Director Mary Mazzio’s documentary “I am Jane Doe” tells the story of child sex trafficking survivors and their families’ fight and struggles to make Backpage.com (Backpage), a classified advertising website, liable through civil litigation. Backpage has become “the Walmart of sex trafficking” as the “go-to” website where traffickers advertise children for sex. After watching “I am Jane Doe,” there is no question that the legal fight against sex trafficking is a national endeavor. Children from any neighborhood in the U.S. can fall prey to sexual exploitation; thus, we are all responsible to dismantle the legal and technological systems that permit the selling of children for sex on the Internet.
The film showcases pivotal lawsuits filed in St. Louis, Seattle and Boston against Backpage. These Jane Does have survived repeated rape. One of the Jane Doe’s lawyer Erik Bauer explains, “all the people that responded to the Backpage ad of this ninth-grade girl would come over and engage in what is essentially child rape.” The Jane Does are fighting to have Backpage held civilly liable for facilitating rape of children on its website while making a multi-million dollar profit. Backpage argues that it is protected under Section 230(c)(2) of the Communications Decency Act, as a passive website host. It cannot be liable for content posted on its website by third parties. However, survivors argue that Backpage is not a passive host and instead has knowingly facilitated child sex trafficking by actively editing ads and providing instructions to traffickers on how to post these ads in the “adult services” section.
The film was expertly suspenseful and hopeful before eventually revealing the disappointing truths that time and again Backpage was winning in courts all over the country. The film described the rulings of how judges primarily considered Congressional intent behind enacting Section 230 and ruled to protect the Internet providers in support of a social policy that favors Internet expansion. These rulings leave viewers in utter shock like Mazzio expressed in her recent interview with Vogue: “That was inconceivable to me. Federal judges were interpreting a law to basically say it’s legal to host advertisements for children?”
While these lawsuits were in litigation, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations conducted an investigation on Backpage attempting to hold it accountable. They made repeated requests for information from Backpage and in November of 2015, the committee called the Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer to testify before them. Ferrer failed to appear. As a result, the Senate voted 96-0 to hold him in contempt to legally require him to turn over information. Just recently on January 10, 2017, Ferrer and three other executives and the company’s lawyer finally appeared before the committee. However, it was discouraging to see that they refused to testify and instead invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Nonetheless, it was important for the film to show the viewers that there is Congressional bipartisan support to stop Internet sex trafficking of children. However, it left the nagging feeling of why, to this day, Congress has still failed to introduce any amendments to Section 230. The majority of the courts have made it clear that their hands are tied and this was a policy decision left up to Congress. To illuminate this frustration, the film showed a glimpse of the big Internet companies that may be influencing Congress from amending Section 230, but the film should have advocated more for the amendment. The film could have pushed for answers from the senators as to why no one has proposed amendments to Section 230 when their investigation report eventually came to a disturbing finding that Backpage had knowingly facilitated child sex trafficking.
Perhaps, the next step to get Congress to amend Section 230 has only begun. The film leaves viewers with hope and leaves the fight in their hands. The question now is, will the viewers fight along side with the survivors and their families? That may be what it takes to get Section 230 amended.
The film makes it clear that the CSE Institute has more important work to do. There is need for more education on the prevention, implication and legislation of sex trafficking. This film is a great educational and advocacy tool to show police officers, policy-makers and judges the need for victim-centered protocols and actions and to hold the traffickers, buyers and facilitators accountable. We are grateful for Mazzio’s filmmaking work and her dedication to using film to educate everyone on this heavy and serious topic. Be sure to check out her next project, in collaboration with sex trafficking survivors, an animated short titled “Little Red” that targets younger audiences, raises awareness of child sex trafficking, and teaches children how to avoid sexual exploitation.