Court Opinion

ID: 9441661
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:00:30.879096+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:28:33.891076
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                 For the Seventh Circuit
                     ____________________
No. 22-2621
G.G. and DEANNA ROSE,
                                                Plaintiffs-Appellants,
                                 v.

SALESFORCE.COM, INC.,
                                                 Defendant-Appellee.
                     ____________________

         Appeal from the United States District Court for the
           Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
           No. 1:20-cv-02335 — Andrea R. Wood, Judge.
                     ____________________

   ARGUED FEBRUARY 22, 2023 — DECIDED AUGUST 3, 2023
                ____________________

   Before HAMILTON, KIRSCH, and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
    HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. In the Traﬃcking Victims Protec-
tion Reauthorization Act of 2003, Congress gave victims of sex
traﬃcking the power to bring civil actions to recover damages
from those who traﬃcked them. 18 U.S.C. § 1595 (2003). In
2008, Congress broadened that civil remedy to allow what we
will call participant liability. The amendment allows victims
to recover damages not only from a traﬃcker who committed
a federal crime but also from a person who “knowingly
2                                                   No. 22-2621

beneﬁts … from participation in a venture which that person
knew or should have known has engaged in an act” of sex
traﬃcking. 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a) (2008).
    Plaintiﬀs G.G. and her mother Deanna Rose brought this
suit under Section 1595 alleging participant liability against
defendant Salesforce.com, Inc. G.G. ran away from home at
the age of thirteen. She fell into the hands of a sex traﬃcker
who used the now defunct Backpage.com to advertise G.G.
Plaintiﬀs’ theory here is that (a) Backpage.com committed
criminal sex-traﬃcking violations with respect to G.G.,
among many other victims; (b) defendant Salesforce at least
should have known that Backpage.com was engaged in sex
traﬃcking of minors like G.G.; and (c) Salesforce had such a
close business relationship with Backpage—providing advice
and custom-tailored software for years to help Backpage
grow its business—that Salesforce, in the language of Section
1595, knowingly beneﬁted from its participation in what it
knew or should have known was Backpage’s sex-traﬃcking
venture.
    The district court dismissed the case on the pleadings, but
we conclude that plaintiﬀs’ complaint states a viable claim
under Section 1595. More speciﬁcally, we reject defendant’s
arguments: (1) that a “venture” must be primarily a sex-traf-
ﬁcking venture; (2) that a participant must have had construc-
tive knowledge of the speciﬁc victim of sex traﬃcking, the civil
plaintiﬀ; (3) that “participation in a venture” requires direct
participation in a “common undertaking or enterprise involv-
ing risk and potential proﬁt”; and (4) that to knowingly bene-
ﬁt requires that the sex traﬃcker provide the participant with
a beneﬁt because of the participant’s facilitation of a sex-traf-
ﬁcking venture and that the participant must have known that
No. 22-2621                                                       3

this was the reason for the beneﬁt. All of these defense theo-
ries seek to impose restrictions on the civil remedy that are
not consistent with the statute as we understand its language.
We also ﬁnd that Salesforce is not entitled to dismissal under
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C.
§ 230. We reverse the judgment of the district court and re-
mand for further proceedings.
I. Factual Background & Procedural History
    Defendant Salesforce.com moved to dismiss this case on
the pleadings, so we focus on the facts alleged in plaintiﬀs’
third amended, and operative, complaint. This opinion says
harsh things about Salesforce contributing to sex-traﬃcking,
including traﬃcking of minors. Because of Salesforce’s tacti-
cal choice to move to dismiss, we treat the allegations as true,
though we do not vouch for their objective truth at this point
in the case. See, e.g., Goldberg v. United States, 881 F.3d 529, 531
(7th Cir. 2018).
    In 2016, when she was just thirteen years old, plaintiﬀ G.G.
ran away from home. She was picked up by a sex traﬃcker
who advertised her on Backpage.com, an online marketplace,
and repeatedly sold her into prostitution. G.G.’s mother
searched for her daughter. Eventually, in the summer of 2016,
her mother found photos of G.G.—in Backpage’s online ads
for escorts. Backpage referred her mother to the National Cen-
ter for Missing and Exploited Children but did not take down
the advertisement.
   The traﬃcking and advertising of G.G. on Backpage was
not an isolated or even an unusual incident. When Backpage
was created in 2004, it initially served as a marketplace for a
variety of goods and services. By 2008, however, plaintiﬀs
4                                                          No. 22-2621

allege, Backpage “had been publicly identiﬁed by law en-
forcement, United States Attorneys General, and every state
Governor as the biggest and most notorious sex traﬃcking
and pimping website in the United States.”
    Backpage’s sextraﬃcking was not limited to adults. Dur-
ing the three years prior to G.G.’s traﬃcking, Backpage gen-
erated more than 99% of its revenue from “adult advertise-
ments,” including those oﬀering minors for sex. In 2010, the
National Association of Attorneys General publicly described
Backpage as a “hub” of human traﬃcking, “especially the
traﬃcking of minors.” In October 2016, just a few months af-
ter her mother found the advertisement for G.G. on Backpage,
California authorities arrested and charged the chief execu-
tive oﬃcer of Backpage, Carl Ferrer, for pimping minors. In
April 2018, Ferrer and Backpage entered into plea agreements
with the United States Department of Justice in which they
admitted that Backpage had operated as a site for the sale of
sex since 2004. A few days later, in response to a felony charge
and on the advice of counsel, Backpage confessed in a Texas
court that it “knowingly receive[d] a beneﬁt from participat-
ing in a venture that involved the traﬃcking … of a child
younger than 18 years of age, and … [had] caused [the child]
to engage in or become the victim of conduct prohibited by”
Texas Penal Code Section 43.05 (“Compelling Prostitution”). 1
The United States Department of Justice seized Backpage and
shut it down.

    1 See Judicial Confession and Stipulation and Certification of Discov-

ery, Texas v. Backpage.com, No. 18FC-1653C (Tex. Dist. Ct. Apr. 9, 2018),
available at https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/historical/1706/.
No. 22-2621                                                   5

    According to plaintiﬀs, Salesforce “entered into the ﬁrst of
several lucrative contracts with Backpage” back in 2013, years
after the nature of Backpage’s business was widely known,
and about three years before G.G. was traﬃcked. The con-
tracts with Salesforce were designed to “facilitate and sup-
port” Backpage’s “exponential growth” and to give Backpage
“the ability to keep pace with increasing customer demand
and scale its platform into an international sex-traﬃcking
hub.”
    Salesforce did not merely sell Backpage an oﬀ-the-shelf
software package. It instead sold Backpage software designed
speciﬁcally for Backpage and provided aﬃrmative, “person-
alized support.” With those products and support, Salesforce
helped Backpage operate its business, manage relationships
with existing customers, market itself to new customers, and
improve proﬁtability. “Salesforce sold Backpage targeted so-
lutions addressed to the needs of Backpage’s business” and
provided “active, ongoing support” that was “tailored” to
Backpage’s needs.
    Toward that end, at least ﬁve times between November
2013 and April 2017, Salesforce consulted with Backpage, in-
cluding its CEO, to learn about the business and “to assess its
operational needs.” With Salesforce’s help in the form of new
software, marketing technology, and personalized opera-
tional support, Backpage was able to “collect detailed, in-
depth customer data and use the data to streamline commu-
nications and overall business practices.” When Backpage
faced imminent seizure by the United States government and
wanted to “establish and maintain a duplicate copy of the
Backpage operations system and platform” so that it could
“move and operate its business overseas,” Salesforce
6                                                              No. 22-2621

“facilitated this system reorganization and provided the tech-
nical infrastructure” to do so.
   In short, plaintiﬀs allege, the business relationship be-
tween Backpage and Salesforce was successful. It enabled
Backpage “to scale its operations and increase the traﬃcking
conducted” through its site. With Salesforce’s help, Backpage
grew “to become the dominant force in online sex traﬃcking.”
Backpage experienced “unprecedented growth” in both its
business and proﬁts and was transformed from a “small …
company with a handful of employees to an international
powerhouse with over 250 employees spanning three conti-
nents.” From the beginning of 2008 through the end of 2010,
Backpage’s gross revenues totaled $46 million. In 2012 alone,
Backpage’s gross revenue was $71 million. And from January
2013 through May 2015, Backpage’s gross revenue climbed to
approximately $346 million, nearly $340 million of which was
generated from adult advertising. 2 As Backpage’s business
expanded and its proﬁts grew, “the scope of work covered by
the Salesforce contracts,” as well as Salesforce’s proﬁts from
those contracts, also grew. Salesforce stopped doing business
with Backpage only when it was shut down by the federal
government in April 2018.
    Two years later, in April 2020, G.G. and her mother ﬁled
this lawsuit in federal court seeking to hold Salesforce liable

    2 The allegations in the complaint do not specify what portion of Back-

page’s gross revenues were generated through the trafficking of minors,
but at this stage of the litigation, we may infer in plaintiffs’ favor that the
trafficking of minors constituted a significant source of revenue, particu-
larly in light of the allegation that Backpage had been deemed a “hub” of
“human trafficking, especially the trafficking of minors” by the National As-
sociation of Attorneys General.
No. 22-2621                                                      7

under Section 1595, as well as state common law theories, for
the traﬃcking of G.G. In October 2021, plaintiﬀs ﬁled their
third amended complaint, correcting for various deﬁciencies,
abandoning the state-law claims, and adding Backpage as a
defendant. In short order, Salesforce moved to dismiss plain-
tiﬀs’ complaint for failure to state a claim.
    After plaintiﬀs voluntarily dismissed defendant Backpage
in February 2022, the district court granted Salesforce’s mo-
tion to dismiss. G.G. v. Salesforce.com, Inc., 603 F. Supp. 3d 626,
630 (N.D. Ill. 2022). The district court reasoned ﬁrst that plain-
tiﬀs had pled themselves out of court by alleging facts that
showed Salesforce was entitled to the protection of 47 U.S.C.
§ 230. Id. at 633, 637, 639. Alternatively, the district court
found that plaintiﬀs had failed to allege a plausible claim un-
der 18 U.S.C. § 1595. Id. at 643. Plaintiﬀs moved to alter or
amend the judgment under Rule 59(e), and the district court
denied the motion. Plaintiﬀs then appealed.
II. Analysis
   A. Legal Standard
    We review de novo both a district court’s legal conclusions
and its dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim un-
der Rule 12(b)(6). Wirth v. RLJ Dental, S.C., 59 F.4th 270, 272
(7th Cir. 2023) (legal conclusions); Proft v. Raoul, 944 F.3d 686,
690 (7th Cir. 2019) (dismissal). We treat the complaint’s factual
allegations as true and draw factual inferences in the plain-
tiﬀs’ favor. Boogaard v. Nat’l Hockey League, 891 F.3d 289, 290–
91 (7th Cir. 2018). A complaint needs to present only “a short
and plain statement” of the basis for a claim. Fed. R. Civ. P.
8(a)(2). To avoid dismissal, the factual allegations in the com-
plaint need not prove the claim. They need to show only that
8                                                    No. 22-2621

the claim is “plausible on its face” and that if the allegations
are true, the plaintiﬀ is entitled to relief. Roldan v. Stroud, 52
F.4th 335, 339 (7th Cir. 2022), quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v.
Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). This pleading standard is
not demanding, asking that plaintiﬀs allege “only enough
facts” to “nudge[ ] their claims across the line from conceiva-
ble to plausible.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570.
   To be plausible rather than merely conceivable means that
the complaint’s “factual content … allows the court to draw
the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the
misconduct alleged.” Firestone Financial Corp. v. Meyer, 796
F.3d 822, 826 (7th Cir. 2015), quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S.
662, 678 (2009). The factual allegations must present “more
than a sheer possibility” that the defendant’s conduct is un-
lawful, Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, but a complaint should survive
a motion to dismiss “even if it strikes a savvy judge that actual
proof of those facts is improbable, and that a recovery is very
remote and unlikely.” Alam v. Miller Brewing Co., 709 F.3d 662,
666 (7th Cir. 2013), quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556.
   We explain next in Part B how plaintiﬀs have alleged a vi-
able claim under 18 U.S.C. § 1595, addressing defendant
Salesforce’s counterarguments as we go. We then turn in Part
C to Salesforce’s attempt to establish a defense under 47
U.S.C. § 230.
    B. Plausibly Alleging a Claim Under 18 U.S.C. § 1595
    Plaintiﬀs seek relief under Section 1595(a), which creates a
civil cause of action for victims of Section 1591 of Title 18: “An
individual who is a victim of a violation of this chapter may
No. 22-2621                                                              9

bring a civil action … .” 3 We ﬁrst ask whether plaintiﬀs have
alleged that G.G. is the victim of a criminal violation of Sec-
tion 1591, which has the title “Sex traﬃcking of children or by
force, fraud, or coercion.” At the time of G.G.’s traﬃcking,
Section 1591(a) provided in relevant part:
        (a) Whoever knowingly— (1) in or aﬀecting in-
        terstate or foreign commerce … recruits, entices,
        harbors, transports, provides, obtains, adver-
        tises, maintains, patronizes, or solicits by any
        means a person; or (2) beneﬁts, ﬁnancially or by
        receiving anything of value, from participation
        in a venture which has engaged in an act de-
        scribed in violation of paragraph (1), knowing,
        or, except where the act constituting the viola-
        tion of paragraph (1) is advertising, in reckless
        disregard of the fact, that means of force, threats
        of force, fraud, coercion described in subsection
        (e)(2), or any combination of such means will be
        used to cause the person to engage in a commer-
        cial sex act, or that the person has not attained
        the age of 18 years and will be caused to engage
        in a commercial sex act, shall be punished as
        provided in subsection (b).
18 U.S.C. § 1591(a) (2015).

    3 The referenced chapter is Chapter 77 of Title 18, which also includes

criminal prohibitions on peonage, slavery, forced labor, and other forms
of human trafficking, so Section 1595 offers a civil remedy for victims of
those crimes, as well. We concentrate here on sex trafficking under Section
1591.
10                                                   No. 22-2621

   To prove a criminal violation of Section 1591, the govern-
ment must prove that the defendant, with the requisite state
of mind, either (1) engaged in one of the listed acts of sex traf-
ﬁcking or (2) beneﬁtted from participating in a venture that
engaged in one of those acts.
    Plaintiﬀs have plausibly alleged that G.G. was a victim of
violations of Section 1591. Obviously, there is G.G.’s street-
level traﬃcker, who plaintiﬀs allege “used a combination of
force, fraud, coercion, enticement, alcohol and drugs to
cause” G.G., who was a minor, to “engage” repeatedly “in
commercial sex.” On these allegations, G.G.’s street-level traf-
ﬁcker could be criminally liable under Section 1591(a)(1):
“Whoever knowingly … recruits, entices, harbors, transports,
provides, obtains, [or] advertises … a person …, knowing …
that means of force, threats of force, fraud, coercion …, or any
combination of such means will be used to cause the person
to engage in a commercial sex act.”
    Plaintiﬀs also allege that Backpage violated Section 1591
by advertising G.G. for sale both before and after learning that
she was under the age of 18. On such allegations, Backpage
could be subject to criminal liability under both Section
1591(a)(1) and (a)(2). By “knowingly … advertis[ing]” G.G.,
“knowing, or … in reckless disregard of the fact … that [G.G.
had] not attained the age of 18 years and [would] be caused
to engage in a commercial sex act,” Backpage violated Section
1591(a)(1). And by “knowingly … beneﬁt[ing] … from partic-
ipation in” the street-level traﬃcker’s “venture which [was]
engaged in” acts that violated Section 1591(a)(1), “knowing,
or … in reckless disregard of the fact … that [G.G. had] not
attained the age of 18 years and [would] be caused to engage
No. 22-2621                                                                 11

in a commercial sex act,” Backpage violated Section
1591(a)(2).
    According to these allegations, then, G.G. was a victim of
multiple violations of both Sections 1591(a)(1) and 1591(a)(2)
at the hands of both her street-level traﬃcker and Backpage,
so G.G. is a proper plaintiﬀ under Section 1595. The statute’s
remaining elements determine whether Salesforce is a proper
defendant.
    Section 1595 creates two kinds of civil liability: perpetrator
liability and participant liability. First, since it was ﬁrst en-
acted, the statute has allowed the victim to sue “the perpetra-
tor.” 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a). Under a theory of perpetrator liabil-
ity, G.G. could have sued either her street-level traﬃcker or
Backpage, but neither is a defendant in this action. Second,
since the 2008 amendment, the statute has allowed the victim
to sue “whoever knowingly beneﬁts, ﬁnancially or by receiv-
ing anything of value from participation in a venture which
that person knew or should have known has engaged in an
act in violation of this chapter,” which includes Section 1591.
18 U.S.C. § 1595(a). Plaintiﬀs here seek to hold Salesforce lia-
ble as such a participant. 4

    4 Courts unanimously agree that a civil defendant under Section 1595

need not have violated Section 1591. E.g., Ricchio v. McLean, 853 F.3d 553,
555–57 (1st Cir. 2017) (Souter, J.) (Section 1595 claim plausibly alleged
based on violation of Section 1591 committed by traﬃcker who was not
the civil defendant and implicitly approving of view that civil defendant
need not have violated Section 1591); see also Lundstrom v. Choice Hotels
Int’l, Inc., No. 21-cv-00619-PAB-SKC, 2021 WL 5579117, at *4 (D. Col. Nov.
30, 2021); S.Y. v. Naples Hotel Co., 476 F. Supp. 3d 1251, 1256 (M.D. Fla.
2020); S.J. v. Choice Hotels Int’l, Inc., 473 F. Supp. 3d 147, 152–53 (E.D.N.Y.
2020); A.C. v. Red Roof Inns, Inc., No. 2:19-cv-4965, 2020 WL 3256261, at *4
(S.D. Ohio June 16, 2020); A.B. v. Marriott Int’l, Inc., 455 F. Supp. 3d 171,
12                                                            No. 22-2621

    Under a theory of participant liability, a plaintiﬀ like G.G.
who is a victim of a criminal violation must allege and ulti-
mately prove that (1) a venture has engaged in an act in vio-
lation of Section 1591, (2) the defendant knew or should have
known that the venture had violated Section 1591, (3) the de-
fendant participated in that venture, and (4) the defendant
knowingly beneﬁted from its participation. 5
         1. A Venture Which Has Engaged in an Act in Violation of
            Section 1591
    The ﬁrst element is the existence of “a venture which …
has engaged in an act in violation” of Section 1591. 18 U.S.C.
§ 1595(a). That Backpage committed multiple violations of
Section 1591 is not in question. As discussed, Backpage vio-
lated Sections 1591(a)(1) and (a)(2) when it advertised G.G. for
sale after learning that she was a minor and ﬁnancially bene-
ﬁted from participation in her street-level traﬃcking. 6

180–81, 182 (E.D. Pa. 2020); Doe S.W. v. Lorain-Elyria Motel, Inc., No. 2:19-
CV-1194, 2020 WL 1244192, at *4 (S.D. Ohio Mar. 16, 2020); H.H. v. G6 Hos-
pitality, LLC, No. 2:19-CV-755, 2019 WL 6682152, at *2 (S.D. Ohio Dec. 6,
2019); M.A. v. Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Inc., 425 F. Supp. 3d 959, 964 (S.D.
Ohio 2019); Jean-Charles v. Perlitz, 937 F. Supp. 2d 276, 287 (D. Conn. 2013);
M.A. ex rel. P.K. v. Village Voice Media Holdings, LLC, 809 F. Supp. 2d 1041,
1056 (E.D. Mo. 2011).
     5 We have reorganized the most common summaries of these ele-

ments to follow a logical sequence rather than the sequence of the phrases
in Section 1595. We hope this logical sequence may be useful in instructing
juries about the issues they will need to consider in trials under Section
1595 against alleged participants in sex-trafficking ventures.
     6 In addition to these violations with respect to G.G., plaintiﬀs have

alleged that Backpage’s business was substantially devoted to criminal sex
traﬃcking. During the years when Backpage and Salesforce were working
together, Backpage had engaged and was continuing to engage in
No. 22-2621                                                               13

   Salesforce argues that plaintiﬀs have failed to allege that it
participated in a venture that has violated Section 1591. Ap-
pellee’s Br. at 53–65. That argument challenges two distinct
elements, as we understand the statute, which we have la-
beled as element (1), the existence of a venture that violated
Section 1591, and element (3), the defendant’s participation in
the venture.
   Plaintiﬀs have suﬃciently alleged the existence of a ven-
ture that violated Section 1591. The text of Section 1595 does
not say “sex-traﬃcking venture,” but only “venture.” 18
U.S.C. § 1595(a). In other words, “venture” is not described in
criminal terms. Indeed, it would make little sense if it did. The
language that follows, “which … has engaged in an act in vi-
olation of this chapter,” does that work, requiring the ven-
ture’s criminality.
    While Section 1595 does not deﬁne the term “venture,”
Section 1591’s deﬁnition cuts against construing a “venture”
narrowly as limited to a venture that is primarily a sex-traf-
ﬁcking venture. Section 1591 deﬁnes “venture” as “any group
of two or more individuals associated in fact, whether or not
a legal entity.” 18 U.S.C. § 1591(e)(5). While we decline to

uncounted violations of Section 1591. When they entered into plea agree-
ments with the Department of Justice in April 2018, Backpage and its CEO
admitted that Backpage had operated as a site for the sale of sex since 2004.
In the three years before G.G.’s traﬃcking in 2016—when Salesforce was
facilitating the expansion of Backpage’s business—Backpage generated
more than 99% of its revenue from adult advertising. Not all that activity
was necessarily criminal, but plaintiﬀs have plausibly alleged that at least
a signiﬁcant portion of Backpage’s business involved criminal sex traﬃck-
ing, “especially the traﬃcking of minors.” It is reasonable to infer that the
Department of Justice shut down Backpage because it had violated federal
criminal sex-traﬃcking laws.
14                                                            No. 22-2621

import Section 1591’s deﬁnition into Section 1595, we think it
safe to assume that Congress did not intend “venture” in Sec-
tion 1595, which establishes civil liability, to be any more de-
manding than “venture” in Section 1591, which establishes
criminal liability. See Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U.S. 54, 65 (1968) (ap-
plying “canon of construction that remedial statutes should
be liberally construed”). 7 Because Congress did not deﬁne a
“venture” under Section 1591 as necessarily or primarily in-
volving criminal conduct, we will not impose such a require-
ment under Section 1595.
   In short, we agree with the district court that the relevant
“venture” under Section 1595 need not be “speciﬁcally a sex
traﬃcking venture.” G.G., 603 F. Supp. 3d at 644, quoting
M.A. v. Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Inc., 425 F. Supp. 3d 959,
970 (S.D. Ohio 2019). Rather, as the Eleventh Circuit has
acknowledged, the alleged venture can be a “commercial ven-
ture[ ]” like running or expanding a business. See Doe #1 v.
Red Roof Inns, Inc., 21 F.4th 714, 727 (11th Cir. 2021) (emphasis
added). While a “venture” can certainly run the gamut from
an isolated act of sex traﬃcking to an international sex-

     7 In declining to import Section 1591’s deﬁnition of “venture” into Sec-

tion 1595, we recognize that the “‘normal rule of statutory construction’
[is] that words repeated in diﬀerent parts of the same statute generally
have the same meaning.” Law v. Siegel, 571 U.S. 415, 422 (2014), quoting
Dep’t of Revenue of Oregon v. ACF Industries, Inc., 510 U.S. 332, 342 (1994).
But Section 1591’s deﬁnitions are expressly limited to Section 1591 itself.
18 U.S.C. § 1591(e) (“In this section …”). That express limitation gives us
good “reason to depart from” the normal rule of construction, see Law, 571
U.S. at 422, in addition to making sure we give eﬀect to the separate lan-
guage requiring “an act in violation of this chapter.”
No. 22-2621                                                                  15

traﬃcking enterprise, it can also be a business whose primary
focus is not on sex traﬃcking. 8
   Plaintiﬀs have alleged such a venture here. “By 2013,”
plaintiﬀs allege, “Backpage found itself in need of a partner
who could facilitate and support [Backpage’s] exponential
growth.” The “venture” was Backpage’s business itself, in-
cluding the “growth,” “expansion,” and proﬁtability of that
business.
        2. Salesforce’s Constructive Knowledge That the Venture
           Had Engaged in an Act in Violation of Section 1591
    The next question is whether plaintiﬀs have plausibly al-
leged that Salesforce knew or should have known that Back-
page’s venture had engaged in acts in violation of Section
1591. Section 1595 provides for participant liability where the
defendant “knew or should have known” that the “venture …
has engaged in an act in violation” of Section 1591. 18 U.S.C.
§ 1595(a). 9

    8 Nearly every court agrees. See Lundstrom, 2021 WL 5579117, at *5–6;

Doe v. Twitter, Inc., 555 F. Supp. 3d 889, 916–18 (N.D. Cal. 2021); J.L. v. Best
Western Int’l, Inc., 521 F. Supp. 3d 1048, 1062 (D. Colo. 2021); A.B. v. Hilton
Worldwide Holdings Inc., 484 F. Supp. 3d 921, 937 (D. Or. 2020); S.Y., 476 F.
Supp. 3d at 1256; S.J., 473 F. Supp. 3d at 152–53; A.C., 2020 WL 3256261, at
*6; Doe S.W., 2020 WL 1244192, at *6; H.H., 2019 WL 6682152, at *4; Jean-
Charles, 937 F. Supp. 2d at 288. On the other side of this question, see Geiss
v. Weinstein Co. Holdings LLC, 383 F. Supp. 3d 156, 168–70 (S.D.N.Y. 2019)
(concluding that the “participation giving rise to the beneﬁt must be par-
ticipation in a sex-traﬃcking venture, not participation in other activities en-
gaged in by the sex traﬃckers that do not further the sex-traﬃcking aspect
of their venture”).
    9 This is a negligence standard, and all courts agree that a defendant

under Section 1595 must have had at least constructive knowledge that
the “venture” in question has engaged in an act in violation of Section 1591
16                                                               No. 22-2621

   Plaintiﬀs have plausibly alleged that Salesforce at least
should have known that Backpage had repeatedly violated
Section 1591 before Salesforce started working with Backpage
and that Backpage was continuing to violate Section 1591 dur-
ing their multi-year relationship.
    According to the allegations in the complaint, by 2008—
ﬁve years before Salesforce entered into its ﬁrst contract with
Backpage—“law enforcement, United States Attorneys Gen-
eral, and every state Governor” had “publicly identiﬁed”
Backpage “as the biggest and most notorious sex traﬃcking
and pimping website in the United States.” In 2010, 21 state
attorneys general called on Backpage “to shut down its adult
services section.” After a First Circuit decision in March 2016,
Jane Doe No. 1 v. Backpage.com, LLC, 817 F.3d 12 (1st Cir. 2016),
aﬀorded Backpage protection under Section 230 of the Com-
munications Decency Act, the Senate investigated Backpage.
H.R. Rep. No. 115-572, pt. 1, at 3–5 (Feb. 20, 2018). Nationwide
news coverage identiﬁed Backpage as “the leading platform

in order for participant liability to attach. See Red Roof Inns, 21 F.4th at 725;
Lundstrom, 2021 WL 5579117, at *5; Doe v. Mindgeek USA Inc., 558 F. Supp.
3d 828, 839 (C.D. Cal. 2021); Twitter, Inc., 555 F. Supp. 3d at 925; J.L., 521 F.
Supp. 3d at 1062, 1076; H.G. v. Inter-Continental Hotels Corp., 489 F. Supp.
3d 697, 704–05 (E.D. Mich. 2020); M.L. v. Craigslist Inc., No. C19-6153 BHS-
TLF, 2020 WL 5494903, at *5–6 (W.D. Wash. Sept. 11, 2020); Hilton World-
wide Holdings Inc., 484 F. Supp. 3d at 937–39; J.B. v. G6 Hospitality, LLC, No.
19-cv-07848-HSG, 2020 WL 4901196, at *8–9 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 20, 2020); S.Y.,
476 F. Supp. 3d at 1256; B.M. v. Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Inc., No. 20-cv-
00656-BLF, 2020 WL 4368214, at *5–6 (N.D. Cal. July 30, 2020); S.J., 473 F.
Supp. 3d at 152–54; A.C., 2020 WL 3256261, at *4–5; Marriott Int’l, Inc., 455
F. Supp. 3d at 189; Doe 3 v. Red Roof Inns, Inc., No. 1:19-cv-03843-WMR,
2020 WL 1872333, at *3 (N.D. Ga. April 13, 2020); Doe S.W., 2020 WL
1244192, at *5–6; H.H., 2019 WL 6682152, at *3; M.A., 425 F. Supp. 3d at
965–68.
No. 22-2621                                                 17

for the facilitation of sex traﬃcking and other forms of human
degradation.” Salesforce’s hometown newspaper, the San
Francisco Chronicle, published no fewer than 400 prominent
news articles about Backpage between 2009 and 2017, includ-
ing several in 2012 linking Backpage to child sex-traﬃcking.
A 2013 article revealed that the FBI was monitoring Backpage
after rescuing more than 100 children from forced prostitu-
tion. These facts about its customer should have been known
to Salesforce.
    Apart from this public information, plaintiﬀs are entitled
to a reasonable inference at this stage of the case that, based
on Salesforce’s relationship with Backpage, Salesforce either
“knew or should have known” that at least a substantial part
of Backpage’s business was illegal sextraﬃcking, including
traﬃcking of children. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b)
allows plaintiﬀs to plead knowledge “generally.” Plaintiﬀs
have more than met their burden under this standard, alleg-
ing facts tending to show with greater speciﬁcity than is re-
quired at this stage that Salesforce at least should have known
the nature of Backpage’s business. At least constructive
knowledge may be reasonably inferred from the allegations
that Salesforce repeatedly consulted with Backpage “to assess
its operational needs,” designed “targeted solutions ad-
dressed to” those needs, and provided active, “tailored,” and
ongoing support as Backpage worked to expand its business
and scale its operations. As the district court wrote, part of
Salesforce’s support for Backpage “require[d] Salesforce to
analyze content … provided by Backpage about its custom-
ers.” G.G., 603 F. Supp. 3d at 635 (emphasis removed). While
it might be possible that Salesforce’s penny did not actually
drop during its dealings with Backpage, plaintiﬀs are entitled
to an inference that Salesforce at least should have known that
18                                                   No. 22-2621

Backpage was engaged in criminal sextraﬃcking on a sub-
stantial scale. Plaintiﬀs’ allegations satisfy Section 1595’s con-
structive-knowledge requirement.
    Salesforce disagrees, arguing that, under “the plain text”
of Sections 1591 and 1595, a participant defendant must have
had constructive knowledge of the speciﬁc victim of sex-traf-
ﬁcking, the plaintiﬀ suing under Section 1595. Salesforce ar-
gues that even if it knew or should have known that the ven-
ture had violated Section 1591 with respect to other victims, it
is oﬀ the civil hook unless plaintiﬀs can allege and later prove
that it should have known about the traﬃcking of G.G. in par-
ticular. Salesforce draws this conclusion from Section 1595’s
use of the phrases “a venture” and “an act.” 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a)
(2008) (“[W]hoever knowingly beneﬁts, ﬁnancially or by re-
ceiving anything of value from participation in a venture
which that person knew or should have known has engaged
in an act in violation of this chapter.”) (emphasis added).
    We are not persuaded that “a venture” and “an act” mean
“the victim.” First, as explained above, “a venture” need not
be primarily a sex-traﬃcking venture, so it need not be, as
Salesforce suggests, “a particular” sex-traﬃcking venture.
Even if it were, it would take an additional inferential leap to
conclude that Section 1595 requires knowledge of a particular
victim of that particular venture.
    As for “an act,” Salesforce’s reading is contrary to the stat-
utory text and overlooks diﬀerences between the two sec-
tions. If Congress had meant in Section 1595 that the partici-
pant must have had actual or constructive knowledge of the
speciﬁc victim, it could have simply said so. It did not. Facing
statutory text that does not say what it prefers, Salesforce asks
us to make two interpretive moves to reach that result. First,
No. 22-2621                                                   19

Salesforce asks us to read “an act” of sextraﬃcking as “the act”
of victimization that allowed the plaintiﬀ to bring suit under
Section 1595. Salesforce then asks us to assume that
knowledge of the act means knowledge of the speciﬁc victim.
This goes two bridges too far. We see no reason to rewrite the
statutory text by substituting “the” for “an.” Even if we were
willing to take that ﬁrst step, we would still see no reason to
require knowledge of a particular act to require knowledge of
the victim’s identity. Salesforce is arguing, in eﬀect, that the
larger the sex-traﬃcking venture and the more extensive its
participation in the venture—and so the less likely it is to have
known the speciﬁcs of individual victim—the harder it
should be for a victim to obtain civil relief.
    The cases Salesforce cites to support its argument—all
hotel sex-traﬃcking cases—simply do not support requiring
knowledge of the speciﬁc victim. In S.J. v. Choice Hotels
International, Inc., 473 F. Supp. 3d 147 (E.D.N.Y. 2020), for
example, the court found meaning in “a venture” and “an act”
as used in Section 1595, but not the meaning Salesforce tries
to extract. Rather, the court relied on these phrases to point
out that even “knowledge or willful blindness of a general sex
traﬃcking problem in low-budget lodgings” could not
plausibly show “knowledge of a speciﬁc sex traﬃcking
venture” at the hotels the defendant had franchised. Id. at 154.
As the court correctly observed, to allow allegations that a
civil defendant was aware of sporadic sex traﬃcking in low-
budget hotels generally to show constructive knowledge of a
particular sex traﬃcking venture “unjustiﬁably bridges the
scienter gap between ‘should have known’ and ‘might have
been able to guess.’” Id. In other words, the civil defendant
needed to have constructive knowledge of a non-generalized
and non-sporadic—a “particular”—venture, but the court did
20                                                              No. 22-2621

not go so far as to require knowledge of a particular victim.
Id. 10
    Other cases on which Salesforce relies are not persuasive
here because they involved the traﬃcking of only one victim.
In such cases, knowledge of the speciﬁc victim goes hand-in-
glove with knowledge of the “venture.” E.g., Lundstrom, 2021
WL 5579117, at *1–2, *6–8; B.M., 2020 WL 4368214, at *5–6. Be-
cause the ventures and the victims were one and the same,
these cases do not stand for the proposition that a civil de-
fendant who participated in a venture engaged in sex traﬃck-
ing on a substantial scale must have had constructive
knowledge of the speciﬁc victim. 11
   If such speciﬁcity were required, Section 1595 would be
severely undermined in some of the most egregious cases. A
company like Salesforce could simply bury its head in the
sand with respect to individual victims. It could work, for ex-
ample, only with high-level data on behalf of a venture that
the company knows or should know is engaged in illegal sex
traﬃcking on a large scale. By way of analogy, a taxi service

     10 Likewise, in Doe 3, another case cited by Salesforce, the court found

that allegations “that customers [had] complained about prostitution” tak-
ing place, generally, at the franchisors’ hotels was, on its own, insuﬃcient
to meet Section 1595’s constructive knowledge requirement for the fran-
chisor itself, as distinct from individual franchisees. 2020 WL 1872333, at
*1, *3 (granting motions to dismiss with leave to amend).
     11 Salesforce’s remaining cases also do not help it. In all of them, the

civil defendants did have constructive knowledge of the speciﬁc victim.
See S.Y., 476 F. Supp. 3d at 1257; Marriott Int’l, Inc., 455 F. Supp. 3d at 181,
188, 192–94. The fact that constructive knowledge of the speciﬁc victim
was shown and suﬃcient does not mean that the knowledge was also nec-
essary.
No. 22-2621                                                               21

transporting traﬃcking victims on behalf of traﬃckers could
claim that it lacked constructive knowledge where it knew
that it was generally transporting traﬃcking victims so long
as the drivers were shielded from seeing who speciﬁcally was
in the back of their taxis. Or consider a prostitution ring that
hires a construction company to build a better brothel, one
that attracts more customers and is better insulated from the
prying eyes of law enforcement. The contractor knows that
the business is generally engaged in sex traﬃcking, but so
long as the contractor does not know of any individual victim,
it would be insulated from civil liability. In other words, the
larger the sex-traﬃcking venture, the less likely a victim
would be able to prove suﬃcient knowledge. Nothing in the
statutory text requires such an odd result. 12
    In short, we agree with the majority of courts that have
addressed Section 1595’s constructive-knowledge require-
ment that the statutory text does not require allegations and
ultimately proof that the defendant knew or should have
known of the speciﬁc victim who has brought the civil action.

    12 In Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh, 143 S. Ct. 1206 (2023), the Supreme Court

addressed secondary civil liability for acts of international terrorism under
a statute that requires proof of criminal mens rea for aiding and abetting.
Even under that standard, which is more demanding than Section 1595,
Twitter recognized that a defendant might provide a criminal enterprise
with aid “so intentional and systematic” that the defendant would be lia-
ble without having known of the specific crime, let alone its foreseeable
consequences, extending even to murder as a foreseeable consequence of
a burglary. 143 S. Ct. at 1224, discussing Halberstam v. Welch, 705 F.2d 472
(D.C. Cir. 1983), which Congress had cited with approval in enacting the
terrorism statute. As we discuss in more detail below, plaintiffs here have
alleged that Salesforce gave aid to Backpage that can fairly be described
as intentional and systematic, with at least constructive knowledge of
Backpage’s sex trafficking of minors.
22                                                             No. 22-2621

To state a claim under Section 1595, a plaintiﬀ needs to allege
plausibly that the defendant had constructive knowledge that
a venture generally has violated Section 1591. Knowledge of
the speciﬁc victim, let alone knowledge of her identity, cf. post
at 45, is not required. Plaintiﬀs here have therefore suﬃciently
alleged constructive knowledge under Section 1595. 13
         3. Participation
    The next question is whether plaintiﬀs have suﬃciently al-
leged that Salesforce, with that constructive knowledge, par-
ticipated in Backpage’s venture. They have.
    Congress has not deﬁned “participation” under Section
1595. Section 1591 deﬁnes “participation in a venture” as
“knowingly assisting, supporting, or facilitating a violation”
of Section 1591(a)(1). 18 U.S.C. § 1591(e)(4) (April 2018, De-
cember 2018). We agree with the Eleventh Circuit that we
should not import that deﬁnition into Section 1595. See Red
Roof Inns, 21 F.4th at 724. 14 Still, Section 1591’s deﬁnition can

     13 See M.L., 2020 WL 5494903, at *5–6 (explicitly rejecting the conten-

tion that the civil defendant must have had constructive knowledge of the
victim’s “speciﬁc traﬃcking, rather than general, abstract knowledge of po-
tential traﬃcking”); S.Y., 476 F. Supp. 3d at 1257; A.C., 2020 WL 3256261,
at *4–5; Marriott Int’l, Inc., 455 F. Supp. 3d at 181, 188, 192–94; H.H., 2019
WL 6682152, at *3; Doe S.W., 2020 WL 1244192, at *5–6; M.A., 425 F. Supp.
3d at 965–68. But see Mindgeek USA Inc., 558 F. Supp. 3d at 838–39; Twitter,
Inc., 555 F. Supp. 3d at 925; J.L., 521 F. Supp. 3d at 1068, 1072–73, 1076–77.
     14 As with “venture,” Section 1591(e) limits definition of “participa-

tion in a venture” expressly to Section 1591. In addition, “we must nor-
mally seek to construe Congress’s work ‘so that effect is given to all pro-
visions, so that no part will be inoperative or superfluous, void or insig-
nificant.’” Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo v. Texas, 142 S. Ct. 1929, 1939 (2022), quot-
ing Corley v. United States, 556 U.S. 303, 314 (2009). As the Eleventh Circuit
has observed, if we incorporate Section 1591’s “knowingly” scienter into
No. 22-2621                                                                 23

establish the upper limits of “participation” under Section
1595. As with “venture,” we should “liberally” construe “par-
ticipation” so that the civil remedy does not demand more of
the plaintiﬀ than a criminal prosecution demands of the gov-
ernment. See Peyton, 391 U.S. at 65. “Participating” does not
therefore require more than “assisting, supporting, or facili-
tating” a venture that violates Section 1591. 18 U.S.C.
§ 1591(e)(4) (April 2018, December 2018).
    Mindful of that ceiling, we agree with the district court
that “participation” does not require “direct participation in
the sex traﬃcking.” G.G., 603 F. Supp. 3d at 644, quoting M.A.,
425 F. Supp. 3d at 970. 15 While direct involvement in sex

Section 1595, we render “superfluous” Section 1595’s “‘should have
known’ language.” Red Roof Inns, 21 F.4th at 724. Accord, Lundstrom, 2021
WL 5579117, at *5–6; Mindgeek USA Inc., 558 F. Supp. 3d at 836; Twitter,
Inc., 555 F. Supp. 3d at 916–18; J.L., 521 F. Supp. 3d at 1062; Hilton World-
wide Holdings Inc., 484 F. Supp. 3d at 937; J.B., 2020 WL 4901196, at *8; S.Y.,
476 F. Supp. 3d at 1256–57; S.J., 473 F. Supp. 3d at 153; A.C., 2020 WL
3256261, at *6–7; J.C. v. Choice Hotels Int’l, Inc., No. 20-cv-00155-WHO, 2020
WL 3035794, at *1 n.1 (N.D. Cal. June 5, 2020); Marriott Int’l, Inc., 455 F.
Supp. 3d at 183–88; Doe S.W., 2020 WL 1244192, at *6; H.H., 2019 WL
6682152, at *4; M.A., 425 F. Supp. 3d at 968–70 (declining to import Section
1591’s definition of “participation in a venture” into Section 1595 because
doing so would belie the text of Section 1591(e), which “purports to only
apply to ‘this section,’” and would “void the ‘known or should have
known’ language” of Section 1595). Contra, Geiss, 383 F. Supp. 3d at 168–
70 (relying on United States v. Afyare, 632 F. App’x 272, 286 (6th Cir. 2016),
to import Section 1591’s definition of “participation in a venture” into Sec-
tion 1595); Canosa v. Ziff, No. 18 Civ. 4115 (PAE), 2019 WL 498865, at *24
(S.D.N.Y. Jan. 28, 2019) (same); Noble v. Weinstein, 335 F. Supp. 3d 504, 523–
24 (S.D.N.Y. 2018) (same).
    15 As one district court put it, a participant defendant need not have

committed “some ‘overt act’ that furthers the sex traﬃcking aspect of the
venture” or have “associated” with the sex traﬃcker “for the purpose of
24                                                             No. 22-2621

traﬃcking itself (e.g., transporting victims, providing hotel
rooms) would satisfy Section 1595’s “participation” element,
direct involvement goes beyond what the statutory text re-
quires. Since the “venture” in question need not be primarily
a sex-traﬃcking venture and the civil defendant itself need
not have committed a criminal violation of Section 1591, “par-
ticipation in” that venture need not involve direct participa-
tion in the sex traﬃcking itself. It is the venture that must vi-
olate Section 1591, and not the participant.
   We read “participation” in accord with our “ordinary un-
derstanding of culpable assistance to a wrongdoer,” which re-
quires only “a desire to promote the wrongful venture’s suc-
cess,” Doe v. GTE Corp., 347 F.3d 655, 659 (7th Cir. 2003),
though Section 1595 does not require actual knowledge of
criminal wrongdoing. We agree with the district court that a
plaintiﬀ may suﬃciently allege such “culpable assistance” by

furthering the sex traﬃcking.” M.A., 425 F. Supp. 3d at 968–69 (rejecting
those requirements under Section 1595 because Sixth Circuit had
developed them in criminal context under Section 1591), quoting United
States v. Afyare, 632 F. App’x 272, 286 (6th Cir. 2016). The vast majority of
district courts agree. See Lundstrom, 2021 WL 5579117, at *5–6 (noting that,
to read such requirements into “participation in a venture” would draw
civil liability under Section 1595 dangerously close to criminal liability
under the Racketeer Inﬂuenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act);
Twitter, Inc., 555 F. Supp. 3d at 916–18; J.L., 521 F. Supp. 3d at 1062; Hilton
Worldwide Holdings Inc., 484 F. Supp. 3d at 937; S.Y., 476 F. Supp. 3d at
1256; S.J., 473 F. Supp. 3d at 152–53; A.C., 2020 WL 3256261, at *6–7; J.C.,
2020 WL 3035794, at *1 n.1; Marriott Int’l, Inc., 455 F. Supp. 3d at 185–88;
Doe S.W., 2020 WL 1244192, at *6–7; H.H., 2019 WL 6682152, at *4. But see
Geiss, 383 F. Supp. 3d at 168–70 (“The participation giving rise to the
beneﬁt must be participation in a sex-traﬃcking venture, not participation
in other activities engaged in by the sex traﬃckers that do not further the
sex-traﬃcking aspect of their venture.”), citing Afyare, 632 F. App’x at 286.
No. 22-2621                                                                 25

showing “a continuous business relationship” between the
participant and the traﬃcker. G.G., 603 F. Supp. 3d at 644,
quoting J.B., 2020 WL 4901196, at *9. Where the participant
provides assistance, support, or facilitation to the traﬃcker
through such a “continuous business relationship,” a court or
jury may infer that the participant and traﬃcker have a “tacit
agreement” that is suﬃcient for “participation” under Section
1595. See M.A., 425 F. Supp. 3d at 970–71; accord, Ricchio v.
McLean, 853 F.3d 553, 555 (1st Cir. 2017) (Souter, J.) (conclud-
ing that “participation” can be inferred, in part, where traf-
ﬁcker and civil defendants—the owners of a hotel the traf-
ﬁcker used for his venture—had prior similar dealings). 16 To
survive a motion to dismiss, all that is necessary is for a plain-
tiﬀ to allege such a “continuous business relationship,” which
gives rise to an inference, drawn in the plaintiﬀ’s favor, that
the civil defendant facilitated the venture’s success. 17
   Plaintiﬀs have plausibly alleged here such a “continuous
business relationship.” According to the allegations,

    16 See also Doe v. Reddit, Inc., No. SACV 21-00768 JVS (KESx), 2021 WL

5860904, at *7–8 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 7, 2021); Mindgeek USA Inc., 558 F. Supp.
3d at 837–38; Twitter, Inc., 555 F. Supp. 3d at 917–18; J.B., 2020 WL 4901196,
at *8–9; A.C., 2020 WL 3256261, at *6; Marriott Int’l, Inc., 455 F. Supp. 3d at
186; Doe S.W., 2020 WL 1244192, at *6; H.H., 2019 WL 6682152, at *4.
    17 The district court wrote in this context that “Salesforce did not take

part in the construction of the business itself.” G.G., 603 F. Supp. 3d at 648.
In context, we understand the court to have meant that if Salesforce had
merely sold Backpage an off-the-shelf software package, it would not have
participated in the trafficking venture. The general point may be correct,
at least with respect to a one-time sale of an off-the-shelf product. As ex-
plained below, however, plaintiffs have alleged that Salesforce was much
more involved in helping Backpage grow its business with advice and
consulting about how best to use Salesforce’s software.
26                                                             No. 22-2621

Backpage was trying “to keep pace with increasing customer
demand and scale its platform,” so it sought out “a partner
who could facilitate and support the company’s exponential
growth.” According to plaintiﬀs, Backpage found that partner
in Salesforce, which “entered into the ﬁrst of several lucrative
contracts with Backpage” in 2013. Through those contracts,
Salesforce provided Backpage with “targeted solutions
addressed to the needs of Backpage’s business,” repeatedly
assessed Backpage’s “operational needs,” and provided
“active, ongoing support” that was “tailored” to those
needs. 18
    With that support, Backpage was able to build relation-
ships with more street-level traﬃckers, to increase the “scale
[of] its operations,” and to “increase the traﬃcking con-
ducted” through its site. During the course of their business
relationship, which continued until Backpage was seized by
the Department of Justice, Backpage was transformed from a

     18 Salesforce asserts that plaintiffs’ “characterization” of the software

and services it provided to Backpage “as ‘unique,’ targeted, or ‘personal-
ized,’” is “conclusory.” The district court seemed to accept this argument
in criticizing plaintiffs for not alleging more specific examples of
Salesforce’s custom-tailored services. 603 F. Supp. 3d at 648. We respect-
fully disagree. Plaintiffs’ allegations along these lines are not conclusory,
but factually and specifically descriptive. Conclusory allegations are those
that parrot “legal conclusions,” merely reciting “the elements of a cause of
action,” while couching them as “‘factual allegation[s.]’” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at
678, quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. The language Salesforce criticizes
does not either draw a legal conclusion or reframe the elements under Sec-
tion 1595. Rather, the language adds helpful detail. Just as a “tailored suit”
is different from a “suit,” so “tailored services” are a narrower concept
than “services.” The same is true of “unique needs,” “targeted solutions,”
and “personalized support.” On this point, the district court required too
much detail at the pleading stage.
No. 22-2621                                                  27

“small … company with a handful of employees to an inter-
national powerhouse with over 250 employees spanning
three continents.” In the ﬁrst three years, Backpage’s gross
revenues grew by a factor of ﬁve. And as Backpage expanded,
so did the scope of Salesforce’s support and its income from
the contracts. In short, Salesforce facilitated the growth of
Backpage’s business, a business that was almost exclusively a
sex-traﬃcking business and that had engaged in multiple acts
in violation of Section 1591, nay, whose business model was
built upon systematic and widespread violations of Section
1591.
    Salesforce argues that “participation” requires more, that
plaintiﬀs have alleged only that Salesforce was “somehow
connected” to Backpage’s sex-traﬃcking enterprise. R. 26,
Appellee’s Br. at 53. The argument is not persuasive. First,
Salesforce argues that plaintiﬀs have failed to “connect
Salesforce or its software” to “G.G.’s traﬃcking or her traf-
ﬁcker.” Put diﬀerently, Salesforce tries to narrow the focus of
the “participation” inquiry to Backpage’s advertisements of
G.G. herself, asserting that Salesforce had no speciﬁc involve-
ment with those advertisements. That focus is simply too nar-
row. As a matter of law, such a direct connection between
Salesforce and G.G.’s traﬃcking is not necessary. Under Sec-
tion 1595, we focus on participation in a “venture,” not partic-
ipation in “an act in violation” of Section 1591. 18 U.S.C.
§ 1595. In other words, participant liability does not require
direct participation in sex traﬃcking.
   By Salesforce’s logic, there would be no “participation”
where a company helped a drug kingpin expand his drug-
traﬃcking operations writ large because the company might
not have been involved in pushing drugs in a particular
28                                                  No. 22-2621

market. Or, for that matter, where a company helped a terror-
ist organization grow its terrorist network because the com-
pany could not be connected directly to a speciﬁc terrorist act.
The statutory text does not support such narrowing interpre-
tations. Contrary to Salesforce’s arguments, “participation”
does not require getting your hands dirty. It is enough that
plaintiﬀs allege that Salesforce facilitated the success of Back-
page’s sex-traﬃcking venture as a whole.
    Furthermore, Salesforce’s argument fails to engage with
plaintiﬀs’ actual allegations. Salesforce seems to assume that
G.G. had only one traﬃcker—the street-level traﬃcker who
physically forced her into prostitution. But that person was
not G.G.’s sole sex traﬃcker under Section 1591. According to
the allegations in plaintiﬀs’ complaint, Backpage was also a
sex traﬃcker. Contrary to Salesforce’s assumptions, therefore,
Salesforce was not one step removed from G.G.’s traﬃckers.
It was in a direct, prolonged, and supportive contractual rela-
tionship with one of those sex traﬃckers—Backpage.
   Because of these diﬀerences, Salesforce’s reliance on the
Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Doe #1 v. Red Roof Inns, Inc. is
misplaced. In Red Roof Inns, the Eleventh Circuit deﬁned
“participation in a venture” as taking “part in a common
undertaking or enterprise involving risk and potential proﬁt.”
21 F.4th at 725. The court then analyzed claims against hotel
franchisors to see if they had taken “part in the common
undertaking of sex traﬃcking with hotel employees,
management, owners, and sex traﬃckers.” Id. at 726. The
plaintiﬀs had alleged that “the franchisors ‘owned, managed,
supervised, operated, oversaw, controlled the operation of,
and/or were inextricably connected to the renting of rooms’ at
the hotels.” Id. They also alleged that the franchisors had
No. 22-2621                                                    29

“investigated the individual hotels, [taken] remedial action
when revenue was down, read online reviews mentioning
prostitution and crime occurring generally at the hotels, and
controlled the training of managers and employees who were
allegedly involved in facilitating sex traﬃcking at the hotels.”
Id. at 727.
    On these allegations, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that
plaintiﬀs had failed to allege that the franchisors had partici-
pated in a “common undertaking or enterprise with the Does’
sex traﬃckers or others at the hotel who violated” Section
1591. Id. Key to the court’s reasoning was how the plaintiﬀs
had chosen to deﬁne the alleged venture—speciﬁcally as a
“sex traﬃcking” venture. The court wrote that, if the plaintiﬀs
had alleged “that the franchisors participated in commercial
ventures to operate hotels and that those hotel ventures vio-
lated” Section 1591, the result might have been diﬀerent. Id.
(emphasis added). The court rejected this framing, however,
because the plaintiﬀs had not alleged it in their complaint or
presented it to the district court.
     But here, plaintiﬀs have framed the venture in just those
terms. They allege that Salesforce “participated in commercial
ventures” with Backpage to grow its business and that Back-
page “violated the statute.” See Red Roof Inns, 21 F.4th at 727.
Not only that, but the relationships in play here are distinct
from those in play in Red Roof Inns. The franchisor defendants
in that case were one step removed from the sex traﬃckers
(i.e., street-level traﬃcker – > hotel – > hotel franchisor). Here
Salesforce had a direct and long-term contractual relationship
with sex-traﬃcker Backpage. So even if we applied the Red
Roof Inns deﬁnition of “participation in a venture” to the alle-
gations here, plaintiﬀs would have plausibly alleged that
30                                                          No. 22-2621

element. See id. at 729 (Jordan, J., concurring) (“[S]imilar
claims against … [the] franchisees … would withstand a Rule
12(b)(6) motion to dismiss.”). That is, Salesforce “took part in”
the expansion and success of Backpage—“a common under-
taking or enterprise involving risk and potential proﬁt.” See
id. at 725. 19
    In a similar vein, Salesforce argues that it merely provided
Backpage with its software and Backpage did the rest. This
argument also invites us to disregard plaintiﬀs’ actual allega-
tions. We assume that “participation” requires more than
providing oﬀ-the-shelf software (or other common products
or services from furniture to telephones or pizza deliveries).
But the allegations here do not paint Salesforce as an arms-
length seller of oﬀ-the-shelf products. Plaintiﬀs allege that
Salesforce “did not merely sell [Backpage] an oﬀ-the-shelf
product that enabled Backpage to grow without the input of
Salesforce.” “Rather, Salesforce sold Backpage targeted solu-
tions addressed to the needs of Backpage’s business,” repeat-
edly assessed Backpage’s “operational needs,” and provided
“active, ongoing support” that was “tailored” to those needs.
    These allegations defeat Salesforce’s reliance on Doe v.
GTE Corp., 347 F.3d 655 (7th Cir. 2003), and Backpage.com, LLC
v. Dart, 807 F.3d 229 (7th Cir. 2015). In GTE Corp., plaintiﬀs
had been secretly recorded on video while they were un-
dressed in “locker rooms, bathrooms, and showers.” 347 F.3d
at 656. Plaintiﬀs sued the company that had provided web-
hosting services for websites that had oﬀered the videos for
sale. Id. at 656–57. We aﬃrmed dismissal on the pleadings,

     19 Salesforce’s reliance on B.M., 2020 WL 4368214, at *5, is misplaced

for the same reasons.
No. 22-2621                                                  31

concluding that the alleged activities of the web-hosting ser-
vices did not amount to “culpable assistance” to those web-
sites or the sellers of the videos because a “web host, like a
delivery service or phone company, is an intermediary and
normally is indiﬀerent to the content of what it transmits.” Id.
at 659.
   In Backpage.com, LLC, the Sheriﬀ of Cook County had pres-
sured credit card companies to stop processing transactions
on Backpage. 807 F.3d at 230. Ordering an injunction against
the Sheriﬀ for violating Backpage’s First Amendment rights,
we concluded that the credit card companies were only “re-
mote intermediaries,” indiﬀerent to any of Backpage’s alleg-
edly illegal activities. Id. at 233–34, 239.
    The allegations here are diﬀerent. According to plaintiﬀs,
Salesforce was not a remote intermediary “indiﬀerent” to
Backpage’s enterprise. If Backpage had merely purchased an
oﬀ-the-shelf product from Salesforce, as any company might
purchase bookkeeping or word-processing software, then
GTE and Backpage.com might help Salesforce. But plaintiﬀs
have described a relationship between Salesforce and Back-
page much closer than that between a web-hosting service or
a credit-card payment processor and a website. Salesforce and
Backpage entered multiple contracts over a number of years
whereby Salesforce provided Backpage with software de-
signed speciﬁcally for Backpage and aﬃrmative, “personal-
ized support.” Salesforce’s support of Backpage’s business
was not generic, but “targeted” to Backpage’s speciﬁc needs.
Salesforce repeatedly consulted with Backpage, including its
CEO, “to assess its operational needs” and provided “active,
ongoing support” that was “tailored” to Backpage’s evolving
32                                                    No. 22-2621

business. This was not a sale by a “remote intermediary” but
the active participation of a contractual partner.
    Salesforce insists that our interpretation of “participation”
threatens to sweep up “a convenience store that sells dispos-
able cell phones or a clothing store that sells an outﬁt used as
a disguise.” These are precisely the kind of routine sales of
oﬀ-the-shelf products or standard services that we do not
view as amounting to “participation.” Salesforce supports its
policy concerns with Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh, 143 S. Ct. 1206
(2023), where the Supreme Court interpreted the civil liability
provisions of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act,
18 U.S.C. § 2333. Twitter recognized the signiﬁcant policy
choices Congress makes when it authorizes civil liability for
deep-pocket associates of judgment-proof wrongdoers, as it
has in many contexts. We do not ignore these policy concerns
here but instead consider them with our focus on the lan-
guage and context of the particular statute in question, Sec-
tion 1595.
    The statute in Twitter, for example, authorizes civil liability
against “any person who aids and abets, by knowingly
providing substantial assistance, or who conspires with the
person who committed such an act of international terror-
ism.” 18 U.S.C. § 2333(d)(2). The Court’s opinion focused on
that language, which echoes the criminal law of aiding and
abetting and requires actual knowledge, “conscious, volun-
tary, and culpable participation in another’s wrongdoing.”
143 S. Ct. at 1223. Twitter aﬃrmed dismissal of claims against
three large internet platforms whose relationships with ter-
rorist users were “arm’s length, passive, and largely indiﬀer-
ent.” Id. at 1227. For another example, it is a federal crime to
provide “material support or resources” for terrorists,
No. 22-2621                                                     33

“knowing or intending that they are to be used in preparation
for, or in carrying out” any of a long list of terrorist crimes. 18
U.S.C. § 2333A(a) (emphasis added); Holder v. Humanitarian
Law Project, 561 U.S. 1 (2010) (upholding law against First
Amendment and vagueness challenges).
    By comparison, Congress drafted Section 1595(a) so that
participant liability for sex traﬃcking does not require proof
of the criminal mens rea needed for aiding and abetting. Still,
as explained above, we read Section 1595(a)’s standard of
knowing beneﬁt from participation in a venture that has vio-
lated Section 1591 to require more than what Twitter called
“mere passive nonfeasance” or an “arm’s length, passive, and
largely indiﬀerent” relationship with the criminal. See 143 S.
Ct. at 1227. Plaintiﬀs here have alleged that Salesforce pro-
vided Backpage with aid much more “direct, active, and sub-
stantial” than was alleged in Twitter. See id. at 1228.
    Salesforce also cites United States v. Hansen, 143 S. Ct. 1932
(2023), to support its argument that “participation in a ven-
ture” under Section 1595 requires mens rea “akin to that re-
quired for aiding and abetting.” Noting that, when “Congress
‘borrows terms of art in which are accumulated the legal tra-
dition and meaning of centuries of practice, it presumably
knows and adopts the cluster of ideas that were attached to
each borrowed word,’” Hansen held that the phrase “encour-
ages or induces” in 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) was used “in
its specialized, criminal-law sense” and thus incorporated
“common-law liability for solicitation and facilitation.” 143 S.
Ct. at 1942, quoting Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246,
263 (1952).
   That holding might aid our reading of the criminal provi-
sions of Section 1591, but it does not help with civil liability
34                                                  No. 22-2621

under Section 1595. Salesforce’s reliance on Hansen attempts
to elide the diﬀerence between these two statutes and pro-
poses to transplant Section 1591’s deﬁnition of “participation
in a venture” into Section 1595. As explained above, though,
that deﬁnition is expressly limited to Section 1591. Congress
could have transplanted it into Section 1595 when amending
the statutes in 2018, but it declined to do so. Compare 18
U.S.C. § 1591(e)(4) (2018) with 18 U.S.C. § 1595 (2018). We de-
cline to do so as well.
    In sum, plaintiﬀs have not, as Salesforce contends, “con-
ﬂated” Salesforce’s conduct with Backpage’s. Plaintiﬀs are
seeking, as Section 1595(a) allows, to hold Salesforce liable for
its own conduct in facilitating the success of Backpage’s busi-
ness, which engaged in uncounted acts in violation of Section
1591, including those that harmed G.G. Based on the repeated
and allegedly lucrative contracts between Salesforce and
Backpage, we draw the reasonable inference in plaintiﬀs’ fa-
vor that Salesforce participated with Backpage in the venture
of Backpage’s sex-traﬃcking business by helping it grow.
       4. Knowing Beneﬁt
    According to the language of Section 1595, a plaintiﬀ can
allege that the defendant “knowingly beneﬁtted” by alleging
only that the defendant was aware that it was beneﬁtting in
some way from its participation in the venture. That’s it. As
the district court correctly observed, the beneﬁt need not take
the form of “proﬁts” that are “the speciﬁc result” of a sex-traf-
ﬁcking venture. G.G., 603 F. Supp. 3d at 643. Here, the allega-
tions that Salesforce was aware that it was beneﬁting, ﬁnan-
cially and otherwise, from its numerous contracts with Back-
page are enough to satisfy the “knowingly beneﬁts” element.
No. 22-2621                                                   35

    Salesforce thinks that the statutory text requires more. Re-
lying on one district court decision—Geiss v. Weinstein Co.
Holdings LLC, 383 F. Supp. 3d 156, 168–70 (S.D.N.Y. 2019)—
Salesforce argues that the “knowingly beneﬁts” element re-
quires (1) “‘a causal relationship’ between the defendant’s ‘af-
ﬁrmative conduct furthering the sex-traﬃcking venture and
receipt of a beneﬁt,’” and (2) “that the defendant received the
beneﬁts with ‘knowledge of that causal relationship.”
    In Geiss, three women brought a civil action against ﬁlm
producer Harvey Weinstein, his companies, and the compa-
nies’ oﬃcers and directors alleging that Weinstein had sex-
ually harassed and assaulted them and that “the other de-
fendants knew of, facilitated, and covered up his miscon-
duct.” Id. at 161–62, 165, 167. The court found that the defend-
ants “undoubtedly beneﬁted” from Weinstein’s continued
employment and that some of the revenue generated by
Weinstein’s “movies and inﬂuence … ﬂowed to” the defend-
ants. Id. at 169. But that was not enough. As the court saw it,
the “controlling question” was whether Weinstein “provided
any of those beneﬁts” to the other defendants “because of
[their] facilitation of [his] sexual misconduct.” Id. at 169 (em-
phasis in original). In short, Geiss read “knowingly beneﬁts”
to require a quid pro quo between traﬃcker and participant.
But Section 1595 says nothing about why the sex-traﬃcker
provides any beneﬁt to the participant-defendant. In fact, the
statute does not even require that the sex traﬃcker itself or
himself provide any beneﬁt. Section 1595 uses the passive
voice: “Whoever knowingly beneﬁts….” 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a).
36                                                            No. 22-2621

The Geiss court and Salesforce’s reading thus ﬁnd no footing
in the statutory text.20
    Again, as the statutory text clearly dictates, where the de-
fendant is simply aware that it is beneﬁting, that is enough.
According to the allegations here, Salesforce and Backpage
entered into multiple contracts over several years that called
for close business advice and consulting. Salesforce’s aware-
ness that it was beneﬁting from those contracts is enough to
satisfy the “knowingly beneﬁts” element.
    In sum, plaintiﬀs have plausibly alleged a claim under
Section 1595. G.G. was a victim of multiple violations of Sec-
tion 1591 at the hands of both her street-level traﬃcker and
Backpage. Backpage’s business was a venture that repeatedly
engaged in acts that violated Section 1591, and Salesforce at
least should have known that Backpage’s venture had vio-
lated and was continuing to violate that statute. The continu-
ous business relationship between Salesforce and Backpage

     20 Consequently, Geiss is an outlier whose gloss on “knowingly bene-

ﬁts” has been rejected by virtually every other court. See Red Roof Inns,
Inc., 21 F.4th at 723–24 (concluding that a plaintiﬀ must allege only “that
the defendant knew it was receiving some value from participating in the
alleged venture”); Ricchio, 853 F.3d at 556. See also Lundstrom, 2021 WL
5579117, at *4–5; Twitter, Inc., 555 F. Supp. 3d at 902, 905–06; J.L., 521 F.
Supp. 3d at 1060–61; Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., 484 F. Supp. 3d at 935–
36; S.Y., 476 F. Supp. 3d at 1257; B.M., 2020 WL 4368214, at *4; A.C., 2020
WL 3256261, at *4; Doe S.W., 2020 WL 1244192, at *5; H.H., 2019 WL
6682152, at *2; M.A., 425 F. Supp. 3d at 964–65 (rejecting Geiss and conclud-
ing that “the rental of a room constitutes a ﬁnancial beneﬁt from a rela-
tionship with the traﬃcker suﬃcient to meet” the “knowingly beneﬁt” el-
ement). But see Canosa, 2019 WL 498865, at *24 (civil defendants had “sym-
biotic relationship” with ﬁlm producer Harvey Weinstein that evinced
“causal link between their acts and practices”).
No. 22-2621                                                             37

was suﬃcient to show that Salesforce participated in Back-
page’s venture and knowingly beneﬁtted from it.
    C. Whether Defendant is Protected by 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)
    Salesforce also argues that even if plaintiﬀs have other-
wise pled a viable claim under Section 1595, Section 230(c) of
the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. § 230, gives
Salesforce a complete defense. Again, we begin with the stat-
ute’s text. Section 230(c) is entitled “Protection for ‘Good Sa-
maritan’ blocking and screening of oﬀensive material” and
reads: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service
shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information
provided by another information content provider.” 47 U.S.C.
§ 230(c)(1) (1998). 21
    As we have said repeatedly, Section 230(c)(1) “does not
create an ‘immunity’ of any kind.” City of Chicago v. StubHub!,
Inc., 624 F.3d 363, 366 (7th Cir. 2010), citing Chicago Lawyers’
Comm. for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc. v. Craigslist, Inc., 519
F.3d 666, 669–71 (7th Cir. 2008); GTE Corp., 347 F.3d at 660.
Rather, Section 230(c)(1) “limits who may be called the pub-
lisher of information that appears online.” StubHub, 624 F.3d
at 366. In this way, it functions as an aﬃrmative defense. GTE
Corp., 347 F.3d at 657. That aﬃrmative defense requires a civil
defendant to establish three elements: (1) the defendant is the

    21 In 2018, Congress amended Section 230 via the Allow States and

Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), 47 U.S.C. § 230
(2018). Although the parties have devoted substantial portions of their
briefs to how FOSTA functions when a Section 230 defense is raised, all
agree that FOSTA comes into play only when the defendant has an other-
wise viable defense under Section 230. Because we conclude that
Salesforce cannot satisfy all the elements of Section 230’s affirmative de-
fense, we need not reach questions raised about FOSTA’s interpretation.
38                                                            No. 22-2621

“provider or user of an interactive computer service,” and
(2) the defendant is being “treated as the publisher or
speaker” of (3) “information provided by another information
content provider.” 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1).
    A plaintiﬀ “ordinarily need not anticipate and attempt to
plead around aﬃrmative defenses,” but dismissal may be ap-
propriate if “the factual allegations in the complaint unambig-
uously establish all the elements of the defense.” Hyson USA,
Inc. v. Hyson 2U, Ltd., 821 F.3d 935, 939 (7th Cir. 2016). The
district court found that plaintiﬀs had pled themselves out of
court with factual allegations that satisﬁed all three elements.
First, the court found that plaintiﬀs’ allegations showed that
Salesforce qualiﬁed as an “interactive computer service.”
G.G., 603 F. Supp. 3d at 634. 22 Because Salesforce—in the
course of “managing … relationships” between “Backpage
and its customers”—was required “to analyze … content pro-
vided by Backpage about its customers,” the district court
found that Salesforce was “an access software provider.” Id.
at 635 (emphasis in original). 23

     22 “The term ‘interactive computer service’ means any information

service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables com-
puter access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically
a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems
operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions.” 47
U.S.C. § 230(f)(2).
     23 “The term ‘access software provider’ means a provider of software

(including client or server software), or enabling tools that do any one or
more of the following: (A) filter, screen, allow, or disallow content;
(B) pick, choose, analyze, or digest content; or (C) transmit, receive, dis-
play, forward, cache, search, subset, organize, reorganize, or translate con-
tent.” 47 U.S.C. § 230(f)(4).
No. 22-2621                                                    39

    We need not resolve whether Salesforce qualiﬁes as a
“provider … of an interactive computer service.” The allega-
tions do not support the second and third elements of Section
230(c)(1)’s aﬃrmative defense. Plaintiﬀs’ claim does not treat
Salesforce as (2) “the publisher or speaker” of (3) “information
provided by another information content provider.” 47 U.S.C.
§ 230(c)(1).
    Section 230(c) “might matter to liability for” claims that
“depend on who ‘publishes’ … information or is a
‘speaker’”—for, say, “defamation, obscenity, or copyright in-
fringement”—but where the claim does not depend on pub-
lishing or speaking, Section 230(c) “is irrelevant.” StubHub,
624 F.3d at 366; accord, Huon v. Denton, 841 F.3d 733, 741 (7th
Cir. 2016) (defendant could be treated as publisher “for pur-
poses of defamation and other related theories of liability”);
Craigslist, Inc., 519 F.3d at 668, 671 (ﬁnding that “only in a ca-
pacity as publisher could craigslist be liable under” 42 U.S.C.
§ 3604(c), which prohibits only conduct that amounts to pub-
lishing); GTE Corp., 347 F.3d at 660 (Section 230(c)(1) poten-
tially “forecloses any liability that depends on deeming [the
party] a ’publisher’”).
    Here, plaintiﬀs’ allegations simply do not seek to treat
Salesforce as a publisher or speaker. Plaintiﬀs’ claim does not
depend on Salesforce having published or spoken anything.
Rather, plaintiﬀs seek to hold Salesforce accountable for sup-
porting Backpage, for expanding Backpage’s business, for
providing Backpage with technology, for designing custom
software for Backpage, for facilitating the traﬃcking of G.G.,
for helping Backpage with managing its customer relation-
ships, streamlining its business practices, and improving its
proﬁtability, and for enabling Backpage “to scale its operations
40                                                            No. 22-2621

and increase the traﬃcking conducted on Backpage.” Dkt. 85,
¶¶ 1–3, 33, 29–30, & 41. In other words, plaintiﬀs are seeking
to hold Salesforce “liable under [Section 1595] for its own …
acts or practices, rather than for publishing content created by
another.” See Federal Trade Comm’n v. LeadClick Media, LLC,
838 F.3d 158, 175–76 (2d Cir. 2016) (civil defendant not pro-
tected by Section 230(c)(1) where substantive statute, Section
5 of FTC Act, imposed liability for far more conduct than pub-
lishing or speaking and defendant was charged with “partic-
ipating” in scheme that violated Act).
   We are not saying that “the name of the cause of action”—
defamation versus participation and so on—determines
whether a defendant can be treated as a publisher or speaker.
See Barnes v. Yahoo!, Inc., 570 F.3d 1096, 1101–02 (9th Cir. 2009).
We agree with the Ninth Circuit that we must focus on
“whether the duty that the plaintiﬀ alleges the defendant vi-
olated derives from the defendant’s status or conduct as a
‘publisher or speaker.’” Id. at 1102.
   In this case, plaintiﬀs allege that Salesforce had a duty not
to beneﬁt knowingly from participating in Backpage’s ven-
ture while knowing or having reason to know that the venture
was engaged in sex traﬃcking. That duty does not depend in
any way on Salesforce’s supposed “status or conduct as a
‘publisher or speaker.’” See id.
   To be sure, Backpage itself was a publisher. 24 But the fact
that publishing was involved somewhere in G.G.’s traﬃcking

     24 Backpage’s successful invocation of Section 230 to shield itself from

liability in Jane Doe No. 1 v. Backpage.com, LLC, 817 F.3d 12 (1st Cir. 2016),
seems to have motivated Congress to amend Section 230 in 2018 in the
Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (“FOSTA”).
47 U.S.C. § 230(e)(5) (2018). Reacting in part to that First Circuit decision,
No. 22-2621                                                             41

does not mean that Salesforce can successfully use Section
230(c) to shield itself from liability for having participated in
Backpage’s venture. Publishing activity was “a but-for cause
of just about everything” Backpage was involved in. See Doe
v. Internet Brands, Inc., 824 F.3d 846, 853 (9th Cir. 2016). It was
an online marketplace. “Without publishing user content,”
Backpage would not have existed. See id.
    But Section 230 “does not provide a general immunity
against all claims derived from third-party content.” Id.
Salesforce was simply not involved in any publishing.
Salesforce’s job was, in part, to help Backpage reach more cus-
tomers, both in the form of sex traﬃckers and purchasers of
commercial sex. In a sense, Salesforce helped Backpage ﬁnd
more sex-traﬃcking contractors. Plaintiﬀs’ allegations there-
fore do not treat Salesforce as a publisher or speaker even if
Backpage’s publishing played a critical role in causing G.G.’s
ultimate injury at the hands of her traﬃcker.
    Plaintiﬀs also have not alleged that Salesforce ever “pub-
lished” any third-party content. The only audience for the data
Salesforce put online was Backpage itself, and Backpage pro-
vided Salesforce with that data. G.G., 603 F. Supp. 3d at 635.
It does not make sense to treat Salesforce as “publishing” to
Backpage itself content that came from Backpage. With re-
spect to any content that was provided by Backpage,
Salesforce fails Section 230’s “publisher or speaker” element.
To the extent that Salesforce might have “published” its own
data to Backpage’s employees, Salesforce fails Section 230’s

Congress amended Section 230 to clarify that it “was never intended to
provide legal protection to websites that unlawfully promote and facilitate
prostitution and contribute to sex trafficking.” H.R. Rep. No. 115-572, pt.
1, at 2–5 (Feb. 20, 2018).
42                                             No. 22-2621

third element, which requires that the published content be
“provided by another information content provider.” 47
U.S.C. § 230(c)(1) (emphasis added).
   The judgment of the district court is REVERSED, and this
case is REMANDED for proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
No. 22-2621                                                   43

    KIRSCH, Circuit Judge, dissenting. The majority and I agree
that Salesforce lacked constructive knowledge that G.G. had
been trafficked on Backpage.com in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 1591. The majority nevertheless concludes that the plaintiffs
may hold Salesforce civilly liable under 18 U.S.C. § 1595 as a
participant in sex trafficking because Salesforce sold custom-
ized software to Backpage when it should have known that
Backpage violated § 1591 as to some individual at some point
in time, but not necessarily G.G. That broad reading of § 1595
would extend civil liability to nearly every company and in-
dividual who did regular and personalized business with
Backpage after it faced public allegations of sex trafficking. It
also renders meaningless § 1595’s requirement that the de-
fendant have constructive knowledge of a § 1591 violation.
Because the plaintiffs have not alleged that Salesforce should
have known of G.G.’s particular trafficking, they have failed
to allege a § 1595 violation. I respectfully dissent.
    Section 1595 authorizes victims of sex trafficking to bring
damages suits against “the perpetrator [ ]or whoever know-
ingly benefits … from participation in a venture which that
person knew or should have known has engaged in an act in
violation of this chapter.” § 1595(a). The “act in violation”
here is § 1591, which makes it a crime to knowingly advertise
“a person” or to benefit from participation in a venture that
does so, “knowing … that means of force, threats of force,
fraud, coercion …, or any combination of such means will be
used to cause the person to engage in a commercial sex act,
or … that [a minor] … will be caused to engage in a commer-
cial sex act.” The majority and I agree that to be civilly liable
as a participant in a venture that violated § 1591, by the plain
language of § 1595, Salesforce must have had constructive
knowledge of a § 1591 violation. But to the majority, a
44                                                   No. 22-2621

defendant can violate § 1595 so as long as it had “constructive
knowledge that a venture generally has violated Section 1591.”
Ante, at 22. But there is no such thing as a general violation of
§ 1591. A violation depends on whether the elements of § 1591
are satisfied (or in this case, whether they are pled).
     To plead a § 1595 violation, the plaintiffs must allege that
Salesforce had constructive knowledge of G.G.’s trafficking.
This is because § 1591’s use of the terms “a person” and “the
person” is victim-specific, meaning an individual is not guilty
of the crime unless the government can prove that his actions
were tied to a specific victim. Knowledge of a specific victim
(not just general sex trafficking) is an element of § 1591. Thus,
because § 1595 requires constructive knowledge of a § 1591
violation and a § 1591 violation requires knowledge of a spe-
cific victim, damages suits are available only when a plaintiff
plausibly alleges that the defendant should have known that
the venture engaged in her particular sex trafficking. See Doe
#1 v. Red Roof Inns, Inc., 21 F.4th 714, 726 (11th Cir. 2021) (de-
fining the elements of a § 1595 claim as “the defendant
(1) knowingly benefited (2) from taking part in a common un-
dertaking or enterprise involving risk and potential profit,
(3) that the undertaking or enterprise violated the [Trafficking
Victims Protection Reauthorization Act] as to the plaintiff,
and (4) that the defendant had constructive or actual
knowledge that the undertaking or enterprise violated the
TVPRA as to the plaintiff”) (emphasis added). So, for the plain-
tiffs to bring a civil § 1595 claim against Salesforce, Salesforce
must have had constructive knowledge of G.G.’s specific sex
trafficking.
   By holding that a defendant may be liable under § 1595
even if the plaintiff cannot plead the elements of a § 1591
No. 22-2621                                                  45

violation, countless companies and individuals doing busi-
ness with Backpage in 2008 or later could face liability so long
as a plaintiff could allege a defendant’s constructive
knowledge of Backpage’s sex trafficking and a beneficial, tai-
lored relationship that assisted Backpage’s growth. But the
text of § 1595 does not support that result.
     Without constructive knowledge of G.G.’s identity and the
trafficking offense committed against her (in other words, a
§ 1591 violation), the plaintiffs cannot bring a civil § 1595
claim against Salesforce. Because they have not alleged that
Salesforce should have had such knowledge (or that
Salesforce avoided learning of it), I would hold that the plain-
tiffs failed to state a claim for relief under § 1595. Thus, I
would not reach the issue of whether Salesforce is entitled to
dismissal under 47 U.S.C. § 230. I respectfully dissent.