Chapter 7
You Can’t Say That on the Internet
Guarding the Frontiers of Digital Expression
Child Sex Trafficking Goes Digital
M. A. was 13 years old when she snuck off to a back-to-school party with some friends. Then she disappeared for 270 days.1 After months of desperate searching, her mother clicked on an ad for “escort” services on the website backpage.com and found a photo of her daughter being offered for sex, along with other girls. The ads used heart emojis to pitch the girls’ youth and innocence—and an umbrella emoji if the ground rules required the use of condoms.
After being abducted, M. A. had been sold for forcible sex multiple times a day. To gain control of her, the pimps had beaten and stabbed her. They addicted her to drugs, ...
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