Tony Ortega covered up Sex Crimes while at the Village Voice
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.