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Senators’ ongoing investigation into Backpage.com’s sex advertisements and verbal flogging of the site’s executives Tuesday threaten free speech online, an influential digital rights groups says.

According to the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), a Washington-based digital rights non-profit, a report released by lawmakers Monday concluding the site facilitated child sex trafficking acted as a “blow” to free speech by forcing the site to shut down its adult ads section.

“This development is a direct blow to the freedom of speech we enjoy online,” CDT said. “Backpage, like Craigslist before it, has faced a long-running campaign from government officials at every level seeking to force the website to restrict lawful speech as a way to pursue criminal activity by some of the site’s users.”

The group’s comments come the same day Backpage executives CEO Carl Ferrer, COO Andrew Padilla, former owners Michael Lacey and James Larkin, and general counsel Elizabeth McDougall appeared under subpoena before the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s subcommittee on investigations. All declined to answer lawmakers’ questions, citing their First and Fifth Amendment rights not to self-incriminate.

“After consultation with counsel, I decline to answer your question based on the rights provided by the First and Fifth Amendments,” Ferrer said in response to multiple questions from Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman, who chairs the subcommittee.

Portman’s committee released a damning Monday report that found Backpage knowingly facilitated pimping and child sex trafficking by editing ads to appear less suspicious. Hours after, Backpage pulled down its adult services section “[a]s the direct result of unconstitutional government censorship,” according to an announcement on the site.

“Backpage.com has removed its Adult content section from the highly popular classified website, effective immediately,” the announcement reads. “For years, the legal system protecting freedom of speech prevailed, but new government tactics, including pressuring credit card companies to cease doing business with Backpage, have left the company with no other choice but to remove the content in the United States.”

Backpage hosts 80 percent of all online sex ads, according to the report. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said in 2015 that 71 percent of all child sex trafficking reports submitted by the public are tied to Backpage ads.

The subcommittee’s year-plus investigation found emails showing Backpage outsourced its ad screening to India between 2010 and 2012, where moderators removed words, phrases and images that would have flagged ads to authorities. Witnesses, including the parents of minors whose pictures appeared on Backpage, said the site was reticent to remove sex ads featuring underage children.

Portman said the move by Backpage confirmed the report’s findings.

“Backpage has not denied a word of these findings. Instead, several hours after the report was issued yesterday afternoon, the company announced the closure of its adult section, claiming ‘censorship,’’ Portman said. “But that’s not censorship, that’s validation of our findings.”

Ferrer, who declined to appear before the same committee last year despite being under subpoena, was arrested in October on charges that his website accepted money in the prostitution of minors. The charges were eventually dismissed by a court in California.

The Supreme Court declined Monday to hear an appeal of a case bought by three victims of the site’s sex-trafficking ads in Massachusetts. The decision upholds the lower court ruling’s defense of Backpage based on the Communications Decency Act of 1996. The law shields websites from liability for content posted by users.

Other digital rights groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed briefs in support of Backpage, a position CDT supports.

“This is an important reminder that our online freedoms remain under threat,” CDT President Nuala O’Connor said Tuesday. “While the fundamental legal framework protecting free speech remains strong, too often we see government officials attempt to circumvent these protections to achieve their censorship goals.”

Emma Llansó, CDT’s director of free expression, added government tactics used against sites like Backpage and Craigslist “threaten speech far beyond what’s posted on online classified ad sites.”

“When government officials move beyond the bully pulpit and conduct persistent pressure campaigns to achieve a result repeatedly denied to them in court, we’re in the territory of unaccountable government censorship that is anathema to First Amendment values,” she said.

David Greene, director of EFF’s civil liberties division, drew a distinction between the allegations against Backpage and the law.

“We don’t support trafficking,” Greene told The Boston Globe Monday. “We support full enforcement of the laws. You just have to enforce them against the people who are breaking the law.”

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The Senate voted unanimously Thursday to hold the CEO of a classified ads website used for sex trafficking in contempt for failing to appear before a committee, the first time the upper chamber has taken such action in over two decades.

Senators voted 96-0 to hold Backpage.com CEO Carl Ferrer in civil contempt for failing to appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Permanent Investigations in November, and for failing to cooperate with an investigation into the site’s purported use by child sex traffickers.

“Senator McCaskill and I gave Backpage every opportunity to cooperate in good faith with our investigation,” subcommittee chairman and Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman said Thursday. “We carefully considered its objections to the subpoena and issued a 19-page opinion overruling those objections and directing Backpage to comply. It continued to stonewall.”

McCaskill and Portman spent the last year investigating online sex trafficking, uncovering along the way emails revealing Backpage outsourced its ad screening to India between 2010 and 2012, where moderators removed words, phrases and images that would have flagged ads for removal and potential reporting to authorities.

One such email sent from Backpage’s California headquarters instructed moderators to “ONLY DELETE IF YOU REALLY VERY SURE PERSON IS UNDERAGE,” and if in doubt, “accept the ad.”

“And then they would post this ‘sanitized’ version of the ad,” Portman said. “While this editing changes nothing about the underlying transaction, it tends to conceal the evidence of illegality.”

Ferrer failed to appear before a panel in the upper chamber last year after his lawyers repeatedly tried to have Ferrer excused, explaining he would only plead his Fifth Amendment right not to self-incriminate. Days before the hearing Backpage attorneys said Ferrer would be traveling out of the country on the day of the hearing, and that he would not appear — a move Portman described at the time as “a clear act of contempt.”

“We had hoped Mr. Ferrer would be here, but he has refused to come. This is truly extraordinary,” Portman said during the November hearing. “This subcommittee would respect any valid assertion of Fifth Amendment privilege, but there’s no privilege not to show up.”

Before the hearing Backpage lawyers told Portman the site neglected to search for documents subpoenaed by the committee. Witnesses testified not only was Backpage reticent to remove sex ads featuring underage children — in numerous cases verified by their own parents — the site’s policies were reportedly manipulated to protect such ads.

“Even when an escort ad is reported by families as containing images of their child, Backpage often does not remove the ad from public view,” an attorney for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said. “Instead, the reported ad remains live on Backpage.com where potential customers can continue to purchase the child for rape or other sexual abuse, even though Backpage is now on notice that the ad potentially involves a child.”

According to NCMEC, 71 percent of all child sex trafficking reports submitted by the public are tied to Backpage ads. An industry analysis from 2013 found $8 out of every $10 spent on commercial sex advertising online in the U.S. goes to Backpage, which reported more than $130 million in revenue last year.

Anti-trafficking organization Shared Hope International reports between 80 to 100 percent of their clients have been bought or sold on Backpage, documenting more than 400 cases across 47 states.

In a recent case brought against Backpage in Boston, the victim — a 15-year-old girl — was reportedly raped 1,000 times as a result of a Backpage ad.

“The public record indicates that Backpage sits at the center of the online black market for sex trafficking,” Portman said Thursday.

Advocacy groups and prosecutors testified despite Backpage’s claim to “lead the industry” in ad screening, the site has repeatedly refused to adopt practices and procedures to assist authorities, including retaining ad metadata, tagging uploaded photos for red flags and enforcing identification rules that apply to other ads, like requiring a phone number to sell a motorcycle.

In meetings with the site, witnesses said Backpage representatives appeared more concerned with crafting a positive image than taking concrete steps toward combatting sex trafficking.

“This will be the first time in more than 20 years that the Senate has had to enforce a subpoena in court,” Portman said. “I cannot think of a time it has been more justified.”

Last year Portman and McCaskill said they considered remanding Ferrer to the Justice Department for criminal contempt, but seemingly chose the civil route in the interim.

Thursday’s vote compels Backpage to hand over documents requested by the committee, which it previously refused on First Amendment grounds.

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The CEO of a popular classified ads website that lawmakers say is a hub for underage sex traffickers refused to appear before a Senate subcommittee Thursday, the first time a witness has refused a Senate subpoena in at least 20 years.

Backpage.com CEO Carl Ferrer declined to appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Permanent Investigations Thursday to testify on sex traffickers’ use of his website to sell underage children for sex acts in the U.S.

“We had hoped Mr. Ferrer would be here, but he has refused to come,” subcommittee chair and Ohio Republican Rep. Rob Portman said at the conclusion of Thursday’s hearing. “This is truly extraordinary.”

Ferrer has been under subpoena by the subcommittee since Oct. 1, and since then, requested through his attorneys multiple times that he be excused for business traveling plans, since he indicated he would only plead his right not to self-incriminate under the Fifth Amendment.

“This subcommittee would respect any valid assertion of Fifth Amendment privilege, but there’s no privilege not to show up,” Portman said, describing Ferrer’s refusal to appear as “a clear act of contempt.”

“If Backpage fails to change course and comply with the subcommittee’s subpoena, the appropriate next step is to pursue contempt proceedings. This is a step the Senate has not taken in 20 years,” Portman continued, adding the committee itself hasn’t taken such action in 30 years, and that it will weigh in the next few days whether to refer Backpage to the Justice Department for criminal contempt.

In his opening statement Portman said Backpage lawyers recently told the committee the site hadn’t even bothered to search for and produce documents the committee requested as part of its investigation.

“This isn’t an exercise in having a hearing, this is an exercise in making sure that we have done everything in the law to protect children,” ranking Democrat and Missouri Rep. Claire McCaskill said. “So we will be careful and cautious about using the procedures available to us, but we will use them.”

According to Yiota Souras, senior vice president and general counsel for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), 71 percent “of all the child sex trafficking reports submitted by members of the public” to the center’s CyberTipline “relate to Backpage ads.”

Backpage has until now defended itself under the Communications Decency Act (CDA), stating it is only a publisher of content on its website, and as such, is not liable for any illegal activities that take place as a result of ads for prostitution.

Prosecutors, lawmakers and NCMEC cited questionable activity by Backpage moderators, including evidence of editing ads to keep them from running afoul of the law, refusing to implement photo DNA software to automatically flag and pull down ads and scrubbing metadata from ads it turns over to NCMEC, which would help authorities track down sex traffickers.

Souras pointed out Backpage requires certain identifying information, such as a telephone number or email address, for other private ads for the sale of items. It requires no such criteria for sex ads. While NCMEC’s general counsel conceded Backpage came to the organization early on regarding the issue, Souras said it appeared Backpage was more interested in soliciting a good public image from NCMEC rather than taking tangible action on sex ads featuring children.

“Even when an escort ad is reported by families as containing images of their child, Backpage often does not remove the ad from public view,” Souras said. “Instead, the reported ad remains live on Backpage.com where potential customers can continue to purchase the child for rape or other sexual abuse, even though Backpage is now on notice that the ad potentially involves a child.”

Washington Deputy Attorney General Darwin Roberts said the state tried to pass a law in 2012 to criminally punish anyone facilitating the publishing of sex ads featuring minors — a law Backpage led opposition to early on, and was enjoined by the U.S. District Court in Seattle for preempting the CDA and over-broad language on First Amendment grounds.

Roberts added Backpage is likely exceeding the grounds of exemption from prosecution under CDA “by actually participating in drafting the ads, by making themselves a go-to location for ads advertising prostitution among such sites, and by crafting the message thats being sent to try to keep it so that it doesn’t appear to involve child trafficking.”

“Earlier you said that a mother finally sent them an email saying, ‘For God’s sake, she’s only 16’,” Portman told Souras. “So for all of us who are parents, who are grandparents, think about that — ‘For God’s sake, she’s only 16.’ And yet they refused to pull the ad.”

“Not being able to provide that information to law enforcement means you can’t find many children who otherwise could be able to be found,” Portman continued. “And the heartbreak of knowing that information is out there somewhere, and yet a supposedly legitimate commercial concern won’t provide you the information, or provide it to law enforcement to be able to find your child — to me this is what this hearing’s really all about.”

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