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"Backpage.com and the prostitution law that could take down Twitter, YouTube, and Wikipedia"
Reply to: by TonyClifton
Unbelievable! I’m tired of all this legal incompetence. We wouldn’t tolerate it with the handling of anything else. Do these lawmakers not use the internet everyday? If they don’t, why do they have any authority over the matter?
Is it too idealistic to expect these people to keep the internet ethically neutral? When did lawmakers decide that the internet was no longer considered a communication tool (like the telephone), but a public property that needs to be defended? We don’t go around putting duct tape on people’s mouths as soon as they say something unsettling on the phone.
Backpage is NOT the same as a street corner. The legal power the police have to stop this stuff comes from the fact that the streets are public property. The internet is no such thing. The arguments of the past against prostitution have been everything from “personal safety of everyone involved” to “gangs and other nefarious people profiting”. I’m not promoting prostitution, but when the internet cuts all the middlemen and makes it safer for these people to do what they’re going to do anyway, is the crime really worth pursuing so vigorously anymore?
It starts making me wonder whether some things once made illegal for the protection of the public, ought to become at least decriminalized when the danger is negligible or completely removed. Why else would you make something illegal, if not for the protection of the public?
Reply to: by TonyClifton
Unbelievable! I’m tired of all this legal incompetence. We wouldn’t tolerate it with the handling of anything else. Do these lawmakers not use the internet everyday? If they don’t, why do they have any authority over the matter?
Is it too idealistic to expect these people to keep the internet ethically neutral? When did lawmakers decide that the internet was no longer considered a communication tool (like the telephone), but a public property that needs to be defended? We don’t go around putting duct tape on people’s mouths as soon as they say something unsettling on the phone.
Backpage is NOT the same as a street corner. The legal power the police have to stop this stuff comes from the fact that the streets are public property. The internet is no such thing. The arguments of the past against prostitution have been everything from “personal safety of everyone involved” to “gangs and other nefarious people profiting”. I’m not promoting prostitution, but when the internet cuts all the middlemen and makes it safer for these people to do what they’re going to do anyway, is the crime really worth pursuing so vigorously anymore?
It starts making me wonder whether some things once made illegal for the protection of the public, ought to become at least decriminalized when the danger is negligible or completely removed. Why else would you make something illegal, if not for the protection of the public?