[SWAF-Potluck] Why raid Rentboy.com?

[Andrew Sorfleet]

I assume that some of you have been following the news about the raid on Rentboy.com in Manhattan.

This year has been brutal for attacks on our advertising. At the start of the year, Yellow Pages stopped accepting listings for escorts.

Then in July, major credit card companies refused to process payments for escort advertising on Backpage.com.

A week ago, the U.S. Homeland Security Dept. raided the offices of Rentboy.com. Since then, a common question from sex-work and free-speech activists has been, "why?"

This is the best explanation i have read as to why Rentboy was targetted. It appears i was right to assume that it is related to escorts travelling across borders to work.

Apparently Rentboy made a visa application and described the line of work, which set off the investigation.

Also in this article are the jail term sentences for the owners of both the Silk Road website and MyRedBook.com.

http://www.vice.com/read/why-did-the-feds-bust-rentboy-904

Sent from my iPhone
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