Backpage Exposed: Sham of Self-Moderation Revealed

Andrew Padilla

On October 16, 2010, Andrew Padilla sent an email to a large group of Backpage employees (including Dan Hyer and Joe Vaught). The email had two attachments that provided guidance on how to “moderate” ads.

The first was a Powerpoint presentation that displayed a series of 38 nude and partially-nude photographs, some of which depicted graphic sex acts. Next to each picture was an instruction as to whether it should be approved or disapproved by a Backpage moderator. These instructions included:

“Approve. Nude rear shots are okay as long the model is not exposing her anus or genitalia… Rear shot okay. Transparent wet panties okay.”

The second was an Excel spreadsheet identifying 50 terms (all of which were indicative of prostitution) that should be “stripped” from ads before publication. Padilla concluded the email by tellingly stating:

“[I]t’s the language in ads that’s really killing us with the Attorneys General. Images are almost an afterthought to them.”

Then, on October 16, 2010, Padilla sent a separate internal email (which also included Hyer and Vaught as recipients). In this email, Padilla explained that:

“I’d like to still avoid Deleting ads when possible…we’re still allowing phrases with nuance… In the case of lesser violations, editing should be sufficient.”

On October 25, 2010, Carl Ferrer sent an email to Vice President Scott Spear, Hyer, and Padilla acknowledging directly in print that the “ _[i]llegal content removed_” through Backpage’s moderation processes was “ _usually money for sex act._”  This email also explained that, after the “ sex act pics are removed,” the “ _ad text may stay._”

As if all that weren’t damning evidence enough, on October 26, 2010, Hyer and Padilla received an email explaining:

“We will not remove ads with vaginas or penis showing, just the images unless they are a frequent offender. We will not remove ads with rates under an hour, just the text with the minimum rates. Users need time to react to this change.”

Two days later Padilla sent an email to the head of a group of contractors from India who had been hired to moderate Backpage’s adult ads. In this email, Padilla criticized the contractors for deleting too many ads, stated that this approach was bad for business, and instructed the contractors to simply edit the ads to remove the more-obvious language:

“As long as your crew is editing and not removing the ad entirely, we shouldn’t upset too many users. Your crew has permission to edit out text violations and images and then approve the ad.”

From the beginning, Backpage knew moderation was always a pretext. It was nothing but a cover story used by Backpage propagandists like Tony Ortega to create the appearance that they were operating within the law. As we will continue to see in the weeks ahead, however, nothing could be further from the truth.