While few government agencies seem particularly concerned about the criminal ramifications of adults offering sex with other adults for sale online (prostitution is legal only in some parts of Nevada), at least one high-profile case shined an unflattering light on Backpage for allowing users to traffic children for sex.

That high-profile case involved a 15-year-old from St. Louis identified only as “M.A.”

With help from attorneys, M.A. brought a civil lawsuit against Backpage in 2010 after M.A.’s pimp, Latasha Jewell McFarland, was sentenced to serve five years in federal prison for soliciting prostitution with a minor and a number of related charges. The details of the civil lawsuit were brutal. According to the complaint, McFarland took pornographic pictures of M.A., posted those on Backpage, paid Backpage to post those images repeatedly and then used those images to transport M.A. “for the purpose of sexual liaisons for money with adult male customers obtained through [Backpage].”

The lawsuit requested damages from Backpage; $150,000 “for every violation.” Though the lawsuit wasn’t specific about how many violations were involved, one could easily assume the requested damages were well over $1 million.

Yet that civil lawsuit went nowhere. M.A. received no compensation from Backpage.

Under Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, internet companies such as Backpage that host third-party content are not held liable if third-party users post “indecent” material. In other words, it’s not Backpage’s job to police; it’s the police’s job to police. So M.A.’s 2010 civil lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge less than a year after it was filed.

In other words, it’s not Backpage’s job to police; it’s the police’s job to police

Activists in Washington State didn’t like that at all. And they were part of a national movement against Backpage.

“We are experts in the anti-human trafficking field who for years have been on the front lines working directly with victims, providing clinical and social services, studying and researching trafficking, and developing and advocating for prevention policies,” read a letter to Backpage’s owners last year from the Polaris Project, an anti- human trafficking group. “We stand together asking you to protect women and girls from others’ commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of them by immediately and permanently shutting down the entire Adult section of your subsidiary’s website, Backpage.com.”

That letter was indirectly supported by a series of New York Times articles by Nicholas Kristof denouncing Backpage — and also less polite campaigns by groups such as Village Voice Pimps.

Though Polaris is based in Washington D.C. and Kristof is in New York, Washington State was the first state to pass legislation against Backpage. This year, amendments to Washington State Senate Bill 6521 — which were supposed to go into law earlier this month — proposed that it would be illegal if someone or some company “knowingly publishes, disseminates, or displays ... any advertisement for a commercial sex act, which is to take place in the state of Washington and that includes the depiction of a minor.” Violating the bill would be a Class C felony in Washington State, which would bring a minimum of five years behind bars and $10,000 in fines for each violation.

Backpage sued to stop the law.

Backpage argued that such a law would mean “that every service provider — no matter where headquartered or operated — must review each and every piece of third-party content posted on or through its service to determine whether it is an ‘implicit’ ad for a commercial sex act in Washington, and whether it includes a depiction of a person, and, if so, must obtain and maintain a record of the person's ID.” Such obligations “would bring the practice of hosting third-party content to a grinding-halt,” it argued.

Backpage is not alone in that argument. The Internet Archive joined Backpage's argument in a federal challenge filed Friday. And there will likely be others.