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Craigslist Shuts Down "Erotic Services" Ads

Pressure from Attorney Generals leads to revamp, more scrutiny

By Martin H. Bosworth
ConsumerAffairs.com

May 13, 2009

The decision came in response to mounting criticism from Attorneys General of a number of states, who claimed Craiglist was enabling prostitution, human trafficking, and child exploitation.

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster even threatened to prosecute Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster if the company did not change its policies.

"We are optimistic that the new balance struck today will be an acceptable compromise from the perspective of these constituencies, and for the diverse US communities that value and rely upon Craigslist," Newmark said.

Under the new "adult services" category, submitted posts from legal adult service providers would be manually approved or rejected by Craigslist's staff, and would cost $10 to post, but could be reposted for $5.

"It's clear to everyone that Craigslist's erotic services section was nothing more than an Internet brothel," said Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. "I'm encouraged that craigslist has agreed to fundamentally change how they operate and monitor their site. The steps they’re taking are the only effective way to prevent the exploitation of women and children."

Although both erotic services advertising and violent crime resulting from those ads have been a staple of the print newspaper industry, Internet services such as Craigslist have been singled out as enabling or increasing both sex trafficking and violent crimes.

At least one high-profile serial murderer has been dubbed the "Craigslist killer," as he found his victims using the site.

Newmark claimed that Craigslist was already much stricter in its ad policing procedures than most newspapers, attributing that to extensive cooperation of law enforcement, digital tracking and screening, and particularly the community's self-policing and moderation of ads that violate the site's terms of service.

"Working in tandem with various other protective technologies, [community policing] is an inescapable force to be reckoned with for anyone set on abusing free internet communications across a broad array of posting types," Newmark said.

Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, Web site operators are not liable for the content that commenters post to the site. Online rights advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation criticized the Attorneys General, saying they had no legal recourse to pursue Craigslist for what its users did or did not do.

"If site operators were forced to screen all third party contributions under risk of civil or criminal penalty, the Internet would lose many of the vibrant services that have made it so dynamic," said EFF attorney Matt Zimmerman.

Zimmerman added that Web sites forced to comply with multiple states' wish lists of demands would be time-consuming and hinder their ability to do business.

Critics of the decision claimed that it would merely push illegal sex workers and businesses out of the spotlight and make them hard to find, and that the decision seemed motivated more by a desire to pursue headlines than investigate real incidents of human trafficking or violent crime.

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