VICTORY in Online Safety

Online Safety, , ,

By Eric Tooley

Angela and I just spent a week in Washington, DC at the Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation Global Summit. Last Friday news broke that the Department of Justice seized and shutdown Backpage.com, the largest sex trafficking website in the world. The Coalition had targeted Backpage.com for several years for the following reasons:

  • “All of the child-trafficking cases prosecuted by this office over the past two years involved backpage.com.” —  St. Paul, MN County Attorney
  • in 2013, eight out of every ten dollars spent on online commercial sex advertisement in the U.S. went to Backpage.com. —  US Senate Subcommittee
  • “Adult and child sex trafficking victims were forced into prostitution through escort ads that appeared repeatedly on Backpage.” —  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

The Coalition went to work with the following initiatives:

  • Getting the US Congress to amend laws that protect websites from prosecution. —
    • This was done and President Trump will sign FOSTA-SESTA (H.R. 1865) later today!
    • In response to the bill’s passing, CraigsList, Reddit, and other sites shut down their personal sex sections.
  • Establish an app where users submit pictures of their hotel room so pictures on Backpage.com can be identified for their location so victims can be rescued. This was done.
  • Produce a documentary film highlighting the stories of victims and how Backpage.com was involved.
    • This was done.
    • “I am Jane Doe” is available on Netflix and online.
    • Angela and I screened this movie Thursday night of the conference and strongly recommend it.

Obviously, there was great rejoicing at the Summit when the news broke that Backpage.com had been shut down. During the press conference at the Summit, I announced on the Noble Choices FaceBook page that we debut a program on Sex Trafficking for churches and schools this fall.

Noble Choices has been a proud member of this coalition since our beginning in 2014. Noble Choice’s mission is not one of activism but one of education via prevention programs, counseling, and recovery programs. The Coalition welcomes our efforts as part of their prevention work.