Washington state online sex ad law stopped in its tracks

Recently, a federal judge in Washington State imposed a preliminary injunction blocking the implementation of a new law that aimed to impose stronger ID requirements for online sex ads, as a way to combat child prostitution. The law cannot be enforced until the court hears the case further.Last month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a motion to the court on behalf of the Internet Archive to stop the law, arguing it was overboard as written. The EFF argued that because the Internet Archive might have unknowingly cached a sex ad, it could be liable for prosecution.

The law, formally known as SB 6251, aimed to strengthen protections of underage children forced into sexual exploitation and prostitution. Most notably, it would force Back page.com, the company owned by Village Voice Media, to impose in-person age verification for adult sex-related classified ads.

Back page had also filed a similar suit in federal court, asking for the law to be overturned.

Among other arguments, both Back page and the EFF argued that the state law conflicts primarily with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider,” it states.

In his order, Judge Ricardo Martinez wrote that the state law was in conflict with this federal law, and that the federal law takes precedence.

“SB 6251 is inconsistent with Section 230 because it criminalizes the ‘knowing’ publication, dissemination, or display of specified content,” he wrote. “In doing so, it creates an incentive for online service providers not to monitor the content that passes through its channels. This was precisely the situation that the CDA was enacted to remedy.”