EFF represents two human rights organizations, a digital library, an activist for sex workers, and a certified massage therapist in a lawsuit challenging the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, or FOSTA, on grounds that it silences online speech by muzzling Internet users.
The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on July 7 affirmed the dismissal of Woodhull Freedom Foundation v. US, the constitutional challenge to FOSTA. That’s certainly disappointing: this bad law will now stay on the books.But the good news is that FOSTA stays on the books in a more limited manner.
The 2018 law criminalizes websites that "promote or facilitate" prostitution. Two of three judges on the panel pushed back against government claims that this doesn't criminalize speech.
More than four years after its enactment, FOSTA remains an unconstitutional law that broadly censored the internet and harmed sex workers and others by chilling their ability to speak, organize, and access information online. And the fight to overturn FOSTA continues. Last week, two human rights.
Woodhull Freedom Foundation has filed an appellate brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging the constitutionality of the 2018 FOSTA legislation.