The documentary “I Am Jane Doe” examines the legal battles between sex trafficked teens, their families and the owners of the web platform Backpage.
Backpage has so far been able to elude culpability with the argument that they are not responsible for content on their site published by third parties. There is evidence to suggest their platform and employees have worked in the past to help those selling teen sex slaves online (illegal) evade detection. Backpage has been sued a number of time in the last decade, but plaintiffs struggle with both lack of knowledge about how Backpage works (i.e. one judge believed Backpage to be a mere place for S&M sex fantasy), along with corporate push back regarding the law from the 90’s absolving web platforms from responsibility for what is posted on their site by third parties. You can see how Google, Facebook, et all would be nervous about the prospect of being held liable for some of the stuff being posted to their platforms.
This documentary is 100% worth watching. It’s available on Netflix and many other places.
