By Leila Selchaif

A cabal of Satanic Democratic leaders are operating a child sex trafficking ring. Most people recognize this as the basic plot of the Q-Anon conspiracy theory. Sports fans coming out for Super Bowl Sunday encourage increased sex trafficking. Fewer people recognize this to be just as much of a myth. Public panic about human trafficking creates higher police budgets for raids, which end up traumatizing, incarcerating, and harming sex workers. Not all sex workers are victims of sex trafficking. Many sex workers do not want to be treated as victims. Indeed, when the criminal justice system treats sex workers as victims, it often further harms them. Public messaging around the dangers of trafficking has also led to the introduction and passage of bills aiming to curtail the sinister power of the internet to facilitate sex trafficking. A method favored by these bills is to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which provides immunity to internet platforms from the speech and actions of users who post on their platforms. Just as much as on the streets, policing of the internet has caused great harm to those it claims to protect . . .