Facebook is the target of a new lawsuit filed this week by a human trafficking survivor. According to the survivor from Texas, Facebook “provides human traffickers an unrestricted way to stalk, exploit, recruit, groom…and extort children into the sex trade.” The survivor, identified in the suit as ‘Jane Doe,’ filed the suit on Monday in Houston, Texas. In addition to accusing Facebook of enabling human traffickers, the lawsuit also names “Backpage.com and the owners of two Houston hotels” as defendants in the suit.
Facebook is the target of a new lawsuit filed this week by a human trafficking survivor. According to the survivor from Texas, Facebook “provides human traffickers an unrestricted way to stalk, exploit, recruit, groom…and extort children into the sex trade.” The survivor, identified in the suit as ‘Jane Doe,’ filed the suit on Monday in Houston, Texas. In addition to accusing Facebook of enabling human traffickers, the lawsuit also names “Backpage.com and the owners of two Houston hotels” as defendants in the suit.
In her suit, Jane Doe claims she was 15-years-old when she was “sexually assaulted in 2012 after being allegedly targeted and recruited by a sex trafficker on Facebook.” As a result of her ordeal, she argues that the social media giant should “be held liable for the conduct of sex traffickers because the social media site has become the first point of contact between sex traffickers and these children.” The complaint further states, “Facebook not only provides an unrestricted platform for these sex traffickers to target children, but it also cloaks the traffickers with credibility.”
LPS.1 via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/
But what happened? How was Jane Doe targeted and recruited by a sex trafficker? Well, according to Doe’s attorney, Annie McAdams, Doe was “befriended by another Facebook user who gained her trust and promised her a job as a model.” However, within hours of meeting the Facebook user, Doe was forced into sex trafficking was “raped and beaten by people who had paid the trafficker,” according to the suit.
McAdams further stated that Facebook was partly to blame for her client’s ordeal because it had not “done enough to ensure that users aren’t able to hide their identities from unsuspecting minors who may be targets of traffickers or to warn minors of the dangers posed by traffickers and how they can operate online.”
This latest suit comes on the heels of a new law President Trump signed earlier this year in April “aimed at curbing sex trafficking.” The law is designed to “weaken a legal shield for online services that host abusive content, including sex trafficking.” It should be noted, however, that the bulk of the legislation was directed towards Backpage.com and other classified-ad sites, which previously claimed “they aren’t the publisher of questionable content but are merely transmitting posts by others.”
Earlier this year, Backpage.com was actually shut down after federal authorities discovered that the co-founders of the company, along with other employees, were arrested in connection to a “scheme to publish ads for sexual services, some of which involved children.”
According to some people, including Jane Doe and Tony Talbott, the director of Abolition Ohio of the University of Dayton, Facebook is just as capable of participating in a scheme similar to the one that got Backpage.com shut down. Talbott said:
“Facebook has the technology to be able to potentially develop algorithms to look for the indicators and the red flags of potential (trafficking) exploitation and abuse.”
Jane Doe’s suit is seeking at least $1 million in damages. Facebook has yet to respond to requests for comment.
Sources:
Lawsuit accuses Facebook of enabling human traffickers
New Lawsuit Claims Facebook Enabled Human Trafficking On Its Platform
Join the conversation!