The Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) was the United States Congress's first notable attempt to regulate pornographic material on the Internet. In the 1997 landmark case Reno v. ACLU, the United States Supreme Court unanimously struck the act's anti-indecency provisions.
The Village Voice is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, The Voice began as a platform for the creative community of New York City. It ceased publication in 2017, although its online archives remained accessible. After an ownership change, The Voice reappeared in print as a quarterly in April 2021.
A massage parlor, or massage parlour, is a place where massage services are provided. Some massage parlors are front organizations for prostitution and the term "massage parlor" has also become a euphemism for a brothel.
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a private, nonprofit organization established in 1984 by the United States Congress. In September 2013, the United States House of Representatives, United States Senate, and the President of the United States reauthorized the allocation of $40 million in funding for the organization as part of Missing Children's Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2013. The current chair of the organization is Jon Grosso of Kohl's. NCMEC handles cases of missing minors from infancy to young adults through age 20.
Bryan Jay Singer is an American filmmaker. He is the founder of Bad Hat Harry Productions and has produced almost all of the films he has directed.
Mary Mazzio is an American documentary filmmaker, attorney, and a rower for the United States in the 1992 Olympics. She founded the independent film company 50 Eggs.
Jeffrey Edward Epstein was an American financier and sex offender. Born and raised in New York City, Epstein began his professional life as a teacher at the Dalton School despite lacking a college degree. After his dismissal from the school in 1976, he entered the banking and finance sector, working at Bear Stearns in various roles before starting his own firm. Epstein cultivated an elite social circle and procured many women and children whom he and his associates sexually abused.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), previously known as Morality in Media and Operation Yorkville, is an American conservative anti-pornography organization. The group has also campaigned against sex trafficking, same-sex marriage, sex shops and sex toys, decriminalization of sex work, comprehensive sex education, and various works of literature or visual arts the organization has deemed obscene, profane or indecent. Its current president is Patrick A. Trueman. The organization describes its goal as "exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation".
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation.
Section 230 is a section of Title 47 of the United States Code that was enacted as part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which is Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and generally provides immunity for online computer services with respect to third-party content generated by its users. At its core, Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by third-party users:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
In the United States, human trafficking tends to occur around international travel hubs with large immigrant populations, notably in California, Texas, and Georgia. Those trafficked include young children, teenagers, men, and women; victims can be domestic citizens or foreign nationals.
Backpage.com was a classified advertising website founded in 2004 by the alternative newspaper chain New Times Inc./New Times Media as a rival to Craigslist.
Benjamin Nolot is an American filmmaker and the CEO and founder of Exodus Cry, a Christian social activist group focused on the issue of human trafficking which has expressed opposition to the "entire global sex industry, including prostitution, pornography, and stripping". Nolot has also been involved with an International House of Prayer ministry which is based in Sacramento, California.
Tricked: The Documentary is a 2013 American documentary film directed by John-Keith Wasson and Jane Wells. It documents human sex trafficking, and its presence within the United States, from the perspectives of the victims involved in sex trafficking, the “johns” who pay for the sex and the pimps responsible for instigating the illegal business. It was produced by 3 Generations and distributed by First Run Features in Canada and the United States.
Sex trafficking in the United States is a form of human trafficking which involves reproductive slavery or commercial sexual exploitation as it occurs in the United States. Sex trafficking includes the transportation of persons by means of coercion, deception and/or force into exploitative and slavery-like conditions. It is commonly associated with organized crime.
13th Street is a German pay television channel owned by the NBCUniversal subsidiary of Sky Deutschland through its NBCUniversal International Networks division. The channel is devoted to the genres thriller & crime and shows series, feature films as well as short films.
FOSTA and SESTA are U.S. Senate and House bills which became law on April 11, 2018. They clarify the country's sex trafficking law to make it illegal to knowingly assist, facilitate, or support sex trafficking, and amend the Section 230 safe harbors of the Communications Decency Act to exclude enforcement of federal or state sex trafficking laws from its immunity. Senate sponsor Rob Portman had previously led an investigation into the online classifieds service Backpage, and argued that Section 230 was protecting its "unscrupulous business practices" and was not designed to provide immunity to websites that facilitate sex trafficking.
Michael G. Lacey is an Arizona-based journalist, editor, publisher and First Amendment advocate. He is the founder and former executive editor of the Phoenix New Times, which he and his business partner, publisher Jim Larkin, expanded into a nationwide chain of 17 alternative weeklies, known as Village Voice Media (VVM).
James Anthony Larkin was an American publisher and journalist in Phoenix, Arizona, known for his influence in the alternative newspaper industry. He was largely responsible, along with business partner Michael Lacey, for his work with the Phoenix New Times, also known as New Times Inc.
GirlsDoPorn was an American pornographic website active from 2009 until 2020. In October and November 2019, six people involved were charged on counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion. In December 2019, two more individuals were charged with obstruction of sex trafficking enforcement. The website was removed in January 2020 after 22 victims won the civil case against the company. According to the United States Department of Justice, the website and its sister website GirlsDoToys generated over $17 million in revenue. Videos were featured on GirlsDoPorn.com as well as pornography aggregate websites such as Pornhub, where the channel reached the top 20 most viewed, with approximately 680 million views.
