Backpage Exposed – The Company-wide Cover-up

Tony Ortega

As we’ve been going over recently released court documents surrounding the coming Backpage trail a clear pattern is emerging. Contrary to all the lies Tony Ortega was busy selling to the public, Backpage had full knowledge of what they were doing and were actively engaged in a massive company-wide cover-up.

For example, on February 16, 2011, Andrew Padilla sent a separate email discussing whether several terms should remain on Backpage’s “filtered terms” list. During this discussion, Padilla acknowledged — by placing quote marks around the term “companionship”— that he didn’t actually believe the women being advertised on Backpage were providing lawful escort services:

“ [The term] implies some exchange of bodily fluids which kills our ‘companionship’ argument, but don’t think we’ve ever really gotten in trouble for it. ”

Correction Andrew Padilla hadn’t gotten in trouble for it yet. But all that was about to change because less than a week later Padilla received an email requesting Backpage’s “list of banned, stripped out adult terms.”

Andrew Padilla

In response, Padilla sent an Excel spreadsheet entitled “Phrase List 02211,” which Padilla described as “ _the latest greatest version of the list._” The enclosed spreadsheet identified over 660 words or phrases that are indicative of prostitution, including an array of terms that are suggestive of child prostitution (e.g., “lolita,” “fresh,” “high school,” “tight,’ “young”). The spreadsheet explained that most such terms were simply to be “filtered” from the ads in which they appeared.

A second email soon followed. In it, Padilla received notice concerning a particular ad that had recently been edited by Backpage’s India-based moderators. The ad was obviously for prostitution-its title was “ _New-new-new-put me in your favorite position_” and the poster had attempted to include two photographs that violated Backpage’s posting rules. In response, the India-based moderators had deleted both of those photos, as well as a third photo that depicted the prostitute’s face, and then allowed the ad to be published.

Naturally, the email received by Padilla did not criticize the moderators for allowing an obvious prostitution ad to be published after editing. To the contrary, it emphasized that the ad should remain on Backpage and criticized the moderators for removing the third photo. What’s more it actually threatened to fire them if they did it again. As the email chillingly explained:

“2 out of 3 pics should have been removed. But [the] moderator deleted all three pics. This is plain wrong … . I would fire a moderator in Phoenix if they did this.”

Shortly after these damning emails, James Larkin, Michael Lacey, Scott Spear and a handful of other Backpage representatives met with representatives from National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. During this meeting, the Backpage representatives were again advised that a large portion of the ads on Backpage were blatant prostitution ads. The Backpage representatives were then advised again that they could be criminally prosecuted under federal law for their conduct.

As we shall see, however, the repeated warnings fell on deaf ears and the fraudulent company-wide cover-up continued.