PHOENIX — Woodhull Freedom Foundation has joined the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the Reason Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation in filing an amicus brief in support of an appeal by the former operators of Backpage.com.
The groups filed the “friends of the court” brief on Tuesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in the case U.S. v. Lacey, Spear and Brunst.
XBIZ has reported extensively on the case, in which former Backpage.com co-owner Michael Lacey, and former Backpage executives Scott Spear and John “Jed” Brunst, were convicted for allegedly facilitating prostitution through their online classified advertising platform.
The case against Backpage became a key issue driving passage of the FOSTA/SESTA "carve-out" of Section 230 protections for platforms hosting third-party content, nominally to prevent websites from facilitating sex trafficking.
The brief argues that the case represents “the culmination of a years-long campaign to censor online classified adult advertising,” and that the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona “overlooked central pillars of First Amendment law that should have controlled the case.”
“The court’s misapplications of the law not only resulted in improper convictions of Appellants, but if allowed to stand would gravely threaten online publishers and free speech rights,” the brief asserts.
A statement by Woodhull Freedom Foundation explained, “The government argued that by allowing adult-oriented ads, the defendants were complicit in illegal activity by third-party advertisers, even without direct involvement or specific knowledge of individual illegal acts … We argue that holding publishers criminally liable for third-party content without proof of specific intent sets a dangerous precedent and runs contrary to established free speech protections. We also warn that this could force platforms to over-censor or eliminate entire categories of lawful speech to avoid liability, chilling public discourse and access to information.”
