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Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

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Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#81

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

themitigating wrote: post #37
myshpa wrote: post #5

“unlike virtually every other website that is used for prostitution and sex trafficking, Backpage is remarkably responsive to law enforcement requests and often takes proactive steps to assist in investigations.” - DOJ "In short, contrary to the public narrative you may have heard, Backpage worked closely with federal law enforcement to actually stop sex trafficking (and not just take it down, but to track down the p…

But they refused to do the same for consensual sex work Isn't that also a crime in almost the entire US? It's also where sex trafficking comes into play. How would you know consent was given by a sex worker? People who are trafficked to work as prostitutes are often blackmailed and threatened. Right now there's massive paranoia about this because it's being used as an election tactic but prostitution and sex traffick…

> Isn't that also a crime in almost the entire US?

It isn't relevant. Enforcement of law is the responsibility of that jurisdiction. Sex trafficking is criminalized in federal law; it is DoJ's responsibility.

Prostitution is criminalized under the laws of 49 states (and other municipalities) which makes it the responsibility of those jurisdictions.

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#82

Post by dragonwriter »

rayiner wrote: post #25
maxbond wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty silly, prohibition has been an obvious failure in both drugs and sex work. Firstly, it's a human rights issue, people ought to be able to engage in the commerce of their choosing with only reasonable restrictions. Prohibition is an unreasonable restriction, enforced according to a set of puritan morals that are no longer even popularly held. After all, alcohol is more addictive and more harmful than ma…

> Firstly, it's a human rights issue, people ought to be able to engage in the commerce of their choosing with only reasonable restrictions You’re starting with a libertarian premise most people don’t accept. The vast majority of the world accepts that it’s proper to restrict individual freedom even to protect people from themselves. Society has a role to play to help people make good choices and to make it hard for…

> women—who bear the lion’s share of the cost of prostitution

What “cost of prostitution” do women who are not prostitutes bear?

The cost of criminalization of prostitution is clearly born primarily by prostitutes who are disproportionately women, but the vast majority of women are not prostitutes.

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#83

Post by AnthonyMouse »

rayiner wrote: post #73
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That analogy would only fit if the workers suffering from the unsafe working conditions had the same views as the ones who don't, whereas it's suburban middle class women who favor prohibition and sex workers who favor legalization. It's like saying "men, who bear the lion's share of the cost of the death penalty, support it more than women do." It's not the ones on death row who support it.

If there was no minimum wage and no OSHA, would you look at the opinion of all workers or just the people who agreed to work for a low wage or in an unsafe condition? Obviously the former, because all workers are subject to coercion to agree to work for low wages and in unsafe conditions, and the point is to protect all workers from that pressure. Similarly, sex workers don’t start out that way. All women are subject…

> If there was no minimum wage and no OSHA, would you look at the opinion of all workers or just the people who agreed to work for a low wage or in an unsafe condition? Obviously the former, because all workers are subject to coercion to agree to work for low wages and in unsafe conditions, and the point is to protect all workers from that pressure.

Obviously the latter, because the former includes a majority of people who aren't subject to such coercion, e.g. because they perform skilled labor and have negotiating power. But who may be in favor of such rules for perfidious and selfish reasons (e.g. because they're in a position to benefit from destroying smaller competitors) or because they're so separated from the lives of the people actually affected by the rules that they support them out of ignorance.

You can see this because people will answer polling questions like "do you support a rule that improves worker safety even if it increases production costs" without asking a single question about the details, like how much it improves safety and how much it increases costs. Even though it's obvious that rules with a poor cost/benefit ratio hurt everyone by making things cost more, and hurt the people nearest to the cost increase most because it comes out of the revenue the business uses to pay their wages.

Which is how we get "worker protections" that harm workers. Because prohibiting lead and asbestos are good rules, but there are also bad rules that people with cushy jobs nevertheless support because they sound good and the negative consequences don't affect them personally. Why should we put weight on their misaligned and uninformed views?

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#84

Post by rayiner »

dragonwriter wrote: post #82
rayiner wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firstly, it's a human rights issue, people ought to be able to engage in the commerce of their choosing with only reasonable restrictions You’re starting with a libertarian premise most people don’t accept. The vast majority of the world accepts that it’s proper to restrict individual freedom even to protect people from themselves. Society has a role to play to help people make good choices and to make it hard for…

> women—who bear the lion’s share of the cost of prostitution What “cost of prostitution” do women who are not prostitutes bear? The cost of criminalization of prostitution is clearly born primarily by prostitutes who are disproportionately women, but the vast majority of women are not prostitutes.

Being coerced and pressured into prostitution. Most women aren’t prostitution, but any woman can be the victim of efforts to coerce her into prostitution, often as a result of earlier sexual abuse: https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/11907/

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#85

Post by dragonwriter »

rayiner wrote: post #84
dragonwriter wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> women—who bear the lion’s share of the cost of prostitution What “cost of prostitution” do women who are not prostitutes bear? The cost of criminalization of prostitution is clearly born primarily by prostitutes who are disproportionately women, but the vast majority of women are not prostitutes.

Being coerced and pressured into prostitution. Most women aren’t prostitution, but any woman can be the victim of efforts to coerce her into prostitution, often as a result of earlier sexual abuse: https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/11907/

> Being coerced and pressured into prostitution.

That is not a cost borne by women who are not prostitutes, but by a subset of those who are.

(It is a risk that other women might be exposed to, but being exposed to a risk and bearing a cost are different things, the former of which is often much less palpable than the latter.)

> https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/11907/

That’s a very weird link to attach to your comment, since the story in that article does not refer to anything related to prostitution, coerced or otherwise, on its face. Certain people (Dworkin among them) might describe all prostitution as rape, but inverting that to turn a rape narrative that the victim who is also the only witness relating it does not attribute to prostitution of any kind into an illustration of a claim about forced prostitution is bizarre.

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#86

Post by sunk1st »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #30
sunk1st wrote: post #4

I would like to read more about the circumstances surrounding the memo that the DOJ was successful in preventing from entering as evidence.

https://www.techdirt.com/2019/08/28/new-government-documents... It links to a story about it.

Thanks. Very sad situation. Hard to understand how those memos would be sealed away from use by the defense.
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