House Vote on FOSTA is a Win for Censorship (EFF)

Read the full article by Joe Mullin on Eff.org 

The tragedy is that FOSTA isn’t needed to prosecute or sue sex traffickers. As we’ve said before, Section 230 simply isn’t broken. Right now, there is nothing preventing federal prosecution of an Internet company that knowingly aids in sex trafficking. That includes anyone hosting advertisements for sex trafficking, which is explicitly a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. § 1591, as amended by the 2015 SAVE Act. The website that produced the most discussion around this issue, Backpage.com, is reportedly under federal investigation.

The array of online services protected by Section 230, and thus hurt by FOSTA, is vast. It includes review sites, online marketplaces, discussion boards, ISPs, even news publications with comment sections. Even small websites host thousands or millions of users engaged in around-the-clock discussion and commerce. By attempting to add an additional tool to hold liable the tiny minority of those platforms whose users who do awful things, FOSTA does real harm to the overwhelming majority, who will inevitably be subject to censorship.