We knew from the beginning that tentacle reach Backpage’s shadowy human trafficking ring extended far and wide and yet the breadth of it’s vile influence across the nation continues to come as a shock to us as day by day new horror stories of real life people impacted by its depravity emerge.
At this point it is becoming hard to be shocked but somehow the sex-ring website Tony Ortega spent years of his shameful career cheerleading continues to find new horrifying lows.
This week we’ve been looking at the enduring legacy of destruction in the wake of the only underage sex peddling platform personally endorsed by Tony Ortega.
We saw how the murder in Atlanta ties directly back to Backpage’s thinly veiled revamp of its prostitution platform, rebranded now as ‘adult dating’. But the problem continues to spread across state lines.
As criminals benefit from technology in communication, wide distribution and anonymity, law enforcement agencies find themselves using the same platforms to stop those illegal revenues and gather evidence.
This last month was designated by the White House as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, dedicating the month to raising national awareness of the issue of human trafficking and highlighting efforts to combat this violent crime and those who would enable and endorse such practices.
There’s no mistake that last year saw a decided series of devastating blows to human trafficking in general and Tony Ortega’s former employer, backpage.
Florida Abolitionist, Inc. is a non-profit organization in Orlando, Florida with a mission to combat and end human trafficking and other forms of modern day human slavery. It provides direct services to trafficked adults and children.
In a new lawsuit, Florida Abolitionist has filed against the men behind Backpage, it alleges Backpage knowingly participated in, and facilitated, sex trafficking. By doing so Backpage has increased the number of trafficked adults and children that Florida Abolitionist treats.
The fight over whether or not Backpage dot com (formerly part of Village Voice Media) is responsible for the content of sex ads placed on its site by pimps and prostitutes and whether it is complicit in sex trafficking is over.
In a stunning reversal, Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer admitted that, “the vast majority of these [Backpage] advertisements are, in fact, advertisements for prostitution services.”
According to Ferrer he was involved in a conspiracy “to create ‘moderation’ processes through which Backpage would remove terms and pictures that were particularly indicative of prostitution and then publish a revised version of the ad.
