Backpage.com is a website that allows users to post classified ads. It was launched in 2004 by Michael Lacey and James Larkin, executives at the alternative weekly paper the Phoenix New Times, after Craigslist had decimated the traditional classified-ad business. The site was acquired by Village Voice Media in 2006.

The site has been accused of being a platform for sex trafficking, which has made it the subject of controversy.In 2015, Backpage.com was shut down by the FBI. The founders were arrested in 2018, and a years-long test of free-speech principles, particularly those related to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, ensued. 

As a hub for user-submitted classified ads, Backpage.com was always going to attract less savory users, particularly those in the sex industry. This is an issue that has long been rampant on Craigslist and predates the internet by decades, having bedeviled alt-weeklies for as long as they’ve relied on that business model. The New Times had previous tussles with law enforcement, making Lacey and Larkin easy targets. 

Being falsely accused of sex trafficking would be too much for most people, except for those who have spent their careers picking such fights for a living. Lacey and Larkin fought back, and continue to fight back, even as their legal nightmare continues, and their fight has important ramifications for free-speech rights online.

Section 230 limits the liability of online platforms regarding user-submitred content, saving them from an insurmountable enforcement dilemma that would put most out of business. The prosecution in the Backpage trial was sloppy from the start, repeatedly making references to “sex trafficking,” which none of the defendants was charged with. The content in question was found to be legal, and the case resulted in a mistrial, although it’s not over yet. 

It was almost as if the government expected the founders to cave and was surprised when they didn’t. They shoudn’t have been.

Even as most alternative weeklies, including the once-mighty Village Voice itself, have folded or atrophied into wisps of their former selves, the Phoenix New Times has remained a fearless source of muckraking for the Phoenix area. It has challenged government corruption, broken stories those in power most certainly did not want the public to read, and taken on long-shot legal fights with the gusto of in-the-blood gonzo journalists.

If the Backpage founders were found guilty, the implications for the future of the digital landscape would be tremendous. Many platforms could be strangled with the burden of enforcing new rules. Those on the edges of society, despite the fact that they are operating of their own free will, could be driven further into the shadows.

Despite the weak case agains them, “sex trafficking” is such an emotionally charged issue that they may yet face an uphill battle, as even the hardest-core free-speech stalwarts resist being associated with those accused, rightly or wrongly, of “sex trafficking.” 

One of the most important free-speech battles of our time is being fought by scrappy journalists from Phoenix. For anyone invested in these issues, that makes this case well worth watching. And free-speech advocates can take pride in the fact that the defendants in such a consequential fight are journalists who have long used their power to lift up the disenfranchised right here in Phoenix.