
Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down - jswinghammer
http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/03/craigslist-censored-adult-section-comes-down/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch)
======
patio11
I hear quite often that prostitution would be a wonderfully pleasant industry
if it were only legal, which does not square with the experiences of countries
where it is legal or tolerated.

You pretty much have to be running schoolgirls out of homeroom to get the
Nagoya police to so much as glance in your direction, but Japanese
prostitution is a very, very ugly place to be, and much of it is based on
trafficking. I live two hundred feet from a "Korean aesthetic salon" which is
open at three A.M. in the morning. One of the not-so-young ladies who works
there has taken to sleeping on the bus bench across the street recently, in
heat which has nearly sent me to the hospital twice. You may have heard that
Japan has a _storied_ relationship with its Korean immigrants. Those who do --
to use a nauseating euphemism -- the jobs Japanese girls won't do can expect
neglect from polite society, because polite society knows that inquiring into
her circumstances means they have to know what goes on in those walls, and
they are very interested in keeping up the fiction that they do not know what
goes on in those walls.

Or take the European experience. Amsterdam, city of lights, so much more
sophisticated than the American puritans, perfectly legal thriving sex trade,
right? It has been taken over by Russian mafia who are undercutting the locals
via use of trafficked girls from Eastern Europe. You always have the option as
a merchant of sex slaves to one-up what the "morally upright prostitutes"
allow, safe in the knowledge that _they will cover for you_ because an
investigation into what you are doing harms their business interests. Society,
meanwhile, has no great desire to actually police what happens inside of
brothels, preferring to believe its sanity-saving fictions like "she wants to
be there", "it is just sex between two consenting adults", and "no slaves live
on my block."

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/world/europe/24amsterdam.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/world/europe/24amsterdam.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2)

Prostitution, legal or otherwise, is not pretty. It is based, root and branch,
on exploitation. To the extent you think that legalizing it will end the
exploitation, you believe something which is contrary to reality.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I'm confused here - according to Wikipedia, (coital) prostitution is illegal
in Japan.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Japan>

As you say, it takes a lot for the police to get involved - I'll speculate
that they only pay attention when the monthly envelope of cash is light.

That isn't the model pushed by most advocates of legal prostitution that I've
heard - most want prostitution to be legal in the same way that restaurants
are. It actually takes very little to get the authorities to come take a look
at your restaurant - complaints of a roach or the computer randomly selecting
you for an inspection are usually sufficient.

~~~
ramchip
> I'm confused here - according to Wikipedia, (coital) prostitution is illegal
> in Japan.

And so is gambling, yet you'll find plenty of pachinko parlours or
soaplands/"health salons" announced very explicitly. I believe the main reason
is that many of these places are run by Yakuza (organized crime), and police
would rather not stir up the hornet's nest - there's a sort of tacit
agreement.

~~~
kelnos
You've missed the point. The original premise from patio11 was that legalizing
prostitution doesn't automatically make it all safe, aboveboard, and free from
crime. Then he used Japan as an example... except that prostitution isn't
legal there. Regardless of how it's treated by the police, the point is that
it's _not_ legal, and that skews how the illegal operations work.

(Regardless, my feeling is that Japan's attitude toward sexuality is so
different from that of Europe/the Americas that it's a little hard to make
good comparisons anyway.)

The Amsterdam argument is interesting and worthy of further discussion, at
least.

~~~
whopa
A lot of places where prostitution is legal, pimping is not, e.g., Germany,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand. There's less of a trafficking problem in those
places, since it can and does get prosecuted (though there still are problems,
since here sadly is demand for underage prostitutes etc.)

In the Netherlands, pimping is legal though, which may contribute specifically
to the problems they are seeing. I'm not the only one who thinks so:

[http://static.rnw.nl/migratie/www.radionetherlands.nl/curren...](http://static.rnw.nl/migratie/www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/ams070921mc-
redirected)

I don't think the ban ever happened though.

------
jsz0
I bet most of the people freaking out about CL's adult services haven't
considered that censorship usually leads to an increased demand. They're doing
an excellent job advertising to the world that you can easily buy sex online.
If they really wanted to help people they'd be advocating a safe highly
regulated adult services industry that satisfies the demand while eliminating
most of the ugly side effects of prohibition. They completely reject this idea
so it seems obvious to me their agenda is more about moral pontificating than
helping people or they truly have no understanding of how the real world
works.

~~~
jordanb
The Cook County (Chicago) Sheriff, Tom Dart, has been leading the charge on
this. The Tribune had an article a few days ago about him increasing
prostitution busts, and putting up ads around O'Hare warning johns to stay
away.

With all this moral outrage coming out of him about prostitution, I'm
expecting that he'll soon be arrested in a prostitution bust.

Anti-prostitution groups always drag out trafficking as a reason to be against
prostitution, and also child prostitution. But being a prostitute or being a
john are both misdemeanor offences, whereas trafficking and sexual child abuse
are both _very_ serious felony charges. It seems to me that anti-trafficking
and child sexual abuse laws are a lot more effective in dealing with those
problems than general anti-prostitution laws are.

The argument about trafficking really rings hollow. These busts mostly target
the prostitutes. If they really wanted to find trafficking victims, they'd get
a lot better luck approaching women not in the context of arresting them, and
asking them about their situation. Throwing women against the police car and
slapping handcuffs on them seems counterproductive if your goal is to limit
trafficking. If anything, it reinforces everything the traffickers tell the
women about the police, making them less likely to cooperate.

If a women is not a victim of sex slavery or underage, it seems absurd that
she could be charged with a crime for selling something she can legally give
away for free.

~~~
derefr
From the perspective of the police force, prostitution being illegal is 1%
moral uptightness, and 99% pragmatism. Having prostitution be a misdemeanor
helps catch people in the act of other, more serious crimes, as the "crime" of
prostitution justifies search warrants to otherwise-unassailable places. It's
a workaround for a permissions issue, basically, and has no _ethical_
justification.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>It's a workaround for a permissions issue, basically, and has no ethical
justification.

I think you mean no ethical justification that you agree with.

For example, take as an axiom "sex should only be allowed between partners in
long term monandrous relationships" and it follows logically from there.

This is _an_ ethical justification. You just apparently disagree with the
premise. Most theistic ethical systems have something akin to this as a rule
(whether derived or axiomatic within the system).

~~~
derefr
If you're starting with complex axioms like

> "sex should only be allowed between partners in long term monandrous
> relationships"

then what you've got is a _moral_ justification, not an ethical one.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I've only dabbled in moral philosophy (the study of ethics!) but my
understanding is that the more common use amongst professional philosophers is
that ethics relates to a system established usually by a particular group,
like a legal code or religious doctrine whilst morals concern an individuals
actions. Morality then is considered to concern a naturally occurring right
whilst ethics concerns a constructed set of rules (often based on or intended
to enforce particular morals).

The terms in common parlance are used interchangeably and unfortunately even
those (possibly novices) working in the art use the terms in a contrary way -
[http://www.philosophyblog.com.au/ethics-vs-morality-the-
dist...](http://www.philosophyblog.com.au/ethics-vs-morality-the-distinction-
between-ethics-and-morals/) highlights the mess very well.

Perhaps you could enlarge on your objection, is it merely semantic or does it
have a substantial element too?

------
ErrantX
I never thought TC would ever come up with a quote worth, uh, quoting, but
pigs are in flight today!

 _If it’s just a sex crime it isn’t a story. But if a listing on Craigslist
was involved, it’s a big story._

Painfully true.

It's all bullshit as well, this "OMG Sex crimes" nonsense. We investigate sex
crimes (i.e. rape, abuse, murder etc.) caused by the internet - literally none
of them (and I am well above 60 investigations in that area now) have anything
to do with personal ads such as the ones censored here.

I might be out on a limb here because a) this is based on only a small amount
of empirical evidence and b) I've not talked to colleagues to get their take
on it, but, most of the internet derived sex crime comes from the "under the
radar" sleazy dating sites or, more likely, simply someone they managed to get
on MSN.

These people prey on those looking for a boyfriend, not someone looking to
sell sex. Prostitutes are, for the most part, not stupid - they know when to
take a deal or walk away.

I can't help feeling crusades such as this are actually harmful. </rant>

------
drblast
I can't understand the motivations for this.

Several state attorney generals find out there is are people going to a web
site, and for all intents and purposes advertising they are going to commit
criminal acts. The public is outraged.

A rational person whose job is to enforce the law at this point would be
dancing in happy circles, because the criminals are not only advertising their
crimes, they're doing it in a single, easily searchable location. This makes
his job much easier than it was before.

So what does this person do in order to score political points with the
outraged public? Arrest all these people in sting operations? No. He gets the
site shut down. Out of sight, out of mind. And the public is _happy_ about
that.

For the life of me I can't understand why people do the things they do and
feel justified about it. Prostitution is either so bad that it should be
illegal and those laws _enforced_ , or it shouldn't be illegal at all because
all that does is create problems. There is no middle ground here.

------
kingkawn
no, its just located here now: <http://newyork.craigslist.org/thp/>

------
derefr
In case you're wondering: this only affects Craigslist users in the U.S. It's
fine here in Canada, for example.

~~~
raganwald
I am struggling with the notion of a country that will defend to the death the
rights of its citizens to purchase guns and use hateful speech, but
simultaneously attack sex with such fundamentalist zeal. I'm experiencing
cognitive dissonance.

~~~
TGJ
The country defends the right to speech, whether you are hateful with it or
not is your choice. The country defends the right of guns to remind the
government that the population is armed and willing to stand up to oppressive
regimes. Proliferation of sex outside of the family unit, destroys the family
unit. Seems straight forward to me.

~~~
derefr
Why does the government care about defending "the family unit?" That's not its
job.

~~~
pjscott
Part of the US government's stated purpose is to "promote the general welfare"
of its people. The real questions are these:

1\. What social effects does the proliferation of extramarital sex have? (I
don't buy the flat assertion that it "destroys the family unit" -- and I know
some polyamorists who would be downright incensed by that claim -- but it's
got to have _some_ effects. Let's see what they are.)

2\. Are those social effects good, bad, or some mixture? To what extent, and
for whom?

3\. If there turn out to be bad effects, are they sufficiently bad that some
form of government intervention would be worthwhile? If so, what's the least
heavy-handed way to intervene that stands a good chance of working?

~~~
abalashov
I mean this in the nicest way possible, but that you think these are, in fact,
the real questions reflects a peculiar understanding of secular, Western
jurisprudence and the (theoretically) liberal Anglo-American and European
intellectual heritage from which it arises, or one that is dangerously at odds
with the lessons taught by that heritage.

First, prostitution and extramarital sex are not logically related, per se.
Yes, plenty of married men purchase the services of prostitutes, but that has
never a reason for which the criminalisation of prostitution has been
contemplated here. Married men also do plenty of other things at odds with the
ideals of a happy, honest and open marriage. Plenty of divorced men and
bachelors visit prostitutes. Even if they didn't, the essence of the
criminality of prostitution does not lie in the peripheral aspects of the
clientele's personal life or social position. It arguably leads to "worse"
policymaking outcomes for politicians to sleep with DC escorts, but the reason
why it is illegal is not _because_ they are politicians. It's just illegal in
general. It may be officially censurable within the legislative profession for
that reason (an arrangement involving a particular code of conduct into which
the politician entered voluntarily), but not in background law.

Our entire system of judicial thought is reliant on the idea that the state
identifies and prosecutes things that are logically related in ways
articulated by the applicable statute, and that the evidentiary relationship
between the alleged crime and the statute on which the allegation is based is
a fairly deductive one. To the extent that it actually functions (another
discussion for another day), it would very quickly break down if prosecutorial
"inferential" leaps or "strong inductive" claims based on certain statistical
generalisations without definitive proof or direct connection were permitted
to be made. The reason we prosecute driving while intoxicated is not because
the driver is some shade of likely to be an alcoholic, and therefore a mean-
spirited jerk (because he's drunk) that offends his family or roommates,
thereby detracting from the overall common happiness and public welfare.

The presumption of innocence absent proof of guilt, and the concept of
probable cause are both intimately related to this; this is why it is
unreasonable, as a matter de jure, to say that a Craigslist ad with an image
of a scantily clad woman and a phone number and reference to a "good time"
represents an offer of prostitution unless it contains an explicit quid pro
quo offer of sex for money. The fact that it is quite likely as a statistical
matter should not enter into the picture if we are interested in conserving
our liberal legal principles, to the extent that we have them as yet. We don't
arrest people who look like the sort of people that deal drugs without
establishing conclusively that they have actually done so, and we don't,
generally, arrest women on the street who are "probably" street walkers unless
they can be witnessed to be making offers of prostitution per se, or, more
likely, gotten on some other technicality of ordinance (loitering, accosting
pedestrians, etc.). Walking around in a skimpy outfit and looking attentive to
passing cars is not in itself illegal based on what you might be up to if
you're doing that.

Second, our legal and democratic heritage does not admit the possibility that
government is qualified to determine or administer the vagaries of personal
life. The idea that the government is going to formulate--and mandate, and
enforce!--an idea of a "good" marriage, which presumptively forbids X or Y, is
rather abhorrent when considered against the backdrop of centuries of common
law and democratic development. The government can grant a divorce petition,
dissolving a marriage license that it itself issued, not make you have a good
marriage. Furthermore, as you rightly point out, there is at least one
identifiable constituency of married people whose concept of marriage
explicitly accepts what others might deem "extramarital" sex. These social
mores are always a moving goalpost, especially in a more globally connected,
flatter world of more numerous subcultures. Trying to take one account of
virtue or the good life and promote it to universal institutional imposition
through coercive force is a woefully misguided endeavour philosophically and a
doomed endeavour practically.

Third: Historically and jurisprudentially, the notion underlying the
phraseology, the formulation of "promote the general welfare" is quite
different from the one that you have ascribed to it. In principle, the mission
to promote the general welfare has principally to do with protecting citizens
from foreign invasion and otherwise defending the territorial and political
integrity of the country, regulating things that can lead to loss of life or
limb, and, more recently, mitigating possible sources of financial peril
stemming from legal misrepresentation and/or fraud (e.g. scams, undecipherable
financial instruments and investment vehicles, etc.).

The government is not--and has never been--in the role of enforcing or
bolstering the subjective, psychological "quality" of interpersonal
relationships, or mitigating the emotional harm from ones that fail to meet
the happiness threshold of one or more parties. Yes, there is family court,
but the state's interest in child custody issues and the terms of divorce
stems from a relatively narrow, technical preoccupation with financially
equitable outcomes, as they relate to the subsequent quality of life and
opportunities of the child and both (ex-)spouses. The courts' role there deals
with the material effects of what happens to the actors when the particular
family unit does break down, not with the prevention thereof.

There are plenty of other relationships whose failure or compromise can also
have deleterious effects: psychologically taxing collegiate or supervisory
work relationships, friendships that go south upon the revelation of deceit or
betrayal, etc. It's not the government's place to legislate away all
conceivably problematic dimensions of human existence, nor particularly
feasible from a logistical standpoint.

Getting the government involved in the question of adultery is a slippery
slope; why not also police lying (outside the sphere of commercial law and/or
tort law)? If extramarital sex is harmful to the family unit and unconducive
to the public welfare, why not throw people in prison for it, or worse?
Causing people grief or anger, or any other emotion associated with a frowny
face is also injurious to the public welfare in the aggregate; it is
relatively straightforward to show that a certain population of unhappy people
lead to "worse" (that is, less socially appealing) outcomes than happy ones.

Unless you're interested in moving in the direction of despotic theocracies,
these are not the the real questions.

------
anaphoric
I used to know Jim Buckmaster, the CEO of CL back in the day in Ann Arbor. He
dated my sister for several years.

Any ways Jim is a really smart and together guy, and I would suspect in his
heart that he takes a pretty dim view of people who shop for sex. At the same
time I know him to be a person of principle and I suspect those principles are
some type of Chomskyan libertarianism. BTW I wonder what Chomsky would say
w.r.t. this controversy.

Clearly you have two opposing principles. One is free speech, the other is
something that most feel is inherently exploitative and should be minimized.

Any ways, I suspect that CL gets more heat because they go against the grain
of common corporate culture. Like I said, Jim is a man of principle.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Chomskyan libertarianism?

I'm not very familiar with Chomsky, but as I recall he has opposed freedom of
speech, freedom of contract (for low skill workers), and favors taking wealth
from some and giving to others by force. Wikipedia describes him as a
socialist.

That sounds like the exact opposite of libertarianism to me. Could you explain
what you mean by the term?

~~~
anaphoric
Sorry, you are right. I misspoke. He rather has 'anarchist' leanings. He is
against "systems of domination without justification".

    
    
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G6kf7XM9Nk
    

Chomsky has a complex position that defies quick labels. I think his analysis
of the system is pretty accurate, but, of course I don't really see him as
having presented any type of workable solution/alternative. But what brilliant
analysis and critique!

------
jfager
This seems a bit petulant to me.

There is real, substantive criticism of how CL handles adult ads independent
of grandstanding politicians, hand-wringing moralists, and sensationalist
media. These groups are always going to be flinging shit around; why dignify
them by pretending to be their victim?

And why refuse to acknowledge the legitimate issues that are raised? CL has
said nothing in response to critics who have pointed out that independent
research groups have been able to place ads that contradict CL's stated
policies, or that relevant authorities have said they've received few to no
reports of suspicious activity from CL. Refusing to acknowledge these
problems, and instead focusing on the misdeeds or weakest arguments of their
most sensational critics, undermines CL's credibility quite a bit.

And if you are going to shut the section down on your own, just do it. You
don't get any pity for claiming you've been censored when there's been no
actual legal pressure applied. You haven't been censored, you just caved.

------
mysterymilfinri
Why is it if I place a personal ad on match.com and meet a uy for coffee and
he turns out to be a salker that I can call LE for help. But if I place a
adult ad and charge for my time and companiosnhip I can not get any assistance
from LE if I need it. Ironically do you know what they do to the hookers once
they sent them to jail. f they go to prison they usualy get raped by
correctional offcers and even used for THEIR OWN PROSTITUION RING, as they are
state property. We already have prrof that indoor prositution works, RI had a
loophole from 1979 til 2009, they never charged anyone with human trafficking
and only arrested street hookers in public and when the CL killer killed the
girl in Boston he then wentto RI and robbed a women and she called LE reported
it and that is why they catch him. LE does ot want cooperateion from hookersor
Craiglsit they just want the keep the witch hunt going for their own personal
campaign stradegy.

------
mysterymilfinri
Ironically even though Craigslist just about crippled the newspaper industry,
these same newspapers have been running adult ads in the personal sections, in
every major cities for years, ad how about the good old yelow pages that the
escort services use to pay 15,000 a year to appear in. The problem is this, LE
is going to keep using CL as an escape goat, while they have no real interest
in catching pimps expoiting teens, they want to STALK MIDDLE AGE CONSENTING
ADULTS IN PRIVATE, because of their moral witch hunt. We have street hookers
in every city, they don't seem to concerned about them. On top of the sex
worker being criminalized LE often calls her employer and landlord when they
arrest her, its like being the victim of a hate crime, where you hated just
because you exisit. We are not given the same sancation and protection under
the law as everyne else, and they even wish us harm. Why are we such a threat,
it seems if they went after the predators and pimps with the same ZEST that
they go after these consenting adults, we might live in a nicer world. Also
lets look at LE behavior, follow this newsfeed
<http://theproviderpage.com/news/TheProviderPage-News.php>

Here you will see how the chief of police was handing out crack to street
hookers and then expoitig them for sex in lue of going to jail and the 2 cops
while arresting a women on a online sting, they took pics of her naked with
their personal cell phones while she cried and begged to get dressed as they
laughed at her. All sex workers are expoited, by their own persona plight,
poverty, and how does society really think we will be safer if we become
homeless and live on the street, don't you think we would be raped and become
a target for violence because we have no shelter/safety. None of these MORAL
People who want to save us from ourselves are creating any services or safety
for these women. I just wonder why society seems to think its ok to treat a
hooker anyway and that she gets what she deserves, she could easily be your
mother, sister, aunt or child. Don't be so naive that you think this would
never affect someone you know. The internet gave me the abilty to find safer,
higher paying clients, that I see on my terms, without needing an agency to
give half my money too. I can choose to see just 1 or 2 clients a day and am
putting my daugter through college as a single mom. I am also creating
<http://theproviderpage.com/cms/> which I am creating to support my peers.
Thanks for listening to my rant.

------
toto
People believing that the prostitution issue will be solved through craigslist
section shut down, should learn what 5 whys root cause analysis is...

This sounds like first level solution, what about the other ones?

Emotional topic. Difficult (half)-solutions.

------
mysterymilfinri
See us at <http://theproviderpage.com/cms/>

While we oppose society's Moral Witch Hunt against us and laws that
criminalize us, we are aware that escort providers must live in the real
world. At it's best, that world disrespects and ostracizes us; at it's worst,
it seeks to exploit and even harm us.

TheProviderPage.com is a site planned and paid for by a provider to offer a
safe harbor from that world for my peers.

Whether your method of running your business includes being a "lot lizard", a
"streetwalker", an escort working for a respectable agency, an escort working
independently, an exclusive mistress who takes on only one client, or a
dominatrix who specifically does not offer "escort" services, you are welcome
here and will be treated with the respect often missing in the real world.

We believe adult providers can make the best choices for themselves without
interference from law enforcement on the one hand nor do-gooders who want to
"help" us against our will on the other hand.

If you need resources and support to run your business, you will find that
here. If you choose to leave this business, we seek to provide you information
on the best resources that can assist you transition to another lifestyle. We
respect each provider's right to choose for herself.

We vehemently oppose all forms of human trafficking and child prostitution.
The victims of these crimes deserve our compassion and support; those who
exploit others in such a manner deserve severe punishment.

While much of this site is addressed to women, male providers are welcome
also; our only criteria for membership is that you are a provider. All are
welcome to read and use our site, but membership is for providers only.

Welcome from Bella

This site was commissioned by Bella for her fellow escorts.

Bella has been in the adult industry for over 25 years. She has owned and
operated escort agencies and also worked as a independent escort; therefore
she has consulted with the finest attorneys available over the past 25 years.
Bella keeps up to date on laws and what is going on in the media (see our news
feeds) .

Bella's hope is that others can learn from her experience. I hope that other
escorts can empower themselves, understand the risks involved and have the
tools to make their experiences safer, and for them to be able to find support
and fellowship from other escorts. And I hope the escort wanting out of this
lifestyle will find some resources here that will help her in her transition
back to the main stream of society.

The only requirement for membership is that you are a legit escort with a good
reputation that I can verify. We have just started our journey here on
TheProviderPage and have many more great ideas coming soon, and we also value
your opinion as a escort so please forward your suggestions/comments and we
will take them into consideration.

------
korch
_The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly._

—Abraham Lincoln

First, the only question that truly matters: _Cui Bono?_

What industry made ~40% of their revenues from classified listings within the
last decade?

What industry has been slyly running hooker ads and profiting off prostitution
for decades?

What industry has been anti-Internet from the start?

What industry has been running sensationalist, sexed-up hit-pieces scaring the
public about rampant crime on Craigslist for several years?

And more importantly in the grand-scheme of things, from a level way above
mere prostitution:

 _What hypocritical industry has been utterly incapable of understanding that
the core tenet of online freedom of speech is intimately connected to the
availability of online, open forums where anyone can say anything in an
anonymous, online public space that is protected under the first amendment?_

Newspapers.

And it's funny because no newspaper editor will ever let what I just said ever
see print, as this tempest in a teapot about the world's oldest profession
continues to simmer. Remember, it's an election year, so all these AGs who
have been turning a blind eye to prostitution for decades now have the perfect
political opportunity to play the _morality police_ handed to them on a silver
platter:

It has taken years to trend, but the MSM has slowly pumped up a moral crusade
around Craigslist. Gee, isn't that convenient for them? Now they just want to
hand off the ball to the state AGs. Then the AGs get to grand-stand from their
corrupt moral soapboxes, which helps their political base, and the _newspapers
get to reclaim ~30% of Craigslist's revenue._ Ahh, the circle of Life, ain't
it beautiful!

You don't see Backpage, the _2nd largest site for the exact same adult
classified ads_ being targeted at all now do you? Who owns Backpage? Why it's
the _Village Voice_ media corp, who has deep pockets, a long history, and many
friends in high places.

Craig's biggest personal mistake was not doing what Google had to do a few
years ago, what Microsoft learned to do in the 90's during the antitrust
trial, and what countless other tech companies insulated in their Silicon
Valley tech bubble all have eventually had to do: _send one hundred or more
paid lobbyists to DC._

Who has been public enemy #1 of the newspapers and their media conglomerates?

Who has almost single-handedly caused the entire newspaper industry to cave in
on itself in just a decade?

 _Craigslist_

What we're seeing here is just business as usual from the Great Houses of
yellow journalism.

AND NOW FOR A RANT! :)

/rant

I know a thing or two about a thing or two in this particular niche of the
classified industry, since once upon a time long ago I worked a very brief &
desperate stint coding at some unnamed company in the adult classified biz.
It's not at all what the general public thinks it is. It's a lot more
organized, practical and intentional in subtle ways most people don't realize,
while the sexy, titillating parts that you see Faux News and CNN play are not
nearly as exciting in reality.

I don't pass any judgment on it—it's called the oldest profession for a
reason. We're all mammals after all, what's wrong with that? In fact, I think
it should be completely legal, across the board, and regulated by the health
industry just like in Europe and most of the rest of the world.

Too many Americans are completely stupid in their expectations about what they
think would happen if it were legal. It's _exactly_ like with America's
idiotic, failed _War on Some Drugs_ and alcohol Prohibition. Make it illegal,
no it doesn't stop, since any attempt to legislate the most basic and natural
of all human behaviors is futile! Prohibition only makes it worse in fact, as
it just empowers organized crime to take over. Who do you think is trafficking
little kids for this? Who is keeping the modern day equivalent of female
slaves? Who has international shipping networks to even do those kind of
logistics? Who is committing 99% of the violence in an industry of "victimless
crime"? Who is tying this illegal industry to others, like drug or arms
trafficking, in order to capitalize on economies of scale? Not some 12 year
old girl from some Asian country. And not John Smith who has been in a sexless
marriage for 20 years. And it's not Corner Pimp Moe who still lives with his
mother since he just got out of jail for a petty misdemeanor. No, it's the
organized criminals and corporations pulling the strings in high places in
America who only exist because our gov't has setup a system of (in)justice
that _enables_ them to operate.

And a massive amount of our tax dollars are wasted in law enforcement of this
industry. There's a massive opportunity cost behind it—just remember, every
hooker busted and given the average penalty of a $200 ticket with no jail time
is one less robber, murderer, rapist, you name it, who is caught and taken off
the streets by the cops. Not to mention that the cops don't really want to
enforce prohibition, since they could care less about being the morality
police, and they know they have a snowball's chance in hell of stopping basic
mammalian reproduction, so they are already doing it half-assed. It's kind of
like the military study where they found that 60% of soldiers on the battle
fields were intentionally aiming high during Vietnam to miss their human
targets—such is the subconscious social fear of hurting other human beings! We
need our cops to be effective and trusted by society, not the opposite! So why
are we setting up a judicial system that sets the cops up for failure?

And don't even get me started on the Feminist angle on all of this. _I'll just
say that I know of nothing else in society than making it illegal that has
done more to exploit, injure and permanently disadvantage countless innocent
women than the entire legal and social apparatus setup for prohibition._ Most
of these women have tough lives, tough backgrounds, they have fallen through
the cracks in education and our social system, and they are single moms
getting by in a decimated economy. That's not exactly what I picture when I
imagine criminals. But here in America we can't treat people at the bottom of
our social order in a decent, _Christian_ way. As a society, what is our
solution to this so-called problem? _We add another layer of victimization on
these innocent women who are already victimized_! America is shameful in how
always treats its least well-off citizens. Yes, I blame the hypocritical
religious fundies who's modus operandi is to scare folks into the pews on
Sundays, and who have apparently forgotten the level of forgiveness and
tolerance which Jesus himself showed to prostitutes. Ultimately it's due to
America's historic, unchangeable bedrock of Puritan culture. Even though
America practically invented _porn_ , culturally, we have a completely
backwards view towards human sexuality and behavior, compared to the rest of
the modernized world, who laughs at us. _Ooh, the answer, I know, I know,
let's criminalize it_!

As for the consequences of legality, no, all marriages and relationships would
not be doomed as everyone switches to hookers. In fact, the opposite would
probably happen: the price would drop(you have no idea how much of the money
is wasted on jumping through hoops to keep safe from organized crime and
Johnny Law), and the labor supply would go up a little bit. _But the social
stigma would remain, and this is the important part._ Since humans are
entirely social creatures, legalization would probably have the completely
counter-intuitive effect of making relationships better across society, since
if sex is made nearly valueless, rather than equivalent to what a top attorney
would bill you per hour, then the social shame aspect is suddenly bumped to
the top of the list of concerns. Since you don't have to worry about being
associated with illegality, slavery, crime, etc. And we all know that shaming
within social groups is the most effective way to alter and control human
behavior—even more so than relying on prison or economics to do it. QED.

~~~
sliverstorm
> send one hundred or more paid lobbyists to DC.

With what money? Not only does Craigslist not really have any profitable
business interests to protect, but they don't have the money to do that even
if they wanted to.

~~~
korch
Craigslist makes over $100 million a year. And they have just 60 or so
employees. And I bet they have dirt cheap fixed costs. _The website hasn't
fucking changed in a decade, and it's more popular than ever!_ They're
probably the Internet company with the highest profit margins! Craiglist is
the fucking showcase example of _Metcalfe's law._

But like bank robbers who foolishly think they wouldn't get caught on the 10th
robbery, or a gambler playing _martingale_ double or nothing all night, they
fucked up. Craig should have pried open his fat ass wallet and toss millions
of pocket change towards lobbying, branding, PR and advertising many, many
years ago. Instead, they let their enemies, the media itself, define their
brand and PR, and they lost control of the message, the agenda and the way
they are presented to the mass public.

But Craig is apparently too hung up on his neo-hippy ideals of keeping
Craigslist anti-corporate to realize that if he doesn't sink to the same dirty
corporate warfare as the enemy, then they'll stab him in the back eventually.
All they need is one good shot, and it's just a matter of time. I don't really
get how a privately held $100 million/yr corporation is "anti-corporate." At
that point it's just folly and self-delusion, he should have seen this storm
cloud brewing miles away and years ago, and prepared for it to hit. Such as
when Ebay tried to steal the company years ago. _Too late now—say buh-bye to
that $36 million a year in revenues from adult ads!_ Ouch!

 _I'm an unabashed Craiglist hater simply because he completely fucked up and
missed the boat and failed us developers by not transforming the most popular
and best single Internet site of high signal/noise anonymous contact into the
best open mashup API of real-time, localized, semantic data._ And this souped
up mashup data API didn't have to be all corporatified either—Craig could have
kept it hippy! Like Twitter! CL would only need to lift their pinky finger to
instantly defeat the hundreds of millions invested in data mashup startups,
Google, FB, AT&T, Ebay, etc who are trying to pin the market which CL
dominates. Again, I see the opportunity cost—by CL not chasing change, _we the
users of the Internet have now lost more than we've gained from the potential
of CL as force for good, community and the overall power of the Internet._ I
suppose my idealism is even purer than Craig's. :) At the very least, CL can
stop sending C&D orders and DMCA takedowns to small websites scraping their
data.

I believe a data API like this would have caused Craigslist to become even
bigger and more unstoppable. Craig, Jim and whoever pulls the the strings are
lazy, unimaginative fucktards who deserve to be dethroned so we, the Internet,
can have a new winner in the next round of _King-of-the-Hill: Winner Takes All
Internet Edition._ :)

~~~
jbellis
> I'm an unabashed Craiglist hater simply because he completely fucked up and
> missed the boat and failed us developers by not transforming the most
> popular and best single Internet site of high signal/noise anonymous contact
> into the best open mashup API of real-time, localized, semantic data

Not only has CL failed to innovate, it actively goes after and shuts down
third parties who do interesting things with CL data. :(

~~~
Maascamp
Stop whining. It's not your data.

~~~
kelnos
Actually, if jbellis posts to CL, some of it _is_ his data. It belongs to the
people who post it, not CL. See the terms of use:
<http://www.craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use>

Notably section 3, "CONTENT," and the 2nd paragraph of section 14,
"PROPRIETARY RIGHTS," in which they explicitly disclaim ownership: "Although
craigslist does not claim ownership of content that its users post..."

~~~
trustfundbaby
excellent ...

now if only we could go get everyone who posted listings to sign off on
allowing us access their data we could build an API in no time.

~~~
korch
If Craigslist actually stood by their community-centric, "everybody share"
principles, rather than wear a fake mask of anti-corporatism over their money-
grubbing true face, then Craigslist themselves would put a single checkbox _on
every Craigslist_ post form letting the user make that choice. And the default
state of that checkbox would be "yes."

Then CL could just offer a bare-bones, REST, read-only firehose API to access
those posts. Just like how Twitter does it. This entire project would probably
take the developers at CL a month to roll out into prod. Hell, knowing how
software shops work, they probably already have 3 private internal versions of
it that were shelved by the ignorant, risk-averse management who only fear
change and don't know how to tread water in the meandering river of technology
and Internet society.

Wild idea for the Techcrunch rumor mill in 2011: it's too bad Twitter doesn't
buy or merge with CL, and in absorbing CL, make them be more open and
community-centric.

Perhaps CL will see the light and open up an API, as the newspapers get more
desperate and turn up the dial on the hate. CL is going to need to show off
something, anything to take the spot light off themselves before the wolves
rush in now that they're injured & bleeding.

~~~
trustfundbaby
Oh you know know for sure that every user would want their data broadcast to
3rd party developers to do what they please with ... the way Facebook has done
... and oh by the way, how is that going for them?

Look, Craigslist doesn't want an api.

Its their software and its that simple

People need to get over it or ... you know ... go build their own classifieds
listing service or something.

------
mysterymilfinri
The same newspapers that Craigslist just about crippled have been running ads
for yeas,and they where much more expensive, my escort service I use to own in
St.Pete times I paid 12.000 a year to keep a 3 line ad up and I also use to
pay the yellow pages 15 to 30,000 a year. The internet has giving me the
abilty to be indpendent, no more agency drama,and I am able to get better
clients, they pay more, I chose the respectful day time guys and only have to
see 1 or 2 clients a day and I am also putting my daughter through college. LE
is using craigslist as an escpae goat, because they really have no interest in
stopping the pimps from exploiting the teenagers, but for some reason they are
obsessed with what consenting adults do in private, they go beyond what is
legal to arrest these women, and most of their cases would not make it to
trail if these women had lawyers, they arrest escorts for just showing up for
an appontment, even if they are not able to solicit the women for an illegal
act, so they get her for not having a massage license or supsion of
prostitution, heck they can't arrest you for suspsion of murder unless they
can prove it but its ok to lock up a hooker. They also BULLY the john into
snitching and it works because they are no criminals and do not know what to
do if detained by police, I bet a drug dealer or gang member wouldn't let LE
into bullying confssions out of them. I have bee reading in the news, we have
a chief of police handing out crack to street level hooker and exploiting them
for sex in lue of going to jail and we have 2 cops while arresting a women
during an online sting, took pics of her with their personal sell phones while
she was naked and crying and begging to get dress while they laughed at her.
these articles are in the newspapers, and happen all the time. It seems if we
stalked the predators and pimps with the same ZEST as we d the hooker then we
might actually catch some real criminals. But the million dollar question is
this, why does the general public believe its ok to treat a hooker any way
they want and that she deserves it, what gives anyone the right to HATE us,
just because we. exisit. I know LE even calls our employers and landlords
after they arrest us, with no cause other than to get us out of their town, do
you think we would be safer on the street, where we could become far game to
be raped and beaten and we don't want to be regulated so we will have to work
in brothels and give the brothel wners most of our money, Back n 2005 I owned
a escort service in FL and I was incorpated and paid taxes. Many agencies such
as myself are now being harassed and stalked by LE, but seems like if your a
cop or governor Spitzer you don't get prosecuted and you can still be on CNN.
I just woner who many of MY TAX dollars is LE going to use to STALK ME. Thanks
For letting me Rant.

------
ck2
Congrats on CL on finally taking the high road without being legally forced to
first.

Claiming that it should be okay to do something questionable because everyone
else does it is never the right attitude. Prostitution ads should not be right
next to ads for cars, even if others do it.

Those that claim how many illegal things would be better if legalized and
regulated are naive.

~~~
bmelton
The points have been discussed so often elsewhere in this thread, but I just
wanted to point out that, for me at least, this is very much the low road.

Bowing down to socio-political pressure without being demanded to, for a
service that is very clearly popular and (I believe) ought to be legal is, in
my opinion, spineless.

I understand that their heart is in the right place, and I'm very
understanding that their belief system may not match my own, so I applaud them
for doing what they feel is right... but that is all that I can applaud them
for.

~~~
ck2
The problem is prostitution is not victimless crime like most men want to
believe.

No-one can possibly believe someone wants to be a prostitute.

Not only are some girls forced into it by pimps and syndicate hooking them on
drugs to guarantee their "employment", even if others just enter into it out
of desperation for quick cash, once you are down that path it can screw up
your life forever.

So yeah, condoning it and promoting it and making it easily available on sites
like CL has to be prevented for the better of society over the desire of men
to have effortlessly accessible sex.

I consider that taking the high road, thinking of others before yourself. I'm
under no delusion that it's going to drop even 1% with CL's listings gone, but
it's still the right thing to do.

