The White House praised anti-sex trafficking legislation that passed the Senate on Wednesday over concerns the reform could fundamentally change the Internet.
“President Donald J. Trump applauds the Senate for passing H.R. 1865, the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act,” the White House said in a statement. “This bipartisan piece of legislation takes an important step forward in fighting the despicable act of human trafficking.”
The bill, known as FOSTA, passed the Senate 97-2, with only Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., voting against it. The bill’s most controversial element was approved by the House in a 308-107 vote last month.
The reform adds a carve-out to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which gives legal immunity to websites hosting third-party content, by removing immunity for web platforms if site operators are violating a state law against “promotion or facilitation of prostitution.”
Proponents said the reform will allow victims to hold accountable services like Backpage.com that host personal ads, including those of alleged trafficking victims, and would allow state prosecutors to go after the facilitators without being pre-empted by the federal law.
Critics warn that changing the law risks crushing online entrepreneurship and that it was written in such a way that could backfire.
Wyden, who helped write Section 230, said in a recent statement that longstanding third-party immunity law “kept politicians and special interests from sinking the internet.” He said the reform would “prop up the entrenched players who are rapidly losing the public’s trust” and “make it harder to catch bad actors and protect victims by driving this vile crime to shadowy corners of society that are harder for law enforcement to reach.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation advocacy group warned that the legislation also creates a new federal trafficking crime that “would not require a platform to have knowledge that people are using it for sex trafficking purposes.”
“Facing the threat of extreme criminal and civil penalties, web platforms large and small would have little choice but to silence legitimate voices,” EFF warned. “Platforms would have to take extreme measures to remove a wide range of postings, especially those related to sex.”
Consumer Technology Association President Gary Shapiro warned in the run-up to the House vote that his trade group “is concerned that this needlessly rushed and unorthodox process will result in unintended language gravely harming legitimate businesses and the internet economy.”
Opponents of sex trafficking, however, cheered the long-sought change and described it as a sensible step toward accountability for companies that have benefited from the suffering of people forced into sex work.
“To the websites that for years have hidden behind Section 230 and profited from the sale of vulnerable women and children, know that your time has run out,” said Lauren Hersh, national director of World Without Exploitation.
“Today, we celebrate not simply a legislative victory, but a significant change in our response to sexual exploitation,” she said.
