So, SESTA/FOSTA was supposed to fight sex trafficking by making websites responsible for user content that promotes prostitution. The idea was to shut down places where trafficking happens online, but in reality, it’s been a mess.

⚖️ What they were trying to do – Lawmakers said the goal was to protect trafficking victims by cutting off online spaces where illegal sex work was advertised. The idea was that if websites were held liable, they’d crack down on trafficking themselves.

🚨 What actually happened – Instead of stopping trafficking, it just made things way more dangerous for consensual sex workers. Many lost access to safe screening tools and were pushed into riskier, offline work. Websites panicked and over-censored—Craigslist personals, Tumblr’s NSFW content, even harm-reduction resources disappeared overnight.

🚫 The fallout – These laws blurred the line between trafficking and consensual sex work, making it harder to help actual victims. It also hit LGBTQ spaces and marginalized communities the hardest. Plus, traffickers didn’t actually stop—they just moved to even more hidden, unregulated corners of the internet, making them harder to track.

💡 What should have happened – If the goal was to fight trafficking, lawmakers should have focused on actual solutions: more funding for housing, healthcare, and legal protections for vulnerable people. Instead of banning platforms, they should have worked with sex workers and anti-trafficking experts to create laws that actually help.

At the end of the day, SESTA/FOSTA didn’t fix the problem—it just pushed it underground and made life harder for the people it claimed to protect. What do you think? Should the law be repealed, fixed, or was it necessary?