Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA)

Overview

The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, or SESTA for short, is a United States bill created to amend the Section 230 safe harbors of the Communications Decency Act to make it illegal for website owners to knowingly assist, facilitate, or support sex trafficking. Since its introduction in August of 2017, the bill has seen criticism from pro-Internet and pro-free speech groups that alleges that the bill will only weaken the 230 safe harbors, with some calling the bill a censorship bill in disguise.

Background

SESTA was created by Republican senator Rob Portman after he had led an investigation into the online classifieds website Backpage, which was accused of child sex trafficking, and argued that Section 230 was protecting its "unscrupulous business practices," and that the bill was not designed to provide immunity to sex traffickers.^[1][4] Introduced into the US Senate on August 1st, 2017 as S. 1693,^[2] the bill has since received bipartisan co-sponsorship from 27 Democratic and Republican senators.^[3]

Developments

FOSTA-SESTA Package

On February 21, 2018, United States House Representative Ann Wagner announced that her bill, The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act,^[5] or FOSTA for short, would be considered the following Monday by the House Rules Committee alongside an amendment made to the bill by Rep. Mimi Walters that would include language from SESTA, which would allow the bill as a whole to be brought to the House floor the day after.

The FOSTA-SESTA amendment also received criticism from Internet advocacy groups and blog sites such as Techdirt^[15] and the Electronic Frontier Foundation^[16] (EFF) for not fixing any of the problems with either bill, describing it as a "Frankenstein's monster" that would stifle online speech.

Online Reaction

SESTA received harsh criticism from many pro-free speech groups and Internet activists such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Engine Advocacy, Tech Freedom, the Wikimedia Foundation^[8] and the Sex Workers Outreach Project, which described the bill as a "disguised Internet censorship bill."^[17][18] Critics argued that the bill would weaken Section 230 protections for every website and would put a burden on any website that hosts user-generated content.^[19] The EFF claimed any website could be used to "facilitate" sex trafficking and that the law would chill voluntary moderation of websites, as encouraged by Section 230.^[19] On October 30th, 2017, the Protect 230 YouTube channel uploaded a video explaining the controversy behind the bill (shown below).

Additionally, the alternative social media platform Gab came out against the bill, accusing supporters of being "duped with an emotional appeal and pure sophistry" (shown below).^[20]

Meanwhile, the bill received support from 21st Century Fox and Oracle Corporation and The Internet Association.^[21]

More recently, the Wall Street Journal^[26], the Daily Dot^[27], and the LA Times^[28] all came out against the bill, pointing out that gutting Section 230 could lead to a "lawsuit bonanza" and that this could set a bad precedent that would lead to there being nothing left of Section 230. In addition, a large number of sex workers came out against the bill, most notably Alana Massey, who wrote an article on Allure calling on people to stop listening to celebrity opinions on the bill and listen to actual sex workers and sex trafficking victims.^[29]

On February 26th, Redditor ElBarronSabeCyber submitted a post asking about the bill to /r/OutOfTheLoop,^[6] to which Redditor all_classics replied that the bill was drawing a backlash online for removing "protections from website owners if their users post illegal content which shows or contributes to sex trafficking or sexual abuse." Within 24 hours, the post gained over 1,900 points (95% upvoted) and 110 comments.

Department of Justice Response

On February 27th, 2018, the Department of Justice sent a letter to Congress objecting to the new FOSTA-SESTA bill ans questioning its constitutionality.^[23] In addition, Repersentative Justin Amash pointed out that the bill is an ex post facto bill, and therefore unconstitutional.^[24]

House Vote

On February 26th, 2018, the House of Representatives FOSTA bill cleared the Rules Committee following the addition of amendments drawing from SESTA, set to be voted on the House floor the following day. On February 27th, the EFF tweeted links to their "Stop FOSTA"^[22] action page for viewers to encourage their representatives to oppose the FOSTA House Bill 1865.

The bill ended up passing the House with a 388-25 vote.^[25]

Senate Vote

On March 14th, 2018, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell filed a cloture for FOSTA, allowing the bill to be debated on the 15th, and then finally brought to a vote the week after.^[30] The Senate ended up passing the bill 97-2 on Wednesday, March 21st, 2018.^[31] The bill is not expected to go into effect for a few months after signature and is likely to be challenged in court at some point.

Aftermath

On March 22nd, 2018, Craigslist removed its personals section in response to FOSTA.^[32]

In addition, Reddit announced that they had taken down several subreddits relating to sex work.^[33] A host of other websites and services have decided to erase mentions of erotic material, fearing the potential legal pressure that FOSTA and SESTA bring.^[35]

On April 3rd, the bill was presented to President Donald Trump^[34] and officially became law on April 11th. That day, Motherboard^[36] published an article titled "Trump Just Signed SESTA/FOSTA, a Law Sex Workers Say Will Literally Kill Them." Meanwhile, posts about the new law reached the front page of the /r/news^[37] and /r/politics^[38] subreddits.

Search Interest

External References