other decentralized hosting services.

The US Senate is poised to pass the SESTA-FOSTA bill, which limits the legal immunity of websites in sex trafficking cases. Critics argue this legislation marks the beginning of a broader crackdown on "unlawful content" and could lead to the banning of protocols like Tor. The bill is seen as a fundamental shift in the regulation of the internet, potentially ending the era of broad platform protections under Section 230.

The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) aims to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to hold websites liable for sex trafficking. The hosts discuss how Section 230 originally enabled the growth of platforms like Facebook and YouTube by providing immunity for user-generated content. The case of Backpage.com serves as the primary catalyst for this legislative push.

During a Senate hearing, prosecutors from Sacramento explain how Section 230 immunity led a judge to drop pimping and sex trafficking charges against Backpage.com. They argue that without SESTA, law enforcement lacks the tools to prosecute sites that knowingly facilitate human exploitation. The current legal battle is limited to conspiracy and money laundering charges.

The debate over SESTA involves concerns that the bill could stifle the internet economy, a position supported by Google and the EFF. Proponents argue the bill is narrowly tailored to target "bad actors" who show criminal intent. The hosts draw parallels between the "intent" requirement in SESTA and the legal standards applied in the Clinton email investigation.

The hosts debate whether SESTA will lead to a "domino effect" of internet regulation or if it will force a return to a decentralized internet. They pivot to news from Spain, where police have raided the Catalan government to halt an independence referendum, seizing cruise ships to house additional officers. The segment links these events to a global trend of government crackdowns on dissent.