LawBeefaroni wrote:Enough wrote:LawBeefaroni wrote:Enough wrote:
But it's okay to endure similar horrors for strategic minerals, iPads, clothing and toys? I'm not saying it's right or wrong in the Backpage case, but I would bet most Americans exist with some pretty heavy compartmentalized morality whether they use Backpage services or not.
It's a wee bit of a stretch to compare someone buying an iPad and passively supporting Foxconn in another country, where federal, state and local laws don't apply, to a prostitute defending a matchmaking service that benefits her financially willing to overlook the coerced sex trade in her backyard, where federal, state, and local laws do apply.
So giving money to purchase goods from a child slave labor ring in another country where laws to protect against such things don't yet exist-- is merely passive support? So, if I give a bunch of cash to some third world outfit that is known to be a terrorist organization... that's passive support? Who's stretching things here?
Great demonstration of compartmentalized morality. What-- we don't own the blood diamond? We don't pay the blood diamond pimp who uses our money to go create more horrors? What's more direct than that? I don't see anything more passive about directly financially supporting awful things in third world countries with your US cash than a willing working girl putting ads on a service like Backpage. At least her cash isn't going directly to a trafficking pimp. If anything her harms are more passive than yours when you give cash to blood diamonds, etc. and some of the proceeds go directly to the villain. Cash is king.
Let's take your premise that it's not a strech as fact.
Personally? I don't buy diamonds or iProducts. That's not to say there's nothing I buy that is tainted but in a world economy it's almost impossible to function without somehow touching a products with some connection to 3rd world poverty or mistreatment. I admit guilt. So that's the argument for allowing backpage to continue to function as is? The fact that someone buys blood diamonds or a cheap shirt?
The whole "somewhere something is somehow worse" argument really does't work for me. This is about a specific website that allows (intentionally or not) advertising and contact information for the coerced sex trade. Are you OK with that? If so, fine. If not, shouting "iPad" or "blood diamonds" doesn't make it go away.
Nope, the blood diamonds example is to show that your harms are non-unique and vastly overshadowed by much more commonplace transactions. No justifications offered or assumed. At least if a person buys advertising from Backpage they are actively filtering and working with the cops to shut this shit down. What about the sites it will go to if Backpage is shut down? Will the other sites the sex trade will invariably move to work with the cops or filter? Or will it just get off-shored completely out of the reach of US law?
Oh and what about handymen or other non-sex services that advertise on Backpage, are they equally morally culpable? Are all of the alternative weeklies that increasingly rely on Backpage revenue culpable?
The question I was responding to is if a non-coerced sex trade worker is in the wrong to advertise on Backpage based on the fact that despite Backpage's attempts to filter out the evil stuff and their willingness to work with authorities (per above they are the most valuable asset to law enforcement at the moment) some child ads still manage to get through. I guess I know that lots of stolen property gets sold on CraigsList but I am okay with selling my extra camera gear there since most sales are legit and so I don't feel I am selling out my morality to do so. However buying an obviously hot lens? No way.
Under those same optics, I am not outraged by a willing sex worker advertising on Backpage, no. If they intentionally allow/encourage child sex slave ads of course I will share your outrage over anyone advertising there, but from what has been presented in this thread they are far, far from such a reality (yet you keep suggesting it like it might be true). If there's a citation that I missed proving that Backpage is actually encouraging this shit instead of filtering and working with the cops, please point it out to me and I will amend my position. Glad you agree perfection is impossible, I wonder what percentage of revenue from sex trade ads they spend patrolling the site? I wonder how many times they have helped the cops? A cold pragmatic cost benefit analysis seems to indicate that there could be even more harm in shutting Backpage down vs. tolerating its existence as long as real genuine efforts are made for filtering and working with cops.