No. 15-3047
9
lest the ads that the sheriff doesn’t like simply migrate to
other sections of the website), when it is unclear that Backpage is engaged in illegal activity, and if it is not then the
credit card companies cannot be accomplices and should not
be threatened as accomplices by the sheriff and his staff. Section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act of 1996
states, as Judge Grady had noted in the Craigslist case, that
“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall
be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information
provided by another information content provider.” 47
U.S.C. § 230(c)(1); see Dart v. Craigslist, Inc., supra, 665 F.
Supp. 2d at 965–69. As our court has explained, interpreting
section 230(c), “an intermediary … normally is indifferent to
the content of what it transmits. Even entities that know the
information’s content do not become liable for the sponsor’s
deeds. Does a newspaper that carries an advertisement for
‘escort services’ or ‘massage parlors’ aid and abet the crime
of prostitution, if it turns out that some (or many) of the advertisers make money from that activity?” Doe v. GTE Corp.,
347 F.3d 655, 659 (7th Cir. 2003); see also Chicago Lawyers’
Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc. v. Craigslist, Inc.,
519 F.3d 666, 670 (7th Cir. 2008). Sounds like our case. Backpage is an intermediary between the advertisers of adult
services and visitors to Backpage’s website. The credit card
companies are more remote intermediaries.
It’s true that the Communications Decency Act does not
immunize the credit card companies or Backpage from federal criminal liability, 47 U.S.C. § 230(e)(1), and remember
that in the June letter Dart made ominous reference to the
federal money-laundering statute. It’s unlikely that credit
card companies would be prosecuted as aiders and abettors
of Backpage, any more than the landlord of premises occu-