FOSTA & My RM Client Profile

[LaffingBear]

Received this email from RM today:

 

Hello,

We would like to inform you that due to some recently introduced legal requirements in your region, your "About Me" text was reviewed and may have been modified. It is now in accordance with the new rules!

 

Be aware, that any text that promotes escort services or other services that may be interpreted as providing sexual acts in exchange for compensation is strictly forbidden, including information about rates or donations. It is not allowed to publish phone numbers, email addresses or external links, except personal websites.

If you need any clarifications, please contact us.

Thank you for your understanding!

Your RentMen team

___________________________

 

I've looked through my "About Me". I admit, I'm not certain I remember everything that was there.

 

As best I can tell, they've eliminated anything that could be interpreted as an indicator of business transactions. There was never anything about a sexual act in my profile. Nor any mention of money.

 

Examples. I have a two-part list:

 

"Seeking:" followed by a list of attitudes and non-sexual acts I like. Followed by a list of attitudes, actions I don't like. Seeking and the full list remains. The list of don'ts appears intact.... but the list-label is gone. Not sure, but I think it was Deal Breakers.

I also had a few sentences referring to activities & attitudes that is gone. Nothing about sexual acts. More about customer service or the level of effort the pro might need provide. Sorta: "I ask alot of questions, am very thorough in planning, but once decided, I'm likely to require minimal effort on your part." Maybe I had a keyword in there such as hired, or client? Don't recall. I had no phone or website info.

 

I think they're getting nervous and broad in interpretations. Protecting the site by removing references to business, which is consistent with removal of any price info. I guess they're trying to make it look like a dating site?

[+ Keith30309]

Received this email from RM today:

 

Hello,

We would like to inform you that due to some recently introduced legal requirements in your region, your "About Me" text was reviewed and may have been modified. It is now in accordance with the new rules!

 

Be aware, that any text that promotes escort services or other services that may be interpreted as providing sexual acts in exchange for compensation is strictly forbidden, including information about rates or donations. It is not allowed to publish phone numbers, email addresses or external links, except personal websites.

If you need any clarifications, please contact us.

Thank you for your understanding!

Your RentMen team

___________________________

 

I've looked through my "About Me". I admit, I'm not certain I remember everything that was there.

 

As best I can tell, they've eliminated anything that could be interpreted as an indicator of business transactions. There was never anything about a sexual act in my profile. Nor any mention of money.

 

Examples. I have a two-part list:

 

"Seeking:" followed by a list of attitudes and non-sexual acts I like. Followed by a list of attitudes, actions I don't like. Seeking and the full list remains. The list of don'ts appears intact.... but the list-label is gone. Not sure, but I think it was Deal Breakers.

I also had a few sentences referring to activities & attitudes that is gone. Nothing about sexual acts. More about customer service or the level of effort the pro might need provide. Sorta: "I ask alot of questions, am very thorough in planning, but once decided, I'm likely to require minimal effort on your part." Maybe I had a keyword in there such as hired, or client? Don't recall. I had no phone or website info.

 

I think they're getting nervous and broad in interpretations. Protecting the site by removing references to business, which is consistent with removal of any price info. I guess they're trying to make it look like a dating site?

Good luck on figuring out the acceptance criteria - mine was prettty innocuous and PG-rated and a bunch of content was removed.

You may be right on the transactional angle - I think that one of the things removed from mine was something like “I like to hire for 2-3 hours to create a connection”. Maybe “meet” is acceptable?

[Guy Fawkes]

Someone should point out that no where in the bill does it talk about escorts.

 

Received this email from RM today:

 

Hello,

We would like to inform you that due to some recently introduced legal requirements in your region, your "About Me" text was reviewed and may have been modified. It is now in accordance with the new rules!

 

Be aware, that any text that promotes escort services or other services that may be interpreted as providing sexual acts in exchange for compensation is strictly forbidden, including information about rates or donations. It is not allowed to publish phone numbers, email addresses or external links, except personal websites.

If you need any clarifications, please contact us.

Thank you for your understanding!

Your RentMen team

___________________________

 

I've looked through my "About Me". I admit, I'm not certain I remember everything that was there.

 

As best I can tell, they've eliminated anything that could be interpreted as an indicator of business transactions. There was never anything about a sexual act in my profile. Nor any mention of money.

 

Examples. I have a two-part list:

 

"Seeking:" followed by a list of attitudes and non-sexual acts I like. Followed by a list of attitudes, actions I don't like. Seeking and the full list remains. The list of don'ts appears intact.... but the list-label is gone. Not sure, but I think it was Deal Breakers.

I also had a few sentences referring to activities & attitudes that is gone. Nothing about sexual acts. More about customer service or the level of effort the pro might need provide. Sorta: "I ask alot of questions, am very thorough in planning, but once decided, I'm likely to require minimal effort on your part." Maybe I had a keyword in there such as hired, or client? Don't recall. I had no phone or website info.

 

I think they're getting nervous and broad in interpretations. Protecting the site by removing references to business, which is consistent with removal of any price info. I guess they're trying to make it look like a dating site?

[+ José Soplanucas]

Someone should point out that no where in the bill does it talk about escorts.

 

I’ve seen your other post about this. Are you sure you can base a defense on that? Can their attorney alledge that escorting is just a synonym of prostitution?

[thickornotatall]

Received this email from RM today:

 

Hello,

We would like to inform you that due to some recently introduced legal requirements in your region, your "About Me" text was reviewed and may have been modified. It is now in accordance with the new rules!

 

Be aware, that any text that promotes escort services or other services that may be interpreted as providing sexual acts in exchange for compensation is strictly forbidden, including information about rates or donations. It is not allowed to publish phone numbers, email addresses or external links, except personal websites.

If you need any clarifications, please contact us.

Thank you for your understanding!

Your RentMen team

___________________________

 

I've looked through my "About Me". I admit, I'm not certain I remember everything that was there.

 

As best I can tell, they've eliminated anything that could be interpreted as an indicator of business transactions. There was never anything about a sexual act in my profile. Nor any mention of money.

 

Examples. I have a two-part list:

 

"Seeking:" followed by a list of attitudes and non-sexual acts I like. Followed by a list of attitudes, actions I don't like. Seeking and the full list remains. The list of don'ts appears intact.... but the list-label is gone. Not sure, but I think it was Deal Breakers.

I also had a few sentences referring to activities & attitudes that is gone. Nothing about sexual acts. More about customer service or the level of effort the pro might need provide. Sorta: "I ask alot of questions, am very thorough in planning, but once decided, I'm likely to require minimal effort on your part." Maybe I had a keyword in there such as hired, or client? Don't recall. I had no phone or website info.

 

I think they're getting nervous and broad in interpretations. Protecting the site by removing references to business, which is consistent with removal of any price info. I guess they're trying to make it look like a dating site?

 

 

By "region" I suspect they may mean The United States of In Your Business All The Time Except When it Concerns Republicans"

[Guy Fawkes]

Very sure. The legal system doesn't work on the basis of synonyms.

 

I’ve seen your other post about this. Are you sure you can base a defense on that? Can their attorney alledge that escorting is just a synonym of prostitution?

[+ stevenkesslar]

I’ve seen your other post about this. Are you sure you can base a defense on that? Can their attorney alledge that escorting is just a synonym of prostitution?

 

Lawyers can argue whatever they want. If they are lawyers that work for a federal agency, they have a lot of money behind them. If they are lawyers that work for a federal agency basing a case on a federal law passed almost unanimously by the US Congress, they have a lot of money and power behind them.

 

Any future case would be speculative, but here is the original DHS complaint against Rentboy:

 

https://www.scribd.com/doc/276080730/Rentboy-Complaint-Redacted

 

I started counting the number of times the word "escort" appears, and gave up counting. It appears a lot. I'm no lawyer, so you can interpret what that means for yourself.

 

For anyone who does not know, this original DHS complaint caused an uproar in part because it seemed to many as if it criminalized Gay sex. That was actually what an editorial in the New York Times said. DHS subsequently cleaned that up and in subsequent written filings did their level best to tie Rentboy.com to "sex trafficking," which has a specific legal definition.

 

Guy is right that the bill does not use or define the word "escort." That's a double-edged sword, I think. Since it's not defined, there's ambiguity. At least with Rentboy, DHS took whatever ambiguity they could find and drove a truck through it.

 

I also agree with Guy that the legal system does not work on synonyms. It works on lawyers. And lawyers cost money. That's why the first thing DHS did is seized Jeffrey's assets. Good luck explaining yourself.

 

There are a few silver linings in the cloud from Rentboy, I think. First, to the extent that this is perceived as a war on Gay sex, that won't go down well. I hope that lesson won't be forgotten.

 

Second, it's worth remembering that the judge who ruled on the plea bargain admitted she was troubled deciding the case, because she realized that the argument that Jeffrey provided a service that made people safer had validity - but at the same time it was that very service that allowed DHS to go after Jeffrey. My point is that this was never really tested in court, based on prior law. Some future judge may feel very differently. But you could take that as an indicator that this may not be as black and white in court as some might assume.

 

This provides a very clear indicator that websites not domiciled in the US will not assume they are beyond the reach of US or international law enforcement. I personally think that's a wise decision, if you look at how the US went after file serve companies based outside the US, like Megaupload. The founders were arrested in Auckland, New Zealand. Go figure.

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16642369

 

The Rentmen TOS states the following under "Section 22: Applicable Law": "These Terms of Service shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Germany, without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of law. You agree that any action at law or in equity arising out of or relating to these terms shall be filed only in the state courts located in Hamburg, Germany, and you hereby consent and submit to the personal jurisdiction of such courts for the purposes of litigating any such action."

 

One might wonder why Rentmen cares, if they are legally domiciled in part or whole in Germany. Clearly, Rentmen has decided they don't want to be the legal guinea pig.

 

Thanks for posting that email, because I think it is instructive. There is nothing surprising here.

 

Welcome to the world of whack-a-mole. Excuse me, I meant whack-a-word. If it sounds like "prostitution," it's bad. If it doesn't, it's good. My guess is that the next really big Gay prostitution website will be called something like "Tea For Two."

 

I think this also provides a clear indicator that offsite services - websites outside the US - have just been handed a huge competitive advantage. I would imagine the folks at Rentmen, on balance, are actually pretty happy right now. While they may not be immune from anything the US can do, they will likely be harder to reach.

 

This also should paint a picture of what happens next. As several people have stated, the criminals who run sex trafficking rings are criminals, and they are quite aware of that fact. So being told they are criminals in and of itself won't stop them. There are already plenty of penalties under the law for sex trafficking. This just enhances them and focuses attention on websites. So now there is an obvious next step: domicile your sex trafficking website in Viet Nam, or Thailand, or The Philippines, or Russia, or Mexico, or Kenya - you know, pretty much the countries that you might be trafficking from. If you are a smart criminal, with resources, probably the ideal country for locating a sex trafficking website in would be one with: 1) lots of poor women and children and 2) a dysfunctional or nonexistent legal system.

 

If I am right, and such websites emerge, it provides fodder to go back to Congress and make a case that you actually just made US law enforcement's job harder on a goal we all agree on. I'll keep saying it ad nauseum, but as victims of discrimination and exploitation Gay men are natural allies of the anti-sex trafficking community. Eventually I'd guess that will become clearer and clearer as the deep problems with the law manifest themselves.

 

We all know how well Prohibition worked. If the goal is to redo Prohibition and focus it on "sex trafficking," that is an admirable goal that will be extremely hard to achieve. Having everybody united behind you would make achieving it easier.

 

By seeming to call for a Prohibition on "prostitution" - not to mention in an ambiguous way that also draws in things like internet-based "pornography" and internet-based "sex," Congress just made achieving an admirable goal divisive, confusing, and impossible. The Rentmen notification makes that painfully clear, I think.

 

My guess is Congress will eventually figure that out, just like they did with Prohibition. But it will take a while.

 

Meanwhile, enjoy your whack-a-word, guys!

 

Edited April 2, 2018 by stevenkesslar

[TruthBTold]

I was wondering if the definition(s) of prostitutions/escorting always includes exchanging the providing of sexual acts for money? Or can it be sexual acts for anything of value? And has the insertion of a paragraph such as "I do not accept money for sexual acts. I am compensated via contributions for my time only. Anything that happens during that time is a decision made between two consenting adults," been seen to protect against prostitution claims? Or does a prosecutor just go on the full extent of the facts as they emerged in the circumstances. Otherwise, regular meet ups from sites as Grindr could be interpreted as providing something of value being given for sex - companionship.

[+ stevenkesslar]

And for those of you who are worried that the sky is falling, I think this also should be a pretty strong signal that the sky is not falling.

 

I've been following this since last year. My assumptions, which of course could be wrong, are based more on an understanding of politics than of intricate aspects of the law.

 

I've always assumed that it would be difficult or impossible to go after a multi-faceted website that is compromised predominantly of Gay men, where Gay men talk about all kinds of things. That may include escorts, but it also includes discussions like this one, about our civil rights. To try to go after a website like that would just be an enormous political blunder, I've thought all along. It could easily be construed as an assault on Gay freedom of speech.

 

Rentboy wasn't that kind of site. At the margin, it could say it did educational services or whatever, but they were pretty clearly focused on one thing.

 

If there was one potential "Gay" website that would be at risk due to SESTA/FOSTA, I thought it was pretty obvious which one that was: Rentmen.

 

I thought maybe they'd say, fuck it. It ain't worth the bother. We'll just leave the US alone and let them figure it out. I'm sure that would have cut off a huge part of their users. But if you wanted to pursue the "sky is falling" scenario, that's where I would go.

 

It's early days, but I think we can assume that Rentmen has checked with their lawyers and this indicates where they are going. Which basically means they ain't going nowhere.

 

While there may be inconveniences, I think this is mostly good news.

 

If there is logic to FOSTA/SESTA, it's this: the nature of the internet itself facilitated a handful of "outlier" websites (Sen. Blumenthal's word) that led to a dramatic increase in the sex trafficking of women and children online. I think the numbers are all suspect, but I've read things like an eightfold increase. I suspect nobody really even knows. But the anti-sex trafficking advocates probably have a point, that access to a handful of "outlier" internet websites made a horrific criminal activity easier.

 

If this is the inconvenience we all have to go through to take out a few of the outliers, this is not that bad.

Edited April 2, 2018 by stevenkesslar

[+ bigjoey]

A few weeks ago, NPR had a segment on the proposed law. One of the women on the show gave the very feminist view that female prostitution almost always was because they were forced into prostitution. She was equating female prostitution with sex trafficking by definition. Her view was interesting and seems to be carrying the issue along with it.

 

Male prostitution is really just a side issue that the mainstream public does not think about. However, it will get caught up in the sex trafficking hysteria. (Yes, sex trafficking is a problem but the laws are going far beyond that to include porn and prostitution).

[TruthBTold]

And for those of you who are worried that the sky is falling, I think this also should be a pretty strong signal that the sky is not falling.

I've been following this since last year. My assumptions, which of course could be wrong, are based more on an understanding of politics than of intricate aspects of the law.

I've always assumed that it would be difficult or impossible to go after a multi-faceted website that is compromised predominantly of Gay men, where Gay men talk about all kinds of things. That may include escorts, but it also includes discussions like this one, about our civil rights. To try to go after a website like that would just be an enormous political blunder, I've thought all along. It could easily be construed as an assault on Gay freedom of speech.

Rentyboy wasn't that kind of site. At the margin, it could say it did educational services or whatever, but they were pretty clearly focused on one thing.

If there was one potential "Gay" website that would be at risk due to SESTA/FOSTA, I thought it was pretty obvious which one that was: Rentmen.

I thought maybe they'd say, fuck it. It ain't worth the bother. We'll just leave the US alone and let them figure it out. I'm sure that would have cut off a huge part of their users. But if you wanted to pursue the "sky is falling" scenario, that's where I would go.

It's early days, but I think we can assume that Rentmen has checked with their lawyers and this indicates where they are going. Which basically means they ain't going nowhere.

While there may be inconveniences, I think this is mostly good news. If there is logic to FOSTA/SESTA, it's this: the nature of the internet itself facilitated a handful of "outlier" websites (Sen. Blumenthal's word) that led to a dramatic increase in the sex trafficking of women and children online. I think the numbers are all suspect, but I've read things like an eightfold increase. I suspect nobody really even knows. But the anti-sex trafficking advocates probably have a point, that internet websites made a horrific criminal activity easier.

If this is the inconvenience we all have to go through to take out a few of the outliers, this is not that bad.

 

Then again, ferocious prosecution of the proposed law against escort websites by the Justice Department will cut off most of the sexual outlet for Republican legislators (especially young but legal males). So perhaps it won't be used against sites such as Rentmen.

[+ stevenkesslar]

A few weeks ago, NPR had a segment on the proposed law. One of the women on the show gave the very feminist view that female prostitution almost always was because they were forced into prostitution. She was equating female prostitution with sex trafficking by definition. Her view was interesting and seems to be carrying the issue along with it.

 

I actually edited something about the legislative language out of a draft of my earlier post, in part because I didn't want to get this kicked into the politics forum. So I'll try to say it in a non-political way.

 

Part of what went wrong while Mommy and Daddy were away is that the bill started out using the words "sex trafficking." If you look at a press release from one of the co-sponsors, it went on and on about "sex trafficking" and the word "prostitution" was not used once. Then another one of the co-sponsors put out a report slamming Backpage and used "sex trafficking" and "prostitution" interchangeably.

 

Part of what's sad about Mommy and Daddy not having spoken up is that a lot of confusion and heartache could have been avoided here. Different agendas got confused and melded together. It is not clear that was intentional on the part of everybody who supported the final product. If anything, I'd almost read things as indicating the opposite: a bill that was intended to address "sex trafficking" got hijacked by moral crusaders who had a much broader agenda. Whether that agenda was liberal female legislators who view any form of prostitution as sex trafficking, or conservatives who think any pornography and sex on the internet is bad, or some weird coalition of the willing - who knows?

 

The one thing I think we can say is this was not intended as an attack on Gay men or Gay websites. We don't prey on women, and it's no longer PC to just assume we prey on young boys. So everybody be sure to have your Gay card handy. I actually think in this case it protects us from being harassed and targetted. How's that for irony?

Edited April 2, 2018 by stevenkesslar

[+ Tarte Gogo]

You may be right on the transactional angle - I think that one of the things removed from mine was something like “I like to hire for 2-3 hours to create a connection”. Maybe “meet” is acceptable?

Lol, what are they doing? It is called "Rent.... Men". You can rent men, but you can't hire them?

Are they changing the site's name soon?

[+ stevenkesslar]

Lol, what are they doing? It is called "Rent.... Men". You can rent men, but you can't hire them?

Are they changing the site's name soon?

 

Touche.

 

I think we should make a collective decision to view this as comedy, not tragedy.

 

Anybody who knows the lay of this particular land - which excludes most members of Congress - could predict that while this law has mostly laudable goals, the way it was written would have all kinds of unintended consequences, some of which are just silly.

 

I'd say we should keep a stiff upper lip. But a lip is a body part, and suggesting I want somebody to be "stiff" could be taken as a solicitation. So I won't.

[+ Keith30309]

Has anyone been able to figure out what is allowed in client profiles ?

 

After mine was changed I made a couple of edits to fix sentence fragments, replace strings of asterisks which replaced words, fix my headline, etc.

 

After I saved it it said that the profile was under review. At this point it still hasn’t been updated.

It looks like it was typed by a chimp and I’d kinda like to fix it.

 

Has anyone updated their profile such that it passes whatever the rules are?