Despite Repeated Evidence That It's Unnecessary And Damaging, Trump Signs SESTA/FOSTA
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180411/23033439609/despite-repeated-evidence-that-unnecessary-damaging-trump-signs-sesta-fosta.shtml
This was no surprise, but as everyone expected, yesterday President Trump signed SESTA/FOSTA into law leading to the usual excitement from the bill's supporters -- despite the fact that events of the past couple weeks have proved them all wrong. The bill's supporters repeatedly insisted that SESTA/FOSTA was necessary to stop one company, Backpage.com, because (they falsely insisted) CDA 230 made the site completely immune. Except, that's clearly not true. In the two weeks since the bill was approved by Congress, two separate courts declared Backpage not protected by CDA 230 and (more importantly) the DOJ seized the whole damn site and indicted most of the company's execs -- all without SESTA/FOSTA.
And, on top of that, many many sites have already shut down or modified how they do business because of SESTA/FOSTA proving that the bill's reach clearly is impacting free expression online -- just as tons of civil liberties experts warned. And that's not even touching on the very real concerns of those involved in sex work on how SESTA/FOSTA literally puts their lives in danger -- and how it makes it that much more difficult to actually rescue victims of sex trafficking.