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Craigslist dropping 'erotic services' ads
- antidaily 17y agoThere is probably a huge opportunity in this for someone willing to trudge through that wasteland.
- staunch 17y agoYou'd be one step away from the business end of organized crime. Not worth the risk IMO. Craigslist is probably somewhat protected by their sheer size and high profile. You'd be one guy taking money from and dealing with career criminals.
- DLWormwood 17y ago> Craigslist is probably somewhat protected by their sheer size and high profile. Profile, maybe. But not size... AFAIK, CL is still a mostly small team operation... http://www.mslater.com/2007/1/26/the-craigslist-anomaly http://www.mslater.com/2007/1/26/the-craigslist-anomaly ...though they are a little bit bigger due to the increased local coverage since that article was written.
- dpifke 17y agohttp://gawker.com/354814/its-like-yelp-but-for-hookers http://gawker.com/354814/its-like-yelp-but-for-hookers
- siculars 17y agowill this stop others from providing a forum for "erotic services" advertisements? no. but this will bring some sort of order to the current system on cl. and cl is the largest market place for this kind of stuff. at the risk of being flamed, i kind of liken this to whats going on between arrington and fb re. holocaust denial. if fb squashes holocaust denial on their platform, will it kill it everywhere, no (duh). but it would draw a line as to what is acceptable and what is not on their systems. neither cl nor fb are legally responsible for what people post on their sites. but cl made a decision to "do the right thing"(tm), im pretty sure fb will as well.
- erlanger 17y agoHow is this an example of doing the right thing?
- pxlpshr 17y agoWith great power (accessibility), comes great responsibility. The erotic service ads are visible by plain view and can be accessed by anyone by simply clicking through a link. Craigslist should do a much better job of protecting kids and naive teens, and with some level of verification to protect your general user too. Many of the erotic services are bots looking to harvest email address from unsuspecting users. However, I do think removing them entirely is a joke too. They certainly aren't protecting anyone in that regard.
- siculars 17y agoits the right thing on a number of levels. 1. it gets the attorneys general off your back. 2. it is good pr 3. it will reduce spam on that section of the site which will result in better ads for customers 4. it sets a standard that says "we wont allow a wild west freak show on our site" agree, dont agree, whatever... the freak show will continue in other parts of the interweb. just not on cl in the manner that it has in the past. and thats the win - because cl is the main hub for people looking for all kinds of stuff - freak show or otherwise. you cant really have your cake and eat it too.
- randallsquared 17y agoYour 3 is bizarre. It removes spam on a section of the site by removing the section. No customers are helped by this; it's straight cost-cutting (which is the other side of trying to be profitable, of course).
- siculars 17y agoThat section is being replaced by a moderated analogue
- Mintz 17y agoI had to make sure I wasn't reading The Onion. Why does Craigslist think they're the new authority on what free speech we are and aren't allowed to express? The correlation between the crazy medical student and Craigslist does not imply causation, the same way keeping guns from a murderer won't stop him from using a knife.
- icey 17y agoWhat does Craigslist's removal of a section on their site have to do with your right to free speech? (Hint: The answer is absolutely nothing.) Why should they expose themselves to liability unnecessarily?
- hachiya 17y agoNot everyone is aware that the First Amendment, like all the Amendments, apply to government. It prevents the government from restricting our speech, and does not dictate what kind of ads a private enterprise may choose to allow.
- azgolfer 17y agoAds are not speech, there are many restrictions on ads.
- icey 17y agoExcept the government didn't dictate anything in this case. Craigslist made this decision on their own at the _request_ of various law enforcement agencies. There will still be an adult section on Craigslist, it will just be moderated by CL staff and will no longer allow explicit images. Not much is really changing here; and there certainly isn't an infringement of anyone's rights.
- hachiya 17y agoYes, I was agreeing with you, and commenting on your parent post. Craigslist chose to exercise their right to not allow a free-for-all on their adult section.
- lsb 17y agoWhy not just charge for them?
- benmathes 17y agoIANA(L|PO), but I suspect that the people looking to perpetrate a crime won't be deterred by a nominal fee.
- mahmud 17y agoThey would be, if the commercial transaction leaves their identity behind. Pimping is a "cash or stash" business.
- derefr 17y agoto sign up to post on this section, you already have to confirm a phone number that can be used to reach you, which is very likely tied to some sort of information about you already (and if you can fake a phone application, why not a credit card application?)
- rbanffy 17y agoThat's silly. If I were in law enforcement I would _use_ erotic services ads as a way to prosecute those involved. Something like Craigslist would be an asset for me.
- keefe 17y agoI think there is some tricky business regarding entrapment and that sting operations have only met limited success. If I were in law enforcement, I'd feel stupid wasting my time investigating violations of a law as ill-conceived as anti-prostitution legislation. How many unsolved rapes, murders and robberies are there out there? There shouldn't be a penny wasted on something this trivial until those are taken care of - and girls forced into prostitution is a totally different issue which would be largely addressed with legalization.
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- sachinag 17y agoThis isn't being driven by law enforcement. It's being driven by elected Attorneys General.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- jrockway 17y agoThe idea is not to stop crime, it's to look like you're stopping crime.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- biotech 17y agoThis is probably a bad idea; the main advantage of this controversial section is to keep prostitution ads off the main personals listings. I'm guessing there'll be an increase in these types of ads in the other sections.
- vaksel 17y agosmart move on craigslist, they get to skip the "controversy" and in turn get to make money off ads that used to be free. And this won't do shit to lowering prostitution, there are dozens of other sites in that same space
- padmanabhan01 17y agoI seriously hope this would lead to more discussion or light on this that would pave way for legalizing the service. I mean, what business can the state have in dictating what two consenting adults do without disturbing others.
- quellhorst 17y ago"Also effective today for all US sites, a new category entitled 'adult services' will be opened for postings by legal adult service providers," it added.