This happened after a three-year investigation into the website by California authorities, who referred to the site as an “online brothel.” The Defense attorneys, on the other hand, called the raid and charges against the owners, a “STUNT.”

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2016/10/07/attorney-backpage-calls-raid-charges-against-owners-stunt/91753226/

According to the article, guess who was involved in this investigation to takedown Backpage?

Kamala Harris, then District Attorney in California.

Here is that excerpt: ☝️

But leaked memos made public in 2019 showed that
Ernie Allen’s denials were false.

More surprising, the leaked memos showed that Allen “believed that Backpage was genuinely trying to rid its site of juvenile sex trafficking” during the period of time that NCMEC was known to have been meeting with Backpage.”

In fact if you read the leaked memo below, the government knew all along that Backpage was one of its best partners in stopping sex trafficking.

https://www.techdirt.com/2019/08/28/new-government-documents-reveal-that-backpage-was-actively-helping-law-enforcement-track-down-traffickers/

Why was Allen denying its relationship with Backpage on the one hand, and then complimenting Backpage secretly on another?

We will discuss further down in the presentation.

In addition, further underscoring Backpage’s cooperation with rooting out sex crimes from its website…a Washington Post article published a year before Allen’s denial noted the following:

“Backpage.com says it reported to NCMEC at least 300 ads a month. Some say they were sending as many as 800 referrals in a month.”
That article has been scrubbed from internet.

Interestingly, NCMEC referred to Backpage’s attempts to reduce ads tied to juvenile sex trafficking as “inadequate.”

During this time Cindy McCain was part of an Arizona-based taskforce that also met with BackPage.

Look what she had to say:

Was this a way to catch the baddies by the White Hats? Or was it a way to trap Backpage by the baddies?

The study was funded by none other than the
Ashton Kutcher-founded group, Thorn.
Take a look at this link. There is a lot to dig.

https://www.academia.edu/8041842/Invisible_Offenders_A_Study_Estimating_Online_Sex_Customers_Background_Information

The arrests and investigation involving Backpage were essentially “memory-holed” after 2016.

A memory hole is any mechanism for the deliberate alteration or disappearance of inconvenient or embarrassing documents, photographs, transcripts or other records, such as from a website or other archive, particularly as part of an attempt to give the impression that something never happened.

It would seem that Backpage was actually trying to do the right thing prior to the CEOs and founders' arrests.

They reported trafficking and prostitution incidents to NCMEC, which they thought was a good thing.

If so, why was then-President of NCMEC denying reports that Backpage had a relationship with NCMEC???

Journalists from Reason, Wired and TechDirt suggested an unexpected motive for the crackdown on Backpage.

They suggested that Backpage, after it first came under scrutiny, became too effective at helping authorities track sex traffickers.

The previously mentioned leaked memos, that were published in 2019, revealed that prosecutors privately felt that “Backpage genuinely wanted to get child prostitution off its site.”

The memos also also showed that Backpage actually went quite far in its efforts to aid law enforcement in efforts to remove sex trafficking-linked ads, and that the site itself was actually an extremely effective tool for allowing law enforcement to track down sex traffickers.

So why did authorities come after Backpage the way it did?

Why were the CEO and founders arrested?

Why did Ernie Allen and NCMEC deny that Backpage had a relationship with NCMEC…when it was clear that Backpage went out of its way to report any child trafficking and incidents of prostitution?