By Grazie Pozo Christie
With the passage by the Senate of the Allow States and Victims to Fight Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), Congress has come down decisively on the side of exploited women and children, and against website owners who intentionally support the sale of trafficking victims. Now, President Trumpwill have the chance to do the same.
Having moved off seamy back streets to venereal websites like Backpage.com, human trafficking has flourished on websites protected from criminal and civil prosecution by the Communications Decency Act. FOSTA will allow prosecutors to use state sex trafficking and prostitution laws to prosecute these websites, and creates a new federal crime specifically addressing the issue. After months of resistance from tech community giants like Google, websites will finally be held responsible for online sexual slavery on their platforms, something that should have been done long ago.
