I just read the text of this bill. The way it reads, the entire online dating industry should be closing its doors...tonight. CEOs of these companies face penalties of up to 25 years in prison. Why were there not massive protests over this? I had never heard of this bill before today.
I recommend that you subscribe to the blog of the EFF, and perhaps consider membership. They’ve been following this law in it’s various guises for quite some time, and providing tools for concerned citizens to contact their representatives effectively.
Here’s some analysis of the proposals from October 2017:
Meanwhile, net neutrality, which wasn't even policy until the Obama administration gets huge press all over the place. What happened to Silicon Valley's political activism?
Good question... almost like they might not be telling you the truth when the say they are riled up about X because of Y. The silence on Z is deafening.
it'll be selectively enforced; small players will be pushed out because they can't afford the liability, and the behemoths will use their weight to ensure nothing happens to them.
Possibly, but this is so broadly written that it reaches far beyond sex workers to the executives of massive enterprises - who usually are listened to. It essentially says that if you own any website and don't do enough to prevent prostitution from occurring through it, you go to prison for 10 years if there were 1-4 prostitutes on the site, and 25 years if there were 5 or more prostitutes on the site. Additionally, people "injured" by the offense can seek civil damages and attorneys fees. That presumably includes the sex workers themselves, if they claim they were forced to be on there by someone else.
Executives at Tinder, POF, Match.com, etc. should be shaking in their boots right now. Even Facebook and other social networks could have civil and criminal exposure under this law.
[Mar 5 2018] "A promising solution is the Cloud (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data) Act, introduced by a bipartisan coalition in the Senate last month."
