GROSS: Amazon and Microsoft Employees Involved in Sex-Trafficking

On the heels of Silicon Valley opposing congressional legislation to clamp down on sex-trafficking, and the controversy of Google’s cultural of sexism, it turns out that two giant technology companies are involved in sex-trafficking after-all: Microsoft and Amazon. According to a recent report published by Newsweek, high ranking officials from Microsoft and Amazon were buying sex from hundreds of trafficked sex workers in Seattle every day for the last several years.

Microsoft employee email accounts sent 67 emails; Amazon’s, 63. The report reveals that law enforcement authorities collected these emails in 2015 during a sting operation involving several high-level Microsoft and Amazon directors. Their emails document that they bought services from trafficked sex workers– and that the tech industry is involved with control over brothels. According to authorities, hundreds of men in Seattle were buying sex from trafficked Asian women every day.

The report reveals that other employee emails from tech companies like T-Mobile, Oracle, Boeing, were also involved. Newsweek has not published the identity of any of the people involved. Surprisingly, according to Newsweek and Engadget no one has been arrested.

The information became public after a public records request to the King County Prosecutor’s Office was made, which revealed that the men were caught because they were using company email. Apparently, Seattle sex-traffickers require an employee email or badge to make sure no police are involved.

Despite the tech companies statements of their company policy against sexism, sex-trafficking, etc., it is undeniable that sex-trafficking is a huge part of the technology industry, especially in silicon valley.

According to Alex Trouteaud, a director at the national anti-trafficking organization, Demand Abolition, the tech industry has created a “culture that has readily embraced trafficking.” According to another anti-human trafficking organization, Polaris, there are more than 700 Asian brothels based in silicon valley.