By Victoria Wellman. A website that posts pictures of women who others claim are paid for sex, is threatening to publicly humiliate those who are innocent of any such activity.
Potential Prostitutes accepts submissions from anonymous sources claiming to have information about women who work in the sex industry and posts not only their photographs but their personal contact details too. Controversial: A new vigilante website Potential Prostitutes takes anonymous submissions from users who claim women are hookers and then posts their photos and contact info.
Seizing on a moral argument for the site's creation the homepage claims: 'All our offenders have been reported by local community members who feel these offenders should be taught a lesson before their actions escalate. Closely mimicking Predators Watch, a site that targets 'potential' sex predators, Potential Prostitutes collates the information it receives and provides a database of offenders.
Users can browse the names and faces of the women in the database or submit a new 'offender' at the click of a button. Peppered in between the personal photos provided by the site's 'community members' are official mugshots of already convicted criminals. The fact that it is so easy to label someone a 'potential prostitute' will no doubt lead many to question how the site will not be sued a hundred times over by women defending their innocence.
In the meantime it has attracted passionate criticism online. And that those you've wrongly vilified get their justice. Jezebel noted in concern: 'It treats sex workers as if they were sex offenders - the site literally calls them "offenders. But says the site on its FAQ page, suing will come to nothing as the publishers of the site are protected by the Communications Deceny Act, Section - a law that implicates the source of the information as the criminal in online accusations, and not the provider.
