July 2, 2021

USA: Texas Supreme Court Ruled Facebook Is Not A “Lawless No-Man’s-Land” And Can Be Held Liable For Sex Traffickers That Use Its Platform To Recruit And Prey On Child Victims.

CBS News
written by Elizabeth Elkind
Thursday June 10, 2021

The majority of online recruitment in active sex trafficking cases in the U.S. last year took place on Facebook, according to the Human Trafficking Institute's 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report.

"The internet has become the dominant tool that traffickers use to recruit victims, and they often recruit them on a number of very common social networking websites," Human Trafficking Institute CEO Victor Boutros said on CBSN Wednesday. "Facebook overwhelmingly is used by traffickers to recruit victims in active sex trafficking cases."

Active cases include those in which defendants were charged in 2020, as well as those in which defendants were charged in previous years and charges were still pending in trial last year or the case was on appeal.

Data from the last two decades included in the human trafficking report showed that 30% of all victims identified in federal sex trafficking cases since 2000 were recruited online.

In 2020 in the U.S., 59% of online recruitment of identified victims in active cases took place on Facebook alone. The report also states that 65% of identified child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media were recruited through Facebook.

The tech giant responded to the report's findings in a statement to CBS News: "Sex trafficking and child exploitation are abhorrent and we don't allow them on Facebook. We have policies and technology to prevent these types of abuses and take down any content that violates our rules."

"We also work with safety groups, anti-trafficking organizations and other technology companies to address this and we report all apparent instances of child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children," the statement said.

Instagram and Snapchat were the most frequently cited platforms after Facebook for recruiting child victims in 2020. For adult victims, the next-most cited were WeChat and Instagram.

The annual report uses data from every active federal criminal and civil human trafficking case over the last year, but 2020's featured an expanded scope.

"This report actually looks at the last 20 years of trends in the federal government," Boutros said.

The report revealed that children accounted for 53% of identified victims in active criminal human trafficking cases in 2020, and women made up a large majority. Forty-four percent of victims of sex trafficking were women, and half were girls.

While the internet has been the most common place of recruitment since 2013, including 41% of active cases in 2020, the street, stores and cults were also cited by the group as targets of human traffickers.

Researchers note that trends also reflect the DOJ's methods of tracking down cases.

"These data do not reflect the prevalence of online solicitation in sex trafficking schemes beyond those federally prosecuted. To be sure, the internet is implicated in many sex trafficking situations, but the high numbers of federal prosecutions involving internet solicitation are equally if not more reflective of the strategies law enforcement use to investigate these crimes," the report states.

The majority of victims in active sex trafficking cases in 2020 were targeted with a fraudulent job offer, the report notes, followed by feigned romance. The data is based on the 602 victims identified in active sex trafficking cases for whom details of their recruitment were known.

"Traffickers often prey on existing vulnerabilities of victims," Boutros said. "A lot of times we imagine that traffickers are these large group syndicates or networks, exploiting a huge number of victims. But actually most traffickers are not operating as an organized crime enterprise. It is mostly individual traffickers that are operating individually and often exploiting a small handful of victims at a time."
written by Katie Canales
Friday June 25, 2021

The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that Facebook can be held liable for sex traffickers that use its platform to recruit and prey on child victims.

As the Houston Chronicle reported, the ruling followed three local lawsuits involving teenage victims who had met their traffickers through Facebook's messaging tools. The plaintiffs said Facebook was negligent and did not attempt to key sex trafficking off its technology.

Facebook has argued that it is shielded by the protections of Section 230 — part of an internet law that states online platforms are not liable for what people post on their services — and should therefore not be held responsible for what is posted on its platform.

But the Texas Supreme Court said Section 230 doesn't mean Facebook can operate as a "lawless no-man's-land," as the Chronicle reported.

"Holding internet platforms accountable for the words or actions of their users is one thing, and the federal precedent uniformly dictates that section 230 does not allow it," the majority of the court said, per the Chronicle. "Holding internet platforms accountable for their own misdeeds is quite another thing. This is particularly the case for human trafficking."

A Facebook spokesperson told Insider that the company is "reviewing the decision and considering potential next steps. Sex trafficking is abhorrent and not allowed on Facebook. We will continue our fight against the spread of this content and the predators who engage in it."

Section 230 has become the focus of conversations surrounding moderation on internet platforms. Many have called for tech companies to be treated as publishers, since news outlets are alternatively held liable for what they post online.

Online recruitment for sex trafficking victims has surged over the years, and a recent report from the Human Trafficking Institute found that most online recruitment in active cases last year occurred on Facebook.

"The internet has become the dominant tool that traffickers use to recruit victims, and they often recruit them on a number of very common social networking websites," Human Trafficking Institute CEO Victor Boutros told CBS News earlier this month. "Facebook overwhelmingly is used by traffickers to recruit victims in active sex trafficking cases."

Posted by Princess Mononoke at 5:44 PM

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