A child protection bill with broad bipartisan support is under fire by Google because it threatens to actually hold the Silicon Valley tech giants accountable for their complicity in allowing underage children to be abused and sex trafficked through their platforms.
If passed, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, or SESTA, would amend the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1934 to specify that tech companies like Google will no longer be shielded from liability for sex crimes committed on their platforms, specifically against underage children.
Because Google and other tech companies are profiting from this child sex trafficking, SESTA would implicate them for "benefiting from 'participation in a venture' engaged in sex trafficking of children." SESTA would also allow for state attorneys general to file civil actions against Google and other tech companies on behalf of the residents of their respective states.
Since the tech cabal has decided to aggressively police online free speech, silencing conservatives, Christians, and natural health gurus for spreading "hate" and "intolerance," there's no reason why they can't also deal with the prolific problem of child sex abuse on their platforms.
But Google and Big Tech are diametrically opposed to the bill, which they ironically claim interferes with the protections they're afforded under Section 230 of the CDA – protections that no longer apply, it turns out, since Google et al. have decided to act as both content providers and content publishers, in violation of federal law.
Google couldn't care less that pedophilia runs rampant on its platform, so long as the company profits from it
According to research conducted by the Google Transparency Project, at least 34 groups that receive direct funding from Google have voiced their opposition to SESTA by publishing "dozens of op-eds and blog posts opposing the bill, as well as signing on to coalition letters to members of Congress and issuing statements and action alerts to oppose the bill."
What are they afraid of, you might be asking? It's really quite simple. If SESTA passes, their funding source, Google, will not only no longer be able to profit from child sex trafficking, but the company will also be held criminally liable for aiding and abetting the sex abuse of children, which is no laughing matter.
Both the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), for instance, two Google-funded "non-profit" organizations, have been actively fighting the passage of SESTA, as have many other groups that receive financial aid from Google.
SESTA was introduced by Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman back on August 1, 2017, in response to a serious sex abuse case involving Backpage.com, which was caught knowingly facilitating child sex trafficking on its platform. EFF, CDT, and many other Google-supported groups quickly launched support campaigns for Backpage, rather than children it was complicit in trafficking, which ultimately led to the revelation that Google was fighting against legislation to protect child victims.
Even after it was determined by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that Backpage had "knowingly facilitated the criminal sex trafficking of vulnerable women and young girls" by modifying the ads posted by their pimps to remove all language suggesting that their victims were underage, Google still came to the defense of Backpage, and ultimately itself, by opposing SESTA.
"In all, at least 30 Google-funded groups weighed-in to oppose SESTA between August 1 and August 7, 2017," explains the Google Transparency Project.
"They included trade associations representing Silicon Valley companies; right-of-center groups such as the Heritage Foundation and R Street Institute; left-of-center and free speech groups such as the New America Foundation; and even academics at some of the leading institutions in America such as Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center."
Be sure to read the Google Transparency Project's full analysis of Google's efforts to fight against protections for child victims of sex trafficking.
You can also keep up with the latest Google news at EvilGoogle.news.
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