@Background Pony #6C6C
Yes, the problem being any user submission, including private messages, that contain any sort of promotion of prostitution / solicitation, are immediately the responsibility of the site, as in they’re treated as if the site itself is promoting prostitution. On a NSFW site, that’s several percentage points more likely to happen than on a SFW, and there’s far less a defence of “We didn’t expect this to happen, our site is not meant for this sort of content”, meaning much less leeway or sympathy from prosecutors. Yes, it’s speculative, but it’s a
very possible application under the current writing, with a fairly dismal result.
There’s several reasons US-based sites have been coming down hard on NSFW, or just outright closing down, and SESTA-FOSTA’s potential for abuse / overzealous application is one of them.