Classifieds site Backpage.com was seized by the FBI on Friday, taking the site down.
Backpage.com is known for its adult escort listings. However, users can post listings for other services, including buying or selling items or job-related posts.
It’s not the first time Backpage has faced scrutiny over its sex work listings. Credit card companies stopped processing payments for ads on the site in 2015, according to the Huffington Post. Last year, ads for those listings stopped appearing on the site altogether, the New York Times reported.
The latest news comes after Congress passed the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act, which is meant to target sex trafficking. In light of the act’s passing, Craiglist removed its personal ads section.
Sex workers and other Backpage users voiced their concern online about the seizure of Backpage.com and money they spent on the site before it was taken down.
https://twitter.com/ClariceBertinne/status/982346471776423936
People outside of the sex industry don’t realize how heart-breaking it is for us to see #Backpage & similar sites close.
Imagine if you showed up to work one day & the building was gone.
And with no warning, your income gone. You can’t feed yourself or your kids.
Imagine.
— Christina C-Bomb Parreira (@VegasTrollop) April 7, 2018
I hope @KamalaHarris is happy. Thousands of sex workers across the country are panicked and heart sick. You stole our lifeline. You stripped us of our safety. There were sex workers relying on the money they were going to make today of Backpage to survive.
— Lucy (@LucyKDenver) April 6, 2018
It is obvious to anyone who bothers to listen to sex workers that the seizing of backpage will not end the sex trade, but only serve to make it more dangerous. SESTA/FOSTA is putting sex workers' lives in jeopardy.
— Morgan M Page (@morganmpage) April 6, 2018
The notice of the seizure on Backpage.com does not provide details on why the page was taken down beyond saying it is part of law enforcement action by the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the IRS and other local enforcement agencies. The image on the site adds that more information was supposed to be provided at 6 p.m. Friday. However, Nicole Navas Oxman, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice, said in a email to Wired, “The Court has ruled that the case remains sealed and we have nothing to report today.”
