5 ms·

Going after Craigslist over the adult content was a short sighted political move that will make it harder to fight prostitution in the long run. To some extent

by jobu 16y ago

Going after Craigslist over the adult content was a short sighted political move that will make it harder to fight prostitution in the long run. To some extent it's like the music labels going after napster. This eliminates the largest network (and the easiest one for authorities to monitor), and pushes the whole internet sex economy further underground.

tptacek 16y ago
I know that's the talking point about prostitution, but I don't automatically agree with it. If targeting craigslist is part of a broader crackdown on the online sex trade, where craigslist is forced to adopt a more conservative editorial posture and other sites are forced out of business completely, then the argument doesn't stand. People talk as if the sex trade can go completely underground, as if it's only exposed to the public eye through the benevolent lens of craiglist. Of course that's not true. Even among the worst offenders, the mafia-based sex slave traffickers, it's still a business, and it still needs customer acquisition mechanisms.
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  other sites are forced out of business completely, then the argument doesn't stand This is only plausible if such a crack down could change things so much that adult ads weren't just harder to make but near to impossible. And that seems highly implausible given that prostitution flourished quite well in a pre-Internet world. Merely increasing the barriers to entry actually enhances the power of the "mafia-based sex slave traffickers" - when an individual can place a simple ad, they don't have to depend on a dicey character, otherwise they might. And prostitution has had a variety of "customer acquisition mechanisms" stretching into antiquity. Full page ads you can find in many free weekly would qualify as authentic temptations for engage an prostitute (show lots of skin, etc). An ambiguously worded ad on craigslist is more like a means for a consumer to find the product they are already looking for.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    What's your point? Whatever means they use to acquire customers can be targeted by law enforcement. It is simply not the case that craigslist was their one exploitable weak spot. I don't like arguments that insult my intelligence.
    - joe_the_user 16y ago
      The point is that merely decreasing but not eliminating the ability of prostitutes to find customers will increase the power of the most larger, more exploitative operators but not eliminate the phenomena. We can see a similar pattern in the drug trade. Illegality creates large, monstrous cartels when it doesn't eliminate demand. For example, the semi-legal pot growers in California aren't great but they are much better than the Mexican cocaine cartels (murdering 100's of people at a time last I heard...).
      - tptacek 16y ago
        Is your argument that the dynamics of the sex trade are the same as that of the drug trade? Because I don't believe you. I don't even believe that most prostitution is driven by organized crime. I don't think you can point to any prohibition of any item and say "that's going to work just like the drug trade", unless you're prepared to argue that we should all be allowed to buy Stinger missiles.
        joe_the_user 16y ago
        Prostitution resembles the drug trade in that it is unlikely the demand as such is going to be eliminated - indeed, this is even more true for prostitution than drugs. Certainly, prostitution is not driven by organized crime currently. The point is that when it is more difficult for a prostitute to operate independently, she is more likely to turn to a pimp and/or a mafia controlled operation (not to deny that some pimps and mafiosi entice some people into prostitution now - but as you say, this isn't the majority currently). We're more or less arguing over demand curves. Your argument boils down to claiming that more enforcement would change the supply-and-demand situation sufficiently to improve things for people. That is where both drugs and music downloading are good analogies because they both show the failure of enforcement to impact supply and demand sufficiently to change the situation (except for the worse).

by jobu 16y ago

tptacek 16y ago

I know that's the talking point about prostitution, but I don't automatically agree with it. If targeting craigslist is part of a broader crackdown on the online sex trade, where craigslist is forced to adopt a more conservative editorial posture and other sites are forced out of business completely, then the argument doesn't stand. People talk as if the sex trade can go completely underground, as if it's only exposed to the public eye through the benevolent lens of craiglist. Of course that's not true. Even among the worst offenders, the mafia-based sex slave traffickers, it's still a business, and it still needs customer acquisition mechanisms.

joe_the_user 16y ago
other sites are forced out of business completely, then the argument doesn't stand This is only plausible if such a crack down could change things so much that adult ads weren't just harder to make but near to impossible. And that seems highly implausible given that prostitution flourished quite well in a pre-Internet world. Merely increasing the barriers to entry actually enhances the power of the "mafia-based sex slave traffickers" - when an individual can place a simple ad, they don't have to depend on a dicey character, otherwise they might. And prostitution has had a variety of "customer acquisition mechanisms" stretching into antiquity. Full page ads you can find in many free weekly would qualify as authentic temptations for engage an prostitute (show lots of skin, etc). An ambiguously worded ad on craigslist is more like a means for a consumer to find the product they are already looking for.
- tptacek 16y ago
  What's your point? Whatever means they use to acquire customers can be targeted by law enforcement. It is simply not the case that craigslist was their one exploitable weak spot. I don't like arguments that insult my intelligence.
  - joe_the_user 16y ago
    The point is that merely decreasing but not eliminating the ability of prostitutes to find customers will increase the power of the most larger, more exploitative operators but not eliminate the phenomena. We can see a similar pattern in the drug trade. Illegality creates large, monstrous cartels when it doesn't eliminate demand. For example, the semi-legal pot growers in California aren't great but they are much better than the Mexican cocaine cartels (murdering 100's of people at a time last I heard...).
    - tptacek 16y ago
      Is your argument that the dynamics of the sex trade are the same as that of the drug trade? Because I don't believe you. I don't even believe that most prostitution is driven by organized crime. I don't think you can point to any prohibition of any item and say "that's going to work just like the drug trade", unless you're prepared to argue that we should all be allowed to buy Stinger missiles.
      - joe_the_user 16y ago
        Prostitution resembles the drug trade in that it is unlikely the demand as such is going to be eliminated - indeed, this is even more true for prostitution than drugs. Certainly, prostitution is not driven by organized crime currently. The point is that when it is more difficult for a prostitute to operate independently, she is more likely to turn to a pimp and/or a mafia controlled operation (not to deny that some pimps and mafiosi entice some people into prostitution now - but as you say, this isn't the majority currently). We're more or less arguing over demand curves. Your argument boils down to claiming that more enforcement would change the supply-and-demand situation sufficiently to improve things for people. That is where both drugs and music downloading are good analogies because they both show the failure of enforcement to impact supply and demand sufficiently to change the situation (except for the worse).