Last week Wednesday, the site experienced an outage. Users could look at postings but could not post for several hours. The problem was fixed. or at least, we thought it was.
Today at 5:15 PM EST, we had another outage. It appears to be the same problem. You can view content, but there will be delay in posting for the next hour or so.
Our error message says, "Come back in 15 minutes to post." It should say " Please come back in 15 minutes to CHECK and see if you can post."
We really are sorry about this inconvenience and are working on solutions to prevent outages like these.
- Staff
Monday, April 16, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
What is SOPA and PIPA?
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as H.R. 3261, is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of 12 initial co-sponsors.
Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PROTECT IP; PIPA), also known as S.968, is a bill that was introduced in the United States Senate on May 12, 2011 by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) 11 initial bipartisan co-sponsors.
Why is this important?
These proposed bill would give the Federal government the ability to take any website offline without due process or judicial oversight under the premise of combating “online piracy.” These bills are extremely problematic and won't do much to deal with the issues they're supposed to deal with, but will have massive unintended consequences. They will lead to massive collateral damage to jobs, the economy and innovation.
Internet Blacklist Legislation
The Definitive Post On Why SOPA And Protect IP Are Bad, Bad Ideas
How SOPA would affect you: FAQ
Who is involved?
Supporters of SOPA: RIAA, MPAA, News Corp, TimeWarner, Walmart, Nike, Tiffany, Chanel, Rolex, Sony, Juicy Couture, Ralph Lauren, VISA, Mastercard, Comcast, ABC, Dow Chemical, Monster Cable, Teamsters, Rupert Murdoch, Lamar Smith (R-TX), John Conyers (D-MI)
Opponents of SOPA: Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, backpage, craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, eBay, AOL, Mozilla, Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy, Zynga, EFF, ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Darrell Issa (R-CA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX)
Where Do Your Members of Congress Stand on SOPA and PIPA?
An Open Letter From Internet Engineers to the U.S. Congress
Obama administration joins the ranks of SOPA skeptics
Combating Online Piracy while Protecting an Open and Innovative Internet
Under voter pressure, members of Congress backpedal (hard) on SOPA
How to be heard.
Tell Congress you OPPOSE H.R. 3261 "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA) and S. 968 "Protect IP Act" (PIPA):
Contact Senate:
US Senate Site
Contact Congress:
House of Representatives Site
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Open Congress Emailer
If you are Outside of the United States:
AmericanCensorship.org Site
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as H.R. 3261, is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of 12 initial co-sponsors.
Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PROTECT IP; PIPA), also known as S.968, is a bill that was introduced in the United States Senate on May 12, 2011 by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) 11 initial bipartisan co-sponsors.
Why is this important?
These proposed bill would give the Federal government the ability to take any website offline without due process or judicial oversight under the premise of combating “online piracy.” These bills are extremely problematic and won't do much to deal with the issues they're supposed to deal with, but will have massive unintended consequences. They will lead to massive collateral damage to jobs, the economy and innovation.
Internet Blacklist Legislation
The Definitive Post On Why SOPA And Protect IP Are Bad, Bad Ideas
How SOPA would affect you: FAQ
Who is involved?
Supporters of SOPA: RIAA, MPAA, News Corp, TimeWarner, Walmart, Nike, Tiffany, Chanel, Rolex, Sony, Juicy Couture, Ralph Lauren, VISA, Mastercard, Comcast, ABC, Dow Chemical, Monster Cable, Teamsters, Rupert Murdoch, Lamar Smith (R-TX), John Conyers (D-MI)
Opponents of SOPA: Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, backpage, craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, eBay, AOL, Mozilla, Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy, Zynga, EFF, ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Darrell Issa (R-CA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX)
Where Do Your Members of Congress Stand on SOPA and PIPA?
An Open Letter From Internet Engineers to the U.S. Congress
Obama administration joins the ranks of SOPA skeptics
Combating Online Piracy while Protecting an Open and Innovative Internet
Under voter pressure, members of Congress backpedal (hard) on SOPA
How to be heard.
Tell Congress you OPPOSE H.R. 3261 "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA) and S. 968 "Protect IP Act" (PIPA):
Contact Senate:
US Senate Site
Contact Congress:
House of Representatives Site
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Open Congress Emailer
If you are Outside of the United States:
AmericanCensorship.org Site
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
VILLAGE VOICE MEDIA RESPONDS TO CLERGY
Today 36 clergy affixed their names to a paid ad and open letter to Village Voice and the classified ad site Backpage.com. The full page ad was published in the New York Times.
The religious coalition demanded that we close down our legal, adult classifieds.
Neither government officials nor God’s advocates can dictate such arbitrary control of business or speech.
In August this same religious coalition asked for a confidential meeting regarding Backpage.com. We readily agreed. As we prepared to share our information, we were informed that only four members of the coalition would attend.
Village Voice Media then offered to fly, at our expense, all members of the clerical delegation to New York for the conference.
Backpage.com has extensive, working relationships with law enforcement, from the FBI to local police. This is part of a concerted effort to protect underage kids from predators. We looked forward to sharing this data.
In response to our willingness to confer, the clergy used a public relations firm in Washington to reprint in the New York Times a modified copy of the letter the clergy sent to the Village Voice in August. The version that was printed today had been altered, and left out both the coalition’s request for a private dialogue aimed at solutions, as well as Backpage.com’s acceptance of the request, and offer to fund air travel for all interested clergy.
Backpage has spent millions of dollars and dedicated countless resources to protecting children from those who would misuse an adult site.
Much of this information is publicly available. For example, the Dayton Daily News reported last month that:
“To its credit, Backpage this year took major steps to police its ads to help curb sex trafficking,” said [Ernie Allen, President and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Washington, DC]. “Backpage has been aggressively reviewing their ads and trying to remove those ads that are unlawful and suggest they involve the sale of kids for sex,” Allen said. “Backpage has reported to us 1,600 ads that they believe are suspicious.” Allen said Backpage management appears to be genuinely committed to helping stop sex trafficking.”
It is true that, in carrying out their crimes, criminals continue to utilize services such as cell phones by Verizon and AT&T, and overnight delivery services such as FedEx and numerous internet sites . But that does not shift the blame from criminal predators to legal business operators.
If someone is caught shipping contraband through the Post Office, we do not shut down the U.S. mail.
Complicated issues require sophisticated solutions, not PR flurries.
Adult advertising, as found on Craigslist, Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, Yellowpage.com and numerous other web sites is complicated by those who seek to exploit this technology.
And the issues surrounding the exploitation of children are equally complex, often involving homelessness, drugs, and abuse at home.
Backpage.com is a legal classified web site with an adult component that is attempting to be part of the solution. And we remain open to the possibility of conversation with these religious leaders.
Additional links
The religious coalition demanded that we close down our legal, adult classifieds.
Neither government officials nor God’s advocates can dictate such arbitrary control of business or speech.
In August this same religious coalition asked for a confidential meeting regarding Backpage.com. We readily agreed. As we prepared to share our information, we were informed that only four members of the coalition would attend.
Village Voice Media then offered to fly, at our expense, all members of the clerical delegation to New York for the conference.
Backpage.com has extensive, working relationships with law enforcement, from the FBI to local police. This is part of a concerted effort to protect underage kids from predators. We looked forward to sharing this data.
In response to our willingness to confer, the clergy used a public relations firm in Washington to reprint in the New York Times a modified copy of the letter the clergy sent to the Village Voice in August. The version that was printed today had been altered, and left out both the coalition’s request for a private dialogue aimed at solutions, as well as Backpage.com’s acceptance of the request, and offer to fund air travel for all interested clergy.
Backpage has spent millions of dollars and dedicated countless resources to protecting children from those who would misuse an adult site.
Much of this information is publicly available. For example, the Dayton Daily News reported last month that:
“To its credit, Backpage this year took major steps to police its ads to help curb sex trafficking,” said [Ernie Allen, President and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Washington, DC]. “Backpage has been aggressively reviewing their ads and trying to remove those ads that are unlawful and suggest they involve the sale of kids for sex,” Allen said. “Backpage has reported to us 1,600 ads that they believe are suspicious.” Allen said Backpage management appears to be genuinely committed to helping stop sex trafficking.”
It is true that, in carrying out their crimes, criminals continue to utilize services such as cell phones by Verizon and AT&T, and overnight delivery services such as FedEx and numerous internet sites . But that does not shift the blame from criminal predators to legal business operators.
If someone is caught shipping contraband through the Post Office, we do not shut down the U.S. mail.
Complicated issues require sophisticated solutions, not PR flurries.
Adult advertising, as found on Craigslist, Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, Yellowpage.com and numerous other web sites is complicated by those who seek to exploit this technology.
And the issues surrounding the exploitation of children are equally complex, often involving homelessness, drugs, and abuse at home.
Backpage.com is a legal classified web site with an adult component that is attempting to be part of the solution. And we remain open to the possibility of conversation with these religious leaders.
Additional links
Monday, July 11, 2011
SAFETY AND SECURITY ENHANCEMENTS
Backpage.com is committed to preventing those who are intent on misusing the site for illegal purposes. We have implemented a series of new safety enhancements over the past several months to better protect our communities and will continue to further increase our safety practices.
-- Steve Suskin
Backpage.com spokesperson
sps@backpage.com
Backpage.com Safety & Security Measures
The following are some examples of recent safety measures that Backpage.com has implemented.
Implementing Stronger Policies to Prevent Illegal Activity
- Implemented no nudity policy
- Implemented strict content policies to prevent illegal activity
- Implemented stricter image content standards
Preventing Inappropriate Content
- Images are reviewed for compliance with content policies
- Keyword searches conducted across site to locate inappropriate or illegal content
- Banned inappropriate terms list utilized to identify and prevent illegal content
- Child exploitation response process used to prioritize child related matters
Increasing Online Classified Ad Controls to Prevent Abuse
- Inappropriate ad content removed
- Known bad URLs blocked from being posted on site
- HTML images blocked in ads (except for trusted users)
- Character limit on ads (ad size) reduced significantly
- Users attempting to inappropriately edit ads after review/approval blocked from ad editing process
- All ads edited by user after initial review and approval are reviewed again
- Built tool to restrict ad poster capabilities for policy violations
- Suspicious URLs linked to off-site destinations reviewed manually by staff for appropriateness
- Ad moderator accountability system implemented to increase quality and efficiency and moderation staff increased significantly
- Built quality assurance tool to increase ad moderator effectiveness
- Two tier system used to moderate content to increase quality of ad review
- Time alerts utilized to ensure ads are reviewed within 20 minutes of upload
- Ads deleted for egregious violations of Terms of Use
- CAPTCHAs added to report abuse process to prevent abuse reporting misuse
- Increased security measures to better protect user information
Partnering with Law Enforcement and Safety Advocates/Experts
- Added time, date, and time zone stamps to improve quality of information provided to law enforcement
- Ads containing possible minors investigated and referred to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)
- All law enforcement inquiries involving minors given first response priority
- Worked with law enforcement to improve understandability of information provided during investigations
- Created FAQ document with each Cybertipline report to assist law enforcement
- Created an automated process to expedite ad reporting to NCMEC.
- Child safety experts enlisted to help guide safety strategies and help prevent illegal misuse of Backpage.com
Click here to download the Backpage Safety & Security Measures (Updated 9/29) in PDF format.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
OCTOBER IPAD WINNER
We have selected our final iPad winner; Debbie from Denver, CO is the lucky winning job poster for the month of October after posting an ad in our Jobs section.
Now Debbie can read applicant's resumes on her brand new iPad!
Now Debbie can read applicant's resumes on her brand new iPad!
Sunday, October 17, 2010
BACKPAGE STEPS UP SAFETY EFFORTS, CALLS FOR NATIONAL TASK FORCE
Over the last several weeks, Backpage.com has been working closely with our Internet safety expert, Hemanshu Nigam, and his company SSP Blue, to identify areas where we can put up stronger defenses against those intent on placing illegal ads on our site. We made a lot of progress and will continue to march forward with our commitment to the safety and security of our community – both adult and minors alike.
Today we announced the suspension of some limited areas of our Personals and Adult sections while we build up our safety defenses. We also announced some significant steps we are taking to ensure that the content and images in the ads placed on our site is legal and in line with our terms of use. Finally, we also believe that we are at a stage in our industry’s growth where we can all benefit greatly from a multi-stakeholder national task force to identify key best practices to prevent illegal ads and those intent on victimizing the vulnerable. We call upon our friends in the industry, like YellowPages.com, Twitter, Yelp, YouTube, and Eros.com, and others we have listed below, to join us at the table in working with state Attorneys General, law enforcement, and child advocacy groups to take on the challenges of this new frontier. Only then can we all succeed in isolating the abusers.
We treat the development of a holistic safety and security program as a journey not a destination. We will remain committed to working diligently in providing a place to advertise that puts user safety and security first.
Here are just some of the things we are doing:
- The review of all ads and images in the personals and adult sections of the site.
- The implementation of key word searches to quickly identify banned advertisements and inappropriate discussions.
- The significant increase in staff to quickly identify illegal ads.
- The implementation of roadblocks to prevent minors from accessing mature content.
- The implementation of dedicated tools on the site to educate users regarding online safety and security.
- The empowerment of users to report abuse and an expeditious process to handle user complaints.
Other online classified and personals sites for national task force:
Adultfriendfinder.com, alt.com, amateurmatch.com, ashleymadison.com, bdsm.com, bestgfe.com, bigdoggie.net, citysearch.com, cityvibe.com, elclasificados.com, escorts.com, escortsite.com, fling, gay.com, gayfriendfinder.com, myproviderguide.com, myredbook.com, naughtyreviews.com, openadultdirectory.com, sexsearch.com, sipsap.com, sugardaddy.com, superpages.com.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
INTERNET SAFETY EXPERT HIRED BY BACKPAGE.COM
The safety and security of our community is a top priority for Backpage.com. Backpage.com has just retained Internet safety expert Hemanshu Nigam of SSP Blue to partner with us in implementing a holistic plan centered around preventing criminal activity on our site. We also look forward to continuing our productive dialogue with the Attorneys General and expect to announce some significant changes to our site very soon.
- Steve Suskin, Backpage.com
• • • • • • • • • •
Statement from SSP Blue
We understand the very complex safety, security and privacy challenges that Backpage.com faces and we look forward to identifying ways to protect the vulnerable. Immediately, SSP Blue will take a thoughtful look at the site's infrastructure to determine where necessary and impactful changes can be made to provide a safer site.
- Hemanshu Nigam, Founder, SSP Blue
- Steve Suskin, Backpage.com
• • • • • • • • • •
Statement from SSP Blue
We understand the very complex safety, security and privacy challenges that Backpage.com faces and we look forward to identifying ways to protect the vulnerable. Immediately, SSP Blue will take a thoughtful look at the site's infrastructure to determine where necessary and impactful changes can be made to provide a safer site.
- Hemanshu Nigam, Founder, SSP Blue
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