Selling Software Is Not Sex Trafficking

​Should Salesforce.com be held liable as a participant in sex trafficking because it sold customer relationship management software to the now-defunct Backpage.com?
 
Such a ruling would run smack into Twitter v. Taamneh, in which the U.S. Supreme Court made it clear that despite the fact that ISIS terrorists used that popular social media platform to communicate, Twitter could not be held liable as an aider and abettor of terrorism. Holding Salesforce liable for Backpage’s misdeeds would also contradict rulings with similar principles from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.
 
These courts, writes Mike Masnick of TechDirt, found that it “would be ridiculous to hold out every service provider for liability just because a drug trafficking, sex trafficking, or terrorist organization used those tools to improve their reach.”
 
But the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals found otherwise. Backpage was a classified advertising site that was shuttered and began a long saga in the courts after being hit with 100 counts involving prostitution and sex trafficking in 2018. Salesforce, according to the Seventh Circuit, should have somehow known as early as 2013 that it was involved in sex trafficking by selling operational software to this client.
 
Every decent person deplores sex trafficking, just as every decent person condemns terrorism. But it is bad logic and morally confused to extend liability for sex trafficking from bad actors to vendors – people lacking in investigative skills and precognitive ability to see how the law will treat a customer years later.
 
There are clear First Amendment implications in conflating the speech and actions of a customer with those of a vendor. We agree with Masnick – “it would be nice if the Supreme Court told the 7th Circuit to knock it off.”