New backpage replacement app allows local users to find and fuck each other within 24 hours.
Backpage was the biggest player in the online sex-for-sale industry. For years, it was known as the place to go if you were selling sex or buying it. Escorts used it to advertise their services and pimps used it to find customers. Backpage.com was the ultimate jobs board for sex workers.
Backpage was usually localized (there was a Backpage Sydney, Backpage California, etc) and it advertised things like used cars, jobs and wanted ads, but it was predominantly known as an adult personals page.
But unfortunately, Backpage (and other sites like it) had a dark history. While the site was indeed used by genuine sex workers, it was also a haven for illegal sex trafficking. Owners of seedy underage sex rings were using Backpage to showcase girls who'd been kidnapped and forced into a life of prostitution. It was said that most victims were children and minorities.
Backpage was a common enemy of the State and the FBI, as prostitution has always been heavily looked down upon by those in charge. The general belief was that adult workers and escorts couldn't be taxed since their business was entirely cash based, thus resulting in a tax loss of millions for the US government. Because of this, it was one of the first issues addressed by President Trump when he came into power. Finally, in April 2018, everything changed.
After an investigation in 2018, the owners of Backpage.com were found guilty of numerous illegal activities, including online sex trafficking, facilitating prostitution and money laundering. In April 2018, President Donald Trump, after investigation by law enforcement agencies and the United States Justice Department, created a sex trafficking act known as FOSTA (the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act). Less than a year after April, this was followed up by the Senate approved SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act).
As of April 2019, Backpage.com was shutdown for good. Some people said that the authorities used the prostitution angle as a way to take Backpage to court on money laundering charges, and that trafficking issues were secondary.
In an official statement, the Attorney General said: “For far too long, Backpage.com existed as the dominant marketplace for illicit commercial sex, a place where sex traffickers frequently advertised children and adults alike. But this illegality stops right now. Last Friday (April 18), the Department of Justice seized Backpage, and it can no longer be used by criminals to promote and facilitate human trafficking.'
But as well as removing Backpage, the April 2018 FOSTA bill also affected hundreds of other similar places, including local personals pages, escort advertisement pages, porn websites, web cam sites, social media sites and the personal sites of adult performers, fetish models, dominatrices and other adult workers. If there was a possibility that some of the workers on these pages were on there as a result of sex trafficking, forced prostitution or exploitation, then the website was forced to be taken down.
A lot of people in the sex industry lost their jobs when Trump signed the bill in April 2018.
One of the biggest losses as a result of this act was the Craigslist personals page. Every local Craigslist hub had a page where people could post looking for casual hookups, but these have all since been removed.
But as is usually the case when something disappears, something else pops up to take its place. This was no different. Panicked sex workers rushed around the internet to ways creative ways to advertise their work, many women placing local ads on non-sex websites and forums. Twitter became a hotspot for sex work personals, but with a little more discretion and without the overtness of the website Backpage. A lot of workers made a point of telling their clients that their involvement in sex work was consensual to avoid authorities and law enforcement coming down hard on them.
Unsurprisingly, the government shutdown of Backpage caused quite a noticable backlash by concerned adult workers who were worried about their income and livelihood. The act affected people all across the world, not just in the US. In London's Soho district, protested appealed against the decision, but it was too late.
In major cities such as Los Angeles, New York (and all across California, Washington and Texas), it was said that the number of active escorts and working girls actually jumped up significantly. It's not clear where this jump came from, but no doubt the government and federal officials weren't too happy about it. It was possible that a lot of escorts who possibly relied on repeat clients decided to make themselves known to the wider community in order to strengthen the support for other sex workers in the same position.
However, the FOSTA bill meant that a lot of sex workers had to turn to the streets, which was a much more dangerous way of going about their work. Being on the streets meant that they were more prone to physical violence from abusive clients or pimps who operated in certain areas. While trafficking victims were a little more protected online, it opened them up to a much harsher lifestyle on the streets as a result.
It was said that sites like Backpage helped law enforcement keep an eye on potential criminal activity and underage prostitution. When this disappeared, all prostitution took place 'off the grid'. Therefore, it was impossible to track in any way. It made sex trafficking groups much harder to locate, and worst of all, didn't really affect sex slavery victims in any way. Child sex rings were still taking place and unwilling girls were being forced into the sex trade.
In Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law passed in 1996, states that an “interactive computer service” can’t be treated as the publisher or speaker of third-party content. What this means is that if a user posts something illegal on social media, a forum or a blog, the website itself can't be sued. For example, you can't sue Blogspot if a blogger posts illegal pornography.
Put simply, it's like the First Ammendment but for the internet. It's one of the most important laws in the online world, but the FOSTA bill has slowly chipped away at it, possibly leading to a complete removal of it further down the line (something which Joe Biden is in favor of). Whether or not removing free speech online is a good idea is down to personal opinion. Silicon Valley giants such as Facebook and Google do already have rules in place to protect against hate speech, but nothing more.
An investigation into the owners of Backpage, Carl Ferrer, Jim Larkin and Michael Lacey, actually uncovered some interesting information about the site. Some emails which were exchanged between employees of the site showed that any posting which included certain words and phrases were immediately deleted by site administrators. Any content which alluded to child sex, underage workers or sex trafficking, like 'lolita' or 'nubile' were instantly erased.
Some said that instead of being deleted, this kind of information should have been passed on to police. However, in closing down the service, this information is no longer attainable whatsoever.
In a post Backpage world, adult workers of every kind began dropping off the radar. All across the United States, escorts, dominatrices, adult performers, cam girls and thousands of others who made their living selling their erotic services were forced to change their lives.
Krystle, a semi-famous pornstar and call girl based in New York said that she was forced to quit the industry entirely as she couldn't maintain the upkeep on her property. Her income dropped substantially and she was struggling to advertise herself. Many of the localized pages around her area of New York favored less expensive workers, so Krystle was continually overlooked. Similarly, a woman in Los Angeles named Raven, who had made her living through sex work for 21 years, said that was forced to take secondary jobs as she struggled to maintain her career as an escort.
These instances were just two examples of the kind of hardships which fell on adult workers. In addition to having to find other sources of income, some were took under the wing of local pimps, dungeons, massage parlors or escort agencies. Pimps and establishments are considered detrimental to the adult industry as they usually take a large cut of the worker's money and they give very little regard to their wellbeing.
After April 2018, a number of sites popped up looking to replace Backpage as the number one place for adult workers to find clients, but not many were successful. Due to the sheer influx of new websites, it was hard for any one of them to gain popularity. A google search would find that hundreds of new platforms were posted every day, but even though they did help adult workers find more work, they weren't far-reaching enough to be beneficial.
Instead, adult workers turned to other avenues like forums, group chats and social media to advertise themselves. Tumblr became a common place to contact clients due to the fast-moving nature of the site. Due to the constant stream of content appearing on Tumblr, it was difficult for authorities to keep track of escorts on there.
Another favorite place was adult dating sites, since what people wrote on there was private and encrypted so couldn't be accessed by officials. However, a new site named Switter came along and changed everything.
After the FOSTA bill was introduced and escorts began advertising on Twitter, many Twitter accounts were either told to stop or were shadow-banned. This led to the creation of the Switter, which advertises itself as 'social media for sex workers.'
Switter is an open-source platform which mimics the stylings of Twitter. As the host domain is located in Austria, this serves as a way to get around US legislation laws so it can't be a victim of the FOSTA cuts. While there are similar sites to Switter also in existence, Switter is the only one which is free to use by everyone, both workers and clients. It was actually created several years ago, but only became popular after the FOSTA bill was brought in.
Switter has done an incredible job of filling in the shoes of Backpage, but even though the site gets almost 10,000 listings a month, it's still not anywhere close to the popularity that Backpage reached.
It's quite strange that it hasn't, since inter-connectivity has rapidly increased in the past few years. Since January 2010, active internet users have massively increased every year, so what's stopping Switter becoming the biggest escort database in the world?
Working girls have said that since the introduction of the FOSTA bill, less people want to use adult workers at all.
The Act purposely made it difficult for escorts to interact with both their clients and each other, and that distanced them from the general public. It did nothing to help the stereotype of prostitutes being on the low end of society; the cliched image of a drugged-up prostitute servicing men in a back alley.
While Switter markets itself as a 'safe space for sex workers', this again implies that escorts need a safe space at all. The best approach would be for adult workers to be accepted into mainstream society so there was no need for them to hide in the shadows on the streets.
The FOSTA bill, as a result, has achieved no positives whatsoever. It's had the opposite effect of everything it intended to do. Victims are now being trafficked through means which can't be tracked by law enforcement. Thousands of adult workers are out of a job, therefore putting more strain on state welfare. The working girls which can still find work on the streets are being abused by pimps and working out of illegal parlors. More workers are being attacked, which puts more strain on police to investigate and hospitals to treat wounds.
Nothing has changed, and things are worse than ever in the escort industry. More arrests are being made than ever all across the US (a woman in Arizona was recently killed whilst working the streets).
The internet definitely made it easier to sell sex, but it also made it a lot safer. Now, without a hub like Backpage, when an escort gets into a car, she has no idea who the driver is.
So, what's the solution? Well, while Switter has certainly done a lot to fill the gaps, the best approach to navigating the escort industry would be through an adult dating site like this.
Are you an escort looking to interact with potential clients? Want to help get your name out there? Maybe even advertise your services? Our site offers privacy which you won't find anywhere else. Advertising yourself on here is much safer than doing it on Twitter, Switter, Craigslist or your own personal website. Those sites can be scoured for keywords, but it's a little harder to do that through our page.
Likewise, if you're a guy looking to hook up tonight, why not browse through our profiles and see if any of the gorgeous ladies on here take your fancy. There are already a number of babes who are indeed offering theirselves for a price, so if you're looking to get lucky, there's no easier way of doing it.
Of course, not every woman on our page is an escort - far from it! The majority of ladies here are looking to hookup too, just like you, so the only way to find out what they're after is by signing up and sending them a message.
Signing up is free, easy and straightforward. All you need to do is put in basic details like your name, age and location and you're free to start messaging immediately. You'll be matched with women from your local area so you can see exactly who's up for some naughty fun tonight.
Escort or not, you'll find the biggest choice of local ladies on our page. No matter what you're looking for, whether it's mature babes, eager teens, BBWs, feisty kinksters, ebony babes or anything else, the fact we have millions of users means you're guaranteed to match with someone who gets your juices flowing.
Don't let the events of April 2018 take away your enjoyment of finding discreet fun online! Help join the fight against anti-prostitution in these testing times. After all, everyone just wants to have sex, right? It doesn't matter if you're a man, woman, escort or client - we all just wanna get laid. Sign up and start messaging today. We guarantee that it will change your sex life for the better!