Congress doesn’t seem to know how sex trafficking or the internet actually works (The Outline)

Read the full article by Paris Martineau at theoutline.comToday, members of the House of Representatives will meet to discuss a bill that, if enacted, would essentially destroy one of the internet’s cardinal protections. Though the bill is titled the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (or FOSTA for short), it would do nothing to stop sex traffickers. Instead, it would hold online platforms criminally and civilly liable for the actions of their users, which would not only make it extremely difficult for smaller startups to compete with giant, well-resourced ones like Google and Facebook, but would actually also end up censoring the victims of sex trafficking, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation as well as make things difficult for sex workers.