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This week the US Senate passed SESTA (the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act). A slightly different version, FOSTA, had previously passed the House.

As Gizmodo explains,

SESTA was prompted by a case involving Backpage.com, in which executives of the site were arrested on charges of pimping a minor, pimping, and conspiracy to commit pimping. Backpage’s “adult” section was allegedly used for prostitution, however courts dismissed the case based on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That little section of the law is one of the most important reasons we have the internet that we do today. It allows companies to avoid most legal liability for content created by others. It’s a big reason social media networks can exist, and it’s also important for messaging, email, comments, and numerous other online services...

...SESTA weakens Section 230 in an effort to give sex trafficking victims greater ability to sue websites and state prosecutors the ability to hold companies criminally liable for user-generated content.

Responding to this, Craigslist has taken their Personals offline to avoid possible liability.

XBIZ reports on further reaction.

SESTA, which doesn’t differentiate between sex trafficking and consensual sex work, targets scores of adult sites that consensual sex workers use to advertise their work.

And now, before SESTA reaches President Trump’s desk for his guaranteed signature, those sites are scrambling to prevent themselves from being charged under sex trafficking laws...

...Today, longtime city-by-city escort service website, CityVibe.com, completely disappeared, only to be replaced with a message, “Sorry, this website is not available.” Its operators did not respond for XBIZ comment by post time...

...Motherboard reported today that at least six porn performers have complained that files have been blocked without warning from Google’s cloud storage service...

...Reddit made an announcement late yesterday explaining that the site has changed its content policy, forbidding “transactions for certain goods and services” that include “physical sexual contact.”

A number of subreddits regularly used to help sex workers have been completedly banned. Those include r/Escorts, r/MaleEscorts and r/SugarDaddy.

For CFS, I am considering closing the site CRUISING for ESCORTS (CFE) containing customer-written escort reviews. Keith, the founder of CFS, had started CFE in the early 2000s.

However, traffic and interest at CFE had already declined mainly due to the termination of a linking agreement with a related site a few years back. It may be best to concentrate solely on CFS.

I don't expect personals and hookup apps and sites to go away in response to SESTA. It's a developing story and response and I'm not going to react hastily.

Bob ~ Manager/Editor