WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2017 NEWS5A
The operators of the online
classified site Backpage.com de-
clined to answer questions Tues-
day from a Senate panel
investigating the company’s adult
services ads, which lawmakers
and law enforcement say have
helped facilitate pimping and
child sex trafficking in the USA.
Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer, his
business associates James Larkin
and Michael Lacey, as well as oth-
er company officials, appeared
before the Senate Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations
but invoked their Fifth Amend-
ment right not to incriminate
themselves.
“After consultation with coun-
sel, I decline to answer your ques-
tion based on the rights provided
by the First and Fifth Amend-
ments,” Ferrer responded to a se-
ries of questions from
subcommittee chairman Rob
Portman, R- Ohio.
Backpage announced late
Monday that it shuttered the
adult services section of the web-
site to U.S. users. The company
said in a statement it made the
decision in response to “an accu-
mulation of acts of government
censorship using extra-legal tac-
tics.” The subcommittee pub-
lished a report charging that
Backpage.com systematically ed-
its its escort ads, filtering out
words that would suggest the site
promoted the sex trafficking of
children.
The company has effectively
argued in federal courts that al-
though some users of its site may
engage in criminal activity, it is
just the host of posted content
and is immune from prosecution
under the Communications De-
cency Act.
The subcommittee charged in
its report that the company
“knowingly concealed evidence of
criminality.”
Backpage executives used a
feature called “Strip Term From
Ad Filter” to help screeners auto-
matically delete words indicative
of child sex trafficking — such as
lolita, teenage, amber alert, teen
and school girl, according to the
Senate report. By Backpage’s own
estimate, by late-2010, the com-
pany edited 70% to 80% of ads in
the adult section either manually
or automatically.
“Think about the real-world ef-
fect of that practice,” Portman
said. “A trafficker submits an ad
on Backpage.com containing a
word like ‘lolita’ or ‘teen’ — apretty good clue that a crime may
be afoot. But then Backpage’s
Strip Term From Ad Filter would
delete the problematic term, and
the remainder of the ad would be
published. Of course, this editing
changed nothing about the real
age of a person being sold for sex
or the real nature of the adver-
tised transaction.”
The report charged that Back-
page officials know the site facili-
tates prostitution and child sex
trafficking.
The website, which is similar
to Craigslist, has been under
pressure from lawmakers and law
enforcement for years to end
adult services advertisements.
Craigslist ceased posting adult
and erotic service ads in 2010.
In October, California Attorney
General Kamala Harris an-
nounced pimping charges against
Ferrer and charges of conspiracy
to commit pimping against share-
holders Lacey and Larkin (Lacey
and Larkin said in a statement
they sold their interest in Back-
page two years ago, but the sub-
committee asserts they maintain
a substantial financial interest
and influence over the company).BACKPAGE TAKES 5TH
IN SEX TRAFFIC INQUIRY
Website’s operators won’t answer senators
Aamer Madhani
@AamerISmad
USA TODAY
JAE C. HONG, AP
Grace Marie, a sex worker and dominatrix, has posted adver-
tisements on the classified ad website Backpage.com. The site
said it shuttered the adult services section to U.S. users.“Editing changed
nothing about the
real age of a
person being sold
for sex or the real
nature of the
advertised
transaction.”
Sen. Rob Portman , R- OhioPresident-elect Donald Trump
asked Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an
environmental activist and skep-
tic of vaccines, to chair a presi-
dential commission on vaccine
safety, Kennedy said Tuesday.
The two have questioned
whether vaccines cause autism, a
claim debunked by medical pro-
fessionals across the board.
The commission will be de-
signed “to make sure we have sci-
entific integrity in the vaccine
process for efficacy and safety ef-
fects,” Kennedy said after the
meeting with Trump.
Kennedy said Trump request-
ed the meeting, and the presi-
dent-elect “has some doubts
about the current vaccine poli-
cies, and he has questions about
it. His opinion doesn’t matter, but
the science does matter, and we
ought to be reading the science,
and we ought to be debating the
science.”
Kennedy said Trump is “very
pro-vaccine, as am I,” but they
want to make sure “they’re as safe
as they possibly can be.”
In March 2014 — before he be-
came a presidential candidate —
Trump wrote on Twitter,
“Healthy young child goes to doc-
tor, gets pumped with massive
shot of many vaccines, doesn’t
feel good and changes - AUTISM.
Many such cases!”
Trump raised the vaccine the-
ory during a Republican presi-
dential debate in September
2015: “Just the other day, 2 years
old, 2^1 ⁄ 2 years old, a child, a beau-
tiful child went to have the vac-
cine and came back and a week
later got a tremendous fever, gotvery, very sick, now is autistic.”
Kennedy, the son of 1960s-era
attorney general, U.S. senator and
Democratic presidential candi-
date Robert F. Kennedy, promot-
ed a documentary film that
asserted a link between autism
and the vaccine preservative
thimerosal.
“They can put anything they
want in that vaccine, and they
have no accountability for it,”
Kennedy said in 2015 during an
appearance in Sacramento.
Health care professionals ex-
pressed alarm at the prospect of a
Kennedy-Trump vaccine com-
mission.
“Creating a commission makes
it look like scientists have not al-
ready studied this issue for many
years, and it may lead people to
think this is still an open question
— it is not,” said Alison Singer,
president of the Autism Science
Foundation.Trump asks
vaccine skeptic
RFK Jr. to lead
vaccine study
CINDY ORD, GETTY IMAGES, FOR TRACE AMOUNTS“We ought to be
reading the
science, and we
ought to be
debating the
science.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.Kennedy says panel
will ensure integrityDavid Jackson
USA TODAY
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