Inland vice detectives were not celebrating Backpage.com’s announcement Tuesday, Jan. 10, that the online classified ad site had removed its lucrative escort listings, which investigators say are thinly disguised ads for prostitution.

“Unfortunately, what they really did was move them from the adult section to the dating section,” Riverside police Sgt. Mike Crawford said.

Clicking on the escort section reveals a page with the word “CENSORED” in red and the statement, “The government has unconstitutionally censored this content.”

But over on the Women Seeking Men dating page for the Inland Empire are ads such as “Sweet temptation muy dulce” and “Gorgeous Upscale Blonde,” all accompanied by photos of scantily clad women in suggestive poses.

“My, my,” said San Bernardino police Detective Kim Hernandez after looking at the dating site. “It looks like it has jumped in size.”

Law enforcement officials locally and nationwide have long pressured Backpage to remove the ads, which officials say contribute to the physical and mental abuse and exploitation of women – some of them minors. Riverside and San Bernardino are among the Inland cities that have arrested pimping suspects based on investigations into ads on Backpage and other websites.

Backpage’s action came shortly after a U.S. Senate panel released a report alleging Backpage concealed criminal activity by removing words from ads that would have exposed child sex trafficking and prostitution. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a hearing on the subcommittee’s report Tuesday. Backpage’s four top executives and the company’s attorney told the subcommittee they were invoking their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and would not testify.

Backpage said in a statement that scrutiny of the site by government officials has made it too costly to keep operating the adult section. The company rejected the subcommittee’s findings.

San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos has spoken across the nation about what he calls “modern slavery.” He had hoped that the ads would have disappeared completely and was disappointed to learn that at least some had apparently shifted.

“If we find they are just moving things around, then that’s another issue, and an issue we are going to continue to press. … If we let up at all, it’s going to explode again,” Ramos said.

Hernandez said she was hopeful that the news about Backpage would prompt people to take a close look at its operations here in January, which President Barack Obama has declared National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

The Washington Post contributed to this report.

Contact the writer: brokos@scng.com or 951-368-9569