[smokeyj]

You made the hypothetical point that "Everything you create online has abuse potential" and concluded "it is how you deal with that abuse potential that makes all the difference".

I'm simply making the point that creators have no moral obligation to police how people abuse their creation.

So here's what will happen: BP will be shut down. The service providers and clientele will move to system that's more distributed and harder to track down. LE will chalk this up to a win, BP execs will get punished, and children will continue to be abused except tracking them down will be more difficult.

[jacquesm]

People doing illegal stuff will use whatever means they can get their hands on to do their illegal stuff. Giving them an easy to find platform means more illegal stuff is done, not less so adding a barrier will cut down the amount of abuse at the expense of making it harder to track them down.

It's a tough choice but rewarding the enabling of crimes like these is entirely the wrong signal, it makes it seem as if this is normal and acceptable which it never should be.

The other side of the coin is that the operators probably already use multiple sources for their 'customers' (I use the word loosely, you might as well read co-criminals for it), and that shutting this one down will only cut off a portion of the hydra that has visibility in the otherwise respectable part of the world. Punishing the customers of child prostitution while at the same time legalizing the regular form goes another step in the right direction, but may not be acceptable in all political climates.

[qb45]

True, but there's one catch: backpage allegedly edited ads to hide signs that they involve children.

If this is proven, all their claims of neutrality should go out the window.