Making The Case for A Corporation’s Right To Sell Kids

It’s no secret Tony Ortega was a staunch defender of the special privileges  and freedoms of billion dollar corporations back when he was on the Backpage payroll. Freedoms like that of selling children to predators online for a cut of the profit were, after all, the sole reason Backpage was founded in the first place.

We’ve seen how Tony Ortega attempted to sell this arrangement to the public by insisting the platform existed in order to allow ‘two consenting adults to find each other.’ And didn’t take Federal authorities raiding and forcibly closing down Backpage for us to know it was a lie.

Ortega’s ‘bought and paid for’ opinions didn’t fool anyone. But if it is clear now that Ortega misled the public by suggesting it was being used ‘by consenting adults’, who then were the people actually using Backpage?

Recently, news surfaced of exactly the type of Backpage user Tony Ortega didn’t want you hearing about — a 46-year-old sex offender named Omar “Shaka” Taylor. This week he was sentenced to 33 years in prison for sex trafficking two victims, including one minor through an illegal massage parlor he ran out of his home in northeast Minneapolis.

Between August 2017 and March 2018, he recruited several young women and girls to work in the illicit business. According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, he at times specifically recruited at risk Native American women and underage girls.

Taylor was convicted of all counts, included the use of force and threats to coerce the women and girls to perform commercial sex acts in exchange for money.

Unsurprisingly, the court case explained how Taylor would advertise on Backpage in order to solicit clients, offering massage services that included commercial sex acts with children.

He chose Backpage because it was the one public forum everyone knew you could get away with advertising sex with kids — and be protected by those waving the banner of free speech and the constitutional rights of corporations.

So, who was Backpage designed for?

Tony Ortega won’t give you an honest answer, but we will.

The fact is Backpage was built for pimps like Omar “Shaka” Taylor. They were the business’s key demographic from the very beginning.

U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald described Taylor this way:

“ Omar Taylor is a coercive sex trafficker who pursued and exploited vulnerable victims for his own financial profit… The 400-month sentence handed down today is appropriate in light of the trauma Mr. Taylor inflicted upon his victims.”

There are, of course, other sex traffickers who pursued and exploited vulnerable victims as well.  Their names will be added to the list of sex slavery profiteers who have been put away.

As for the unindicted traffickers and their cowardly lapdogs who once so loudly defended them before losing the courage to speak publicly about such things — we will still be here holding you to account in the court of public opinion until the law catches up with you.