Stop SESTA: Amendments to Federal Criminal Sex Trafficking Law Sweep Too Broadly
TL;DR:  EFF is against criminal liability of internet platforms for the actions of their users...specifically in this instance for a law targeting liability for sex trafficking.<p>To understand this position from a legal perspective it&#x27;s helpful to understand <i>mens rea</i>, or the mental intent of the criminal.<p>There are all kinds of legal standards, from knowing&#x2F;willful all the way down to strict liability, including between such as reckless and negligence.<p>Strict liability is a very rare standard in criminal law, but basically means you will be guilty of a crime regardless of your intent.  The most common&#x2F;famous example from law schools is statutory rape.  Normally crimes require some form of intent, but in the case of statutory rape the act alone is enough to convict.  The extreme hypothetical is the case of a man meeting a girl at a bar that is 21 and over.  The man takes a woman home, who should be 21 based on the circumstance, but in an abundance of caution checks her ID and confirms she is 21.  Turns out she committed her own crime of possessing a fake government issued ID and she is really 16, the man has no legal defense based on lack of intent (lack of knowledge, willfulness, or even recklessness or negligence).  The act occurred so he is guilty.<p>There is another line of cases regarding &quot;burying your head in the sand&quot;.  Example, you take a package from person x who pays you $1M to deliver it to address Y.  Turns out it&#x27;s drugs, the common defense would be, there was no intent to possess or transport drugs, but case law holds you can&#x27;t escape criminal liability by burying your head in the sand.<p>I think the EFFs position is a slippery slope, sure we don&#x27;t want criminal liability of internet platforms where they really didn&#x27;t know about sex trafficking and even would have stopped it if they had known, but we don&#x27;t want platforms claiming a la Uber, we are just a tech platform if people are using our platform to break laws we aren&#x27;t liable for that.  Yes, platforms should be liable when they help hide and facilitate crimes, especially in the case of Uber where their business model is facilitating drivers in illegally operating as taxis or rides for hire (as they do&#x2F;did in many jurisdictions).