Twitter Users Get Surprise “Backpage” History Lesson

Backpage Bosses

Ever since we ran our story on Kamala Harris, Twitter has been going wild retelling the sordid history of Backpage; specifically, how the notorious human trafficking and solicitation site was a target of Kamala Harris’s back when she was the attorney general of California.

So far we haven’t seen too much in the way of Tony Ortega’s name popping for work he did to advance Backpage’s pro-trafficking stance, but in revisiting the history of Backpage Twitter users are getting a much-needed education on the topic.

For the record, and in the interest of de-mythologizing the Backpage saga, it should be said that despite Harris’s belief the sex-selling platform Backpage should be eliminated – she herself was not responsible for shutting the website down.

Instead, she famously brought charges against Backpage’s fat cat executives, Tony Ortega’s bosses who kept him working overtime to help justify the fact that they were selling children online.

Even though many of the charges Harris’ office brought to Backpage executives did not result in convictions, she helped raise the profile of the website’s activities, which had been particularly active in California and other prostitution hotspots across the U.S.

Eventually, a Department of Justice inquiry led the website to get shut down.

We like to think it was in large part thanks to the many of you out there who stand with us against Backpage and the craven apologists for coerced prostitution it hired to purposefully confuse the public.

As one Twitter user correctly observed:

In the end, the true history of Backpage’s take-down goes far beyond the work of any one individual.

Indeed, even today it still takes all of us working together to keep the predators pimps of the Backpage from controlling the narrative by using inveterate liars who’ve shown us how low their willing to sink to make a buck.

Now, if we can get that Twitter story trending next, Tony Ortega might finally find himself getting mentions for once — though we doubt he’d be very excited about the public’s reaction to his history of aiding and abetting Backpage.

History tends to take a very dim view of sex slavery and its enthusiasts.