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Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

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Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#231

Post by cwillu »

Zigurd wrote: post #144
rayiner wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing apples and oranges. The CEO of a small internet company almost certainly has a hand in everything the company does. The CEO of a large corporation has no idea what the line workers are doing.[1] If a bunch of Yahoo employees had gone off and run as sex-trafficking site off Yahoo's servers, they wouldn't go arrest Marissa Mayer. Not because "lobbying" but because that would be stupid and unreasonable.…

It's not credible that C-level management were unaware. 5000+ employees doing the same thing, repeatedly, means collusion and coordination up the management hierarchy was taking place. Either internal anti-fraud controls failed, or this activity was actively ignored at management direction. At the very least, the C-level manager at the top of the organization that engaged in this fraud was responsible for a system fa…

It means nothing of the sort. People socialize with coworkers all the time, and workarounds for dumb metrics is exactly the sort of thing that get gossipped about.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#232

Post by Anderkent »

ZoF wrote: post #226
Anderkent wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only in America you would think that a 16 or 17 year old would never choose to have sex for benefits unless forced into it.

The person you're replying to is from the UK. Why the anti-American sentiment?

Eh, apologies. Mostly a cheap shot. It does seem to me people in USA are more prudish about sex and overprotective of children, to the point of denying the underage any agency. But it's a more nuanced discussion, and it's easier to write a snark.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#233

Post by xixi77 »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #122
niftich wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's idealism on both sides of the argument. On one hand, there are those who believe that conducting these arrangements in the open is safer for all involved parties. On the other hand, there are those who believe that sex work can never truly be consensual, because even if consent is given, a sex worker may have felt pressured to seek this life because all other choices available to them to make a living and att…

> On the other hand, there are those who believe that sex work can never truly be consensual Discussion about sex work is always interesting. Sex workers are so often left out of the discussion about their own lives. How about we listen to what the sex workers want? Here in Australia, sex workers are completely on the side of decriminalisation.

This is of course entirely by design -- liberal opponents of sex work have to rely on automatically, by definition denying agency to any sex worker who disagrees ("she is brainwashed/has internalized oppression/..., therefore her arguments cannot be considered, let us see what this ex-worker has to say") -- otherwise the illusion of compassion that they work so hard on creating would instantly evaporate.

It is really quite infuriating -- to me personally much more so than the conservative opponents position, which while equally repugnant in terms of actions implied, at least leaves some scope for respectfully disagreeing: it does not bother me to be called sinful, or evil, or immoral by someone else's moral code (surely all of us are quite immoral by /someone's/ moral code), but I would consider it deeply offensive to have my opinion about my own life dismissed out of hand.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#234

Post by danielweber »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #178
twblalock wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are talking about 5,000 current employees being fired and many employees who were fired for reporting it. If he didn't know, then he must not know other things about Wells Fargo that are equally important. I'm sure that's the case, and I'm sure it's also the case for most CEOs of massive companies. Wells Fargo has more than 250,000 employees and more than 6000 branches -- more branches than any other US bank. T…

Then how does this spread around to all the branches if (way) upper management doesn't know? Does Suzy in Fl really spend her time chatting up Jackie in CA to get the scoop on all the D/L ways to cheat? They have a little IRC channel for duping WF management?

Have you ever had a job? Have you ever had management insist upon some stupid metric or some deadline that just could not be met and they refused to hear about it?

People had to open new accounts or lose their jobs. Some people opened fake accounts to accomplish this. When they were found out, they were fired. Sounds like a horrible place to work, but the firings were proof that management didn't want this to happen, not some bizarro proof that this is what they wanted all along.

You don't need coordination to figure out how to game a system.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#235

Post by danielweber »

rbanffy wrote: post #141
squid_ca wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an okay opinion, but I'd like to see CEOs criminally charged and go to jail if it's proven that they knew or should have known what was going on.

He is the CEO. He should have known 5000 employees were engaging in fraudulent operations.

They fired 5000 employees because they were opening fake accounts. Wells found these people on their own and fired them.

In normal people world, this is proof that Wells was taking the problem of fake accounts seriously. (It also sounds like a horrible place to work, but that's a separate issue.)

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#236

Post by kofejnik »

Spooky23 wrote: post #43
SwellJoe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most sex workers agree that their safety is improved dramatically by having the business side of it out in the open. And, there have been studies on sex worker safety that indicate strongly that legal prostitution is safer for everyone; it also reduces coercion when it is not underground (women don't need a pimp, if law enforcement is on their side). Since I started paying attention a few years ago, I've noticed that…

I think mutual consent and money for sex are probably fine. The problem is that reality isn't black and white. Trafficking is very real, especially in Chinese communities, where victims are shuffled all over the place on cheap intercity busses. These are complex problems, and the typical HN lazze faire approach doesn't address that complexity.

Trafficking of farm and construction workers is very real, too, and probably more prevalent.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#237

Post by danielweber »

cwillu wrote: post #231
Zigurd wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not credible that C-level management were unaware. 5000+ employees doing the same thing, repeatedly, means collusion and coordination up the management hierarchy was taking place. Either internal anti-fraud controls failed, or this activity was actively ignored at management direction. At the very least, the C-level manager at the top of the organization that engaged in this fraud was responsible for a system fa…

It means nothing of the sort. People socialize with coworkers all the time, and workarounds for dumb metrics is exactly the sort of thing that get gossipped about.

And "figure out how to make fake accounts" is pretty easy. This absolutely doesn't need coordination at all.

Once worked somewhere that management measured you by number of checkins. Engineers didn't need to talk with each other at all to get those numbers going way up. And they did, you betcha. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#238

Post by pkinsky »

oarsinsync wrote: post #110
barrkel wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If selling fruit was the shopkeeper's free choice, they would not need to be paid for fruit. This sentence has structurally the same form. If you think it's ridiculous, it can only be because you think there is something special about sex - i.e. it is sacred in some way. And thus your position actually doesn't relate to free will. I think you're very confused. Your statements aren't logically consistent and I have to…

> This sentence has structurally the same form. If you think it's ridiculous, it can only be because you think there is something special about sex > As Dworkin wrote a long time ago, "in prostitution, no woman stays whole. It is impossible to use a human body in the way women's bodies are used in prostitution and to have a whole human being at the end of it, or in the middle of it, or close to the beginning of it. I…

Then replace selling fruit with backbreaking manual labor: coal mining, digging ditches, whatever. Something that causes real and permanent damage to one's body over time. Is selling your labor in such a way morally wrong?

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#239

Post by xixi77 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #43
SwellJoe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most sex workers agree that their safety is improved dramatically by having the business side of it out in the open. And, there have been studies on sex worker safety that indicate strongly that legal prostitution is safer for everyone; it also reduces coercion when it is not underground (women don't need a pimp, if law enforcement is on their side). Since I started paying attention a few years ago, I've noticed that…

I think mutual consent and money for sex are probably fine. The problem is that reality isn't black and white. Trafficking is very real, especially in Chinese communities, where victims are shuffled all over the place on cheap intercity busses. These are complex problems, and the typical HN lazze faire approach doesn't address that complexity.

You are right, these are indeed complex problems, however this is no directed effort against this type of activity.

If anything, having a common platform would make it easier to focus on such things, and I suspect platform owners would gladly cooperate (as they probably would on weeding out underage ads, etc.) -- but in practice, the alternative we see is either going for low-hanging fruit (which these relatively complex operations aren't), or just a blanket effort, like in this case.

All of these hurt legitimate workers far more than the operations you describe.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#240

Post by croon »

empthought wrote: post #220
croon wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're arguing on the premise that someone can dictate someone elses values on human rights. Which I would argue is a worse violation.

OK, in that case we had no right to prosecute the Holocaust, and saying that we did is a worse violation than the Holocaust...

Wait, what? You honestly went with Godwin's law on this?

There are people in the sex industry who enjoy their industry. There were no people on the receiving end of the holocaust who enjoyed that.

If you can't grasp the difference you should not try to discuss anything.

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