In the ongoing battle over Craigslist's adult services section, some folks see the company shutdown of the section as a ploy. Others see it as a measure designed to fight back against the iron fist of government harassment.
State attorneys general have been battling Craigslist for years its adult classifieds section, and recently the website shut down access to the section and replaced the "adult services" with text that read "censored." Despite federal law that protects Craigslist from what its users post, state law enforcers continue to try to force the site to close its adult services section permanently.
Let me be clear, that no one knows if this shut down is a permanent move or just a temporary one. However, it's hard to believe the company would permanently shut down the service since it brings in over $40 million dollars per year in revenue.
While Craigslist says it does its best to combat sex trafficking, one has to wonder why the same state attorneys general who blast Craigslist ad infinitum don't have the same kind of outrage towards the federal government and its failings in the area of international human smuggling and sex trafficking. One also has to wonder why state attorneys general aren't launching crusades against websites that provide the same exact adult classifieds as Craigslist. Not only is it puzzling, but it's hypocritical.
Some groups, such as the Rebecca Project, have also crusaded against Craigslist. Groups like the Rebecca Project claim to be fighting child sex trafficking, yet the have no tangible results from their efforts crusading against Craigslist. In fact, groups like the Rebecca Project are so obtuse in their dealings, that they often cannot name other sites similar to Craigslist that offer the same services.
There is a legitimate legal concern here since prostitution and trafficking are illegal, but is the heavy hand of government unfairly targeting a particular business in the private sector? I believe it is. The government doesn't help its case in my eyes by failing to combat trafficking and prostitution on other levels.
Filed under:
Business, Crime/Justice, Media, News
Tags:
1st Amendment, censorship, Craigslist, free expression, free speech, freedom of speech, human trafficking, prostitution, sex industry, sex trafficking
good column. an example of another source that seems to offer services similar to CL is the Yellow Pages. Go the Escort Section and you will see several pages of Escort ads that sound like CL mins the pictures. Have prosecutors gone after YP? No and perhaps the reason is YP is part of MSM and therefore is too powerful to attack. What about the Adult Services ad in the chicago Reader? they have been left alone and isn't the Reader no longer independent but owned by a larger media corporation? I think there is more to this story than the simple Good v. Evil story we are being fed by these 17 AGs and their phony crusade.