Controversial sex-trafficking bill passes the House of Representatives (TheVerge)

Read the full article by Russell Brandom on TheVerge.com 

The proposed law has split the tech world, with Oracle, IBM and the Internet Association cheering on the new measures. Notably, companies like Google and Facebook have largely remained silent, although they would be significantly impacted if the bill became law. Shortly after SESTA was introduced, the Wikimedia Foundation argued that user-submission projects like Wikipedia simply couldn’t exist without Section 230’s strong Safe Harbor provisions.

The latest version of the bill also ran into some unexpected constitutional problems. Shortly before the House vote, the Department of Justice sent a letter to the bill’s sponsors raising concern that the retroactive measures in FOSTA — which allows for prosecutions based on conduct before the date of the bill’s enactment — might violate the constitution’s Ex Post Facto clause. It’s unclear if the language of the bill has been altered to accommodate the objection, but it could provide grounds for a legal challenge in the future absent corrective action by the Senate.