Craigslist to Stop "Erotic Services" Ads
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced this morning that Craigslist, the popular classified ad site, will be ending its "erotic services" listings on May 15 and will create a new adult category that will be monitored by humans. (Currently posts go mostly unmonitored unless there's an abuse complaint.)
Craigslist has been under increasing pressure from state attorneys across the country to change the way its adult ads work, in an effort to fight prostitution and protect women. The heat was turned up after the arrest of the "Craigslist Killer," who allegedly found at least one of his victims through the site.
"We're very encouraged that Craigslist is doing the right thing in eliminating its online red light district with prostitution and pornography in plain sight. We'll be watching and investigating critically to make sure this measure is more than just a name change," said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.
Hopefully the new "adult" section will improve matters. "We share the AG's interest in minimizing misuse of Craigslist," said Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster. "We're optimistic this goal can be reached while preserving all beneficial aspects of a site relied upon by tens of millions of Americans, and without compromising the quintessentially American values of free speech embodied in our Constitution."
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Does this mean I'll no longer be able to kill a few hours on a Thursday night entertaining myself by perusing the creepy postings for "PNP" and other unsavory pastimes?
Pushing sex work further underground by restricting advertising doesn't fight prostitution or protect women (or men or trans people who are sex workers). Repressing public advertising only makes doing sex work riskier for the workers. That said, moderated postings aren't the worst thing in the world.
What we should look at are the prostitution laws and not websites that could be used for prostitution. Most crime attributed to prostitution is caused BY the laws to outlaw it.
Check out Happy Endings? a documentary film on Asian massage parlors in Rhode Island where prostitution is legal.
http://www.happyendingsdoc.com
Audacia says it perfectly: preventing public advertising doesn't stop prostitution or protect anyone. In fact, it (and other anti-prostitution laws and policies) puts clients and sex workers at increased risk.
If sex can be censored (and censured) violence must be. The AG's have their priorities wrong and are prosecuting the wrong behaviors.
As is the case with drugs, the attempt at suppression only creates an environment in which violent crime can flourish. If the focus was on criminal activities - property crimes, violence - the issues they say they are concerned about would not seem to be such problems.
Which is why they apply resources to suppression of services and consumption behaviors, instead of focusing them on preventing and prosecution real crimes.
Filtering the postings is not the problem. The customer committed the crime. They are essentially anonymous unless the provider gathers details in screening their clients. Even then, there are no guarantees that any information about the person's past, their tendencies, or their deep dark buried twisted desires would be discovered and allow the provider to make informed decisions about who they accept as a client.