Hi friends, Call your Congressional Representative by Tuesday, February 27th to voice your opposition to this bill that amends the Communications Act of 1934 to make everything we do online impossible. It's a really scary bill. It's also a major impediment to free speech online.
The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA, H.R. 1865) will make it even harder to prevent trafficking and protect trafficking victims. And government will surveil and censor online free speech, including activist free speech, more forcefully than ever before. Tell your reps that FOSTA is not the right solution to fight trafficking or to protect sex workers. FOSTA will make illegal safety practices such as screening for clients, organizing with other sex workers or trafficking victims, and hosting bad date lists (of clients who are known to rape or abuse). Basic harm reduction and anti-violence work will become a federal crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Sites like Backpage already cooperate with trafficking investigations, but if this bill passes, traffickers will move their activities to the streets and to non-US hosted sites, making it even more difficult to find and protect trafficking victims. FOSTA further pushes sex work underground, doing nothing to address the conditions that make people vulnerable in the first place. Sex worker activists and allies are vulnerable to legal prosecution under FOSTA. Thanks! In solidarity, Ernestine
I am also working to prevent this bill in my personal life. Trafficking is a serious issue that needs evidence-based solutions, FOSTA is not based on evidence that these tactics will mitigate trafficking and from my own experiences, will actually make it that much harder for trafficking victims to access any support.
This also has enormous implications for internet privacy and freedom of speech; it is no accident this is happening shortly after the recent net neutrality debates. So much of anti-trafficking legislation is drafted as a backdoor to achieve political goals that have nothing to do with supporting trafficking victims and are able to be pushed through the legislature because the public sees anti-trafficking generally as a public good (which is understandable) and because people don't know (or don't care) about the impact it will have on everyone within and adjacent in the adult industry, regardless of how we got here.
On top of it all, It is absurd that we would face federal prison sentences for the pursuit of pleasure. I mean, our whole legal situation is absurd, to begin with- but this is an entirely new level.
My understanding of this bill is that all internet advertising, review sites, and harm reduction methods that are used by sex workers and clients will become illegal. I'm not sure if TER has overseas servers, but if it's hosted on US soil it will be extremely illegal to engage at all. This bill will also make a lot of porn posting sites illegal or extremely censored. It's very, very dangerous and I encourage you to contact your senators! A lot of New England senators are co-sponsors of this bill so it will take a lot to change their minds. Please visit the website below!
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