Sex Trafficking Bill Passes in the Senate

The passage of this bill not only allows regulations on sex trafficking but also signals of increasing inclusion of Silicon Valley into the legal reach.

On Wednesday, the Senate gave the final approval to the legislation that will strengthen and impose regulations on sex trafficking. Despite public pushback from many internet companies, lawmakers have been attempting to negotiate with the reality of prostitution involving countless children and women.

This legislation is a multi-year, bipartisan effort that passed 97-to-2 in the Senate. It would allow legal restrictions and regulations on online facilitators of sex trafficking, such as backpage.com. It would also no longer provide these internet companies the protection from legal liability and put them into legal accountability for the content they put on.

The approval of this legislation, along with the controversy of Facebook that’s taking place right now, places the Silicon Valley under the spotlight of legal measures. While large tech companies like Google and Facebook have been exempt from many regulations in the past, they have been put under investigation and scrutiny in the past couple years. The legislation, named Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, marks a significant step in including Silicon Valley in the legal reach of the Congress and the President.

Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said that this act is “a wake-up call”, and that “this is clearly illegal activity. It was happening online. But I think in the future, tech companies have to understand that it’s not the Wild West, and they have to exercise responsibility.”

Internet companies have expressed wariness towards the security of their businesses after the bill is implemented. They have referenced the safe harbor provision as the basis of internet commerce and some even accused of this bill as an outrageous threat to free speech, placing a limit on the freedom of content on the internet.

In response to the pushback from internet companies regarding the passage of this act, Paul Gallant, an Analyst at Cowen, commented that this bill would not lead to direct damage to big companies and would simply be “cracking the door open to broader platform liability for other types of content.”

Whether it’s sex trafficking, fake news or interference from foreign governments like Russia, social networks have been under increasing amount of scrutiny and distrust in the past few years, intensifying the debate over technology’s good and bad.

State police and attorneys general would be allowed to go after and even terminate sites that host sex trafficking with the passage and implementation of this bill. It will also provide outlets and voices to those who have fallen victim to these sites in the past as they would be allowed to sue these sites legally under the protection of this legislation.

This bill was first introduced in August 2017. It was based on a Senate investigation on backpage.com, with contents with prostitution and sex trafficking. This investigation was spearheaded by Mr. Portman and was met with great difficulty due to the protection on these sites granted under the liability portion of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.

From the very start, it resulted in great tension between law enforcement officials, advocate against sex trafficking and internet companies along with free speech advocates. However, with the recent scandal of Russian interference in Facebook as well as other scandals that threatens the trust of the users on these social networks, these companies have drawn back from their opposition to ease the growing tension and wariness.

In fact, the Internet Association, a group who expressed vehement opposition towards the bill initially, has also eased their stance. This group includes many major players in the Silicon Valley, including Facebook, Google, Netflix and Apple.