This week [3/21/18], the Senate will vote on legislation that would effectively force many Internet companies—including web hosts, classified sites, and social media platforms—to ban consenting adults from advertising or promoting any sex-related services whatsoever. The law would very likely lead to a ban on advertisements for perfectly-legal adult services such as stripping, adult modeling and performing, and BDSM services (which are legal insofar as they don’t not involve genital contact.) The ban would also extend to adults advertising illegal but victimless services, such as the non-coerced exchange of sex for money between fully-consenting adults. It may even lead to censorship of consenting adults talking about these practices with each other–including discussion of how to reduce harm associated with these practices–on the Internet. And among all this, to the degree that pimps and traffickers advertise trafficked victims online, it would prevent those ads as well.
This last category—which we can all agree is a truly vile phenomenon, which must be stopped one way or another—is the putative reason for the bill. Like the “USA PATRIOT Act,” it has one of those politically-charged names that makes it damn hard to oppose, or even question, without seeming evil. The act is entitled the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA, which is the Senate version of the House’s similar FOSTA bill.) Could anyone oppose the USA PATRIOT Act, and still be a considered a patriot of the USA? (The answer is “Yes.”) And could anyone oppose the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, while still being opposed to sex trafficking?
The answer to that question is also “Yes.” Not only could you be opposed to FOSTA-SESTA without being evil, but you should be opposed to it, as the law is breathtakingly destructive—including destructive of the very aims it purports to address. The remainder of this piece will be aimed at persuading you of why this is so, and why you should call both your senators today and leave them messages in opposition to the bill, urgently, before they vote tomorrow.