McGinn among nation’s mayors urging online escort service to check ages

Mayors of nearly 50 cities across the country, including
Seattle’s, are urging Village Voice Media to require
identification for people posting escort ads on
Backpage.com _ its online ad service that has come under
scrutiny from authorities for
allegations that it’s used to promote child prostitution.

“To hear them minimizing this problem is why we entered
the discussion, we said ‘No that’s not true, this is a
serious problem and you should do something about it’ and
that’s where this started,” said Seattle Mayor Mike
McGinn.

“There is an urgent need to act quickly, as cities
continue to find advertisements on your site that reflect
underage sex trafficking,” the letter by the United States
Conference of Mayors said Monday. “We are making every
effort to stop the ongoing trafficking of underage
individuals, but these efforts are made more difficult by
the inadequate safeguards of your website, Backpage.com,
to prevent underage sex trafficking.”

The leaders criticizing the ads also include the mayors of
New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Austin,
Texas, and Laredo, Texas.

Backpage.com critics say the site is used to advertise
underage prostitutes who are often victims of sex
trafficking. The mayors join state attorney generals,
clergy, anti-sex-trafficking groups and others that have
put pressure on Village Voice Media, Backpage.com’s parent
company.

But in an op-ed published in The Seattle
Times on Monday,
Village Voice attorney Liz McDougall argued that sites
like Backpage.com help law enforcement agencies by
attracting traffickers who leave forensic footprints of
their activities and can then be traced by law enforcement
agencies.

“Backpage.com already employs a triple-tiered policing
system that includes automated filtering and two levels of
manual review of the adult and personal categories,” she
wrote. “It also responds to law-enforcement subpoenas
within 24 hours or less in almost all cases. It uses its
own technological tools to voluntarily collect and submit
additional evidence to law enforcement from across the
Internet. And it is ready to do more.”

A message left on McDougall’s cellphone was not
immediately returned.

The mayors argued that placing an ad on Backapage.com is
too easy for those exploiting underage people. They urged
Village Voice to implement a policy where people placing
an ad on Backpage.com show up in person to verify age.

“The ease with with which the Internet makes it possible
for a child to be advertises online and sold for sex is
extraordinarily easy,” McGinn said.

Backpage.com has been the nation’s leading source of
online sex escort ads since Craigslist.org shuttered its
adult services section in September 2010.

Shared Hope International has compiled a list of dozens of
cases in 15 states in which girls were allegedly offered
for sex on Backpage.com, most within the past year. The
Seattle Police Department says it has linked 22 cases of
child prostitution since 2010 to girls who were advertised
as escorts on the website.

Washington state recently enacted a law that makes
classified advertising company representatives who publish
or cause publication of sex-related ads peddling children
subject to criminal prosecution. Proof of a good-faith
attempt to verify the age of the advertised person is
considered a defense under the law.

“Our department is now focusing on the johns and the pimps
as the true criminals in these situations,” said McGinn.

“The philosophy is we’re not going to punish or further
harm the exploited minors,” echoed Seattle Police
Assistant Chief Jim Pugel.

Village Voice Media owns 13 alternative weekly newspapers
around the country, including Seattle Weekly. Unlike
Backpage.com, Seattle Weekly requires ID from those
depicted in sex-related ads in its pages.

___

Associated Press writer Manuel Valdes contributed to this
report and can be reached at
https://twitter.com/ByManuelValdes