4 ms·

> we should be burning down craigslist entirely So, let's all be honest about something about CL personals that means these folks might not be wrong (even if,

> we should be burning down craigslist entirely So, let's all be honest about something about CL personals that means these folks might not be wrong (even if, as is likely, the actual legislation is terrible policy). I've actually used CL personals to get some dates, and there are things I liked about it (primarily text-focused medium can be nice, are there any more of those?), and I'm single, so having it go away is personally a bit disappointing. But it is obvious to anyone who has used them that CL personals were utterly overwhelmed by people who are selling the other kind of Saas (Sex as a Service). This was a point of frustration for anyone looking for a connection (however unconventional) rather than a transaction. But worse, no matter your views on whether people should be able to voluntarily do sex work, with the majority of the w4m traffic being prostitution, it seems all but inevitable that there was some coerced trafficking regularly associated with it. This was at least nominally against the terms of the personals section, but nobody selling cared at all (and in some cases, were cheeky enough to flag legit not-selling-anything ads), and if craigslist mounted any serious effort to fix the problem, it wasn't one I noticed. This legislation sounds like thoughtless single-dimension policy, but I'm not sure it burns down CL entirely on its own so much as it does forces CL to reckon with the fact that its personals section was already set on fire by pushers much earlier and that they didn't care enough to do anything about it. (Which is fine, they obviously never derived revenue from it and are under no obligation to divert resources there or let that drag down the rest of their successful classifieds offering.)

jxramos 9y ago
just googling `w4m` now brings up a ton of prostitution trash >< I don't even want to know what it stands for.
- cft 9y ago
  Then shut down Google too.
- Symbiote 9y ago
  Nothing bad, just "woman (looking) for man". I used to see ads in the local free paper with people looking for relationships. Naturally, m4m, w4w, mw4m etc are also understood.
  - WorldMaker 9y ago
    I learned many fun abbreviations reading the personals in the local newsweekly in middle school/high school (aka the pages you were supposed to pretend weren't there, and the reason school officials were sometimes angry if they saw you with a copy on school grounds) that carried directly over to Craigslist. They used to charge by the word in the personal ad, so people got into a lot of common abbreviation habits. The newsweeklies that used to carry personals lost a lot of ad revenue when Craigslist took over the space for free. (Some went bankrupt soon after CL added their city, even.) Unlikely that they will get that ad revenue back with CL out of the game, as many won't want to touch personals again for similar reasons to CL, and a lot of the personals space is also moved on to the Match.com/OKCupid/PlentyOfFishes of the internet.
syshum 9y ago
>>But it is obvious to anyone who has used them that CL personals were utterly overwhelmed by people who are selling the other kind of Saas (Sex as a Service). That is also largely the government fault because back in 2010 they more or less forced CL to close the Sections of the site that was dedicated to Adult Services... and as predicted the people that were in those sections simply moved to the personals
- Noos 9y ago
  Its their fault they forced craigslist to shut down a section openly advertising illegal content? I love the contortions people make. It's not like sex work is even legal in the majority of western nations
  - syshum 9y ago
    >>It's not like sex work is even legal in the majority of western nations It should be legal that is the point >Its their fault they forced craigslist to shut down a section openly advertising illegal content? yes, that was the entire point of Section 230 of the communications act, to prevent platform from being liable for users content, even if the users were doing things that were illegal Further it is a violation, imo, of the 1st amendment to prohibit speech, while they may be able to make the ACT of prostitution illegal they should not be able to prohibit speech about prostitution.. There is a very very big difference
    - FireBeyond 9y ago
      > yes, that was the entire point of Section 230 of the communications act, to prevent platform from being liable for users content, even if the users were doing things that were illegal There was the assumption in this is that illegal content was removed. There's also a difference in CL actively putting a section in that says "Illegal Services advertised here". For clarity, there's no concern with legalizing these services, as far as I am concerned. You think it's a violation of your First Amendment rights to be unable to openly advertise criminal activities? Where does that line end?

jxramos 9y ago

just googling `w4m` now brings up a ton of prostitution trash >< I don't even want to know what it stands for.

cft 9y ago
Then shut down Google too.
Symbiote 9y ago
Nothing bad, just "woman (looking) for man". I used to see ads in the local free paper with people looking for relationships. Naturally, m4m, w4w, mw4m etc are also understood.
- WorldMaker 9y ago
  I learned many fun abbreviations reading the personals in the local newsweekly in middle school/high school (aka the pages you were supposed to pretend weren't there, and the reason school officials were sometimes angry if they saw you with a copy on school grounds) that carried directly over to Craigslist. They used to charge by the word in the personal ad, so people got into a lot of common abbreviation habits. The newsweeklies that used to carry personals lost a lot of ad revenue when Craigslist took over the space for free. (Some went bankrupt soon after CL added their city, even.) Unlikely that they will get that ad revenue back with CL out of the game, as many won't want to touch personals again for similar reasons to CL, and a lot of the personals space is also moved on to the Match.com/OKCupid/PlentyOfFishes of the internet.

syshum 9y ago

>>But it is obvious to anyone who has used them that CL personals were utterly overwhelmed by people who are selling the other kind of Saas (Sex as a Service). That is also largely the government fault because back in 2010 they more or less forced CL to close the Sections of the site that was dedicated to Adult Services... and as predicted the people that were in those sections simply moved to the personals

Noos 9y ago
Its their fault they forced craigslist to shut down a section openly advertising illegal content? I love the contortions people make. It's not like sex work is even legal in the majority of western nations
- syshum 9y ago
  >>It's not like sex work is even legal in the majority of western nations It should be legal that is the point >Its their fault they forced craigslist to shut down a section openly advertising illegal content? yes, that was the entire point of Section 230 of the communications act, to prevent platform from being liable for users content, even if the users were doing things that were illegal Further it is a violation, imo, of the 1st amendment to prohibit speech, while they may be able to make the ACT of prostitution illegal they should not be able to prohibit speech about prostitution.. There is a very very big difference
  - FireBeyond 9y ago
    > yes, that was the entire point of Section 230 of the communications act, to prevent platform from being liable for users content, even if the users were doing things that were illegal There was the assumption in this is that illegal content was removed. There's also a difference in CL actively putting a section in that says "Illegal Services advertised here". For clarity, there's no concern with legalizing these services, as far as I am concerned. You think it's a violation of your First Amendment rights to be unable to openly advertise criminal activities? Where does that line end?