Adult ad site Backpage argues First Amendment with Senate and Supreme Court

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary order that Backpage.com does not have to comply with a U.S. Senate subpoena about its editorial practices. The Senate is investigating charges that the site contains ads for sex acts by women and children forced into prostitution.  The Senate is contending that free expression must take back stage in the fight against sex trafficking. (Ars Technica, September 7, 2016, by David Kravets)

Backpage lawyers say that the Senate does not respect the company’s First Amendment rights: “This case presents a question of exceptional nationwide importance involving the protection the First Amendment provides to online publishers of third-party content when they engage in core editorial functions,” the site’s brief said. The litigation “highlights a disturbing – and growing – trend of government actors issuing blunderbuss demands for documents to online publishers of content created by third parties (such as classified ads) in a manner that chills First Amendment rights.” Alison Frankel, Reuters, September 7, 2016, is skeptical about the Backpage arguments: “But does the First Amendment – or its Internet corollary, the safe harbor provision of the Communications Decency Act – really protect Backpage from a congressional inquiry into advertising for supposedly illegal services? Can Backpage dress up ads for sex services as ‘press functions’ meriting the most stringent protection under the First Amendment?”

One Comment

  • Why scrutinize Backpage.com for doing what the phone book has done for decades: advertise massage and escort services. Whenever police fail at policing criminal conduct, it focuses on the messenger, not the actor. I hope human trafficking is dealt with, but not at the cost of the First Amendment. When Craigslist.org was demonized for having an escort section, it deleted it. Now, escorts simply advertise in the dating areas of the site. The focus should be on the people breaking the law, not the people advertising what may or may not be illegal conduct.

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