Protecting children from harm is a laudable goal. But, as we‘ve noted for many years, grandstanding politicians have a fairly long history of doing a lot of really dangerous stuff by insisting it needs to be done „for the children.“ That doesn‘t mean that all „for the children“ laws are bad, but they do deserve scrutiny, especially when they appear to be reactive to news events, and rushed out with little understanding or discussion. And that‘s a big part of our concern with SESTA — the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act — a „for the children“ bill. With a name like that, it‘s difficult to oppose, because we‘re all in favor of stopping sex trafficking. But if you actually look at the bill with any understanding of how the internet works, you quickly realize that it will be tremendously counterproductive and would likely do a lot more to harm trafficking victims by making it much more risky for internet services to moderate their own sites, and to cooperate with law enforcement in nabbing sex traffickers using their platforms.