[HN Gopher] Salesforce.com Must Face Texas Victims over Sex-Traf...
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       Salesforce.com Must Face Texas Victims over Sex-Trafficking
        
       Author : marshray
       Score  : 19 points
       Date   : 2021-03-24 19:25 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | Hmm, something is wrong with this. Surely Backpage's catering
       | company isn't in trouble too? Or their hosting company, etc.?
       | Their ISP?
        
       | marshray wrote:
       | > U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Houston ruled that the
       | women's claims should proceed because there's evidence
       | Salesforce.com continued selling customer-relationship management
       | tools and services to the internet ad company after law
       | enforcement publicly accused it of running a nationwide online
       | brothel.
       | 
       | So the police publicly accusing you of doing something harmful to
       | others now means the power and phone companies have to
       | immediately cut off your service lest they become liable?
       | 
       | That's not how it's supposed to work. Am I reading this wrong?
        
         | bramblerose wrote:
         | It's a badly written article (is this a civil or a criminal
         | case?), but my reading is that because of these facts the case
         | was not immediately dismissed. Which does not mean Salesforce
         | is liable, just that they need to show up for an actual trial.
        
         | setr wrote:
         | It's beyond ridiculous -- there's no reason not to keep
         | cascading that reasoning into everything. Any business that
         | serviced backpage is a sex-traffic supporter; Any business that
         | serviced a business that serviced to backpage is also a sex-
         | traffic supporter.
         | 
         | You could even make the case that the US government itself, in
         | not immediately and totally eliminating backpage from existence
         | upon public accusation, and thus allowing its continued
         | operation, is a sex-traffic supporter. And of course, every
         | government that provides services to the US government. And
         | even the taxpayer, who didn't refuse to pay tax this year to a
         | government in support of sex trafficking, have also supported
         | the backpage operation.
        
       | glasss wrote:
       | I can see an argument being made about the payment processing
       | services being directly beneficial to facilitating the
       | trafficking that was taking place. But I don't think it's a good
       | one.
       | 
       | I think it's unreasonable for Salesforce to be expected to keep
       | up with all of the news or accusations, legal or otherwise, about
       | their clients.
        
       | sn_master wrote:
       | Archive Link: https://archive.is/k9XpS
        
       | sn_master wrote:
       | When the government wants a website down, they ask the domain
       | controller to take down the domain. If Backpage was guilty, the
       | government should have just asked everyone to stop providing
       | services to them.
       | 
       | Backpage had many legit sections like Craigslist for trading used
       | items and jobs, and there were not any explicit indicators that
       | the girls were not offering their services voluntarily like many
       | other websites that are active to this day.
        
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       (page generated 2021-03-24 23:03 UTC)