Craigslist shutters 'erotic services' section Craigslist is shuttering its "erotic services" section after months of resisting demands by state and local law enforcement officials in the US. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan told the AP on Wednesday that the site's current erotic services section will close in seven days and be replaced with a new adult category …
A transaction occurs when person A exchanges goods, services, and/or money with person B for other goods, services, and/or money.
If sex can be a service, and therefore be exchanged for money, goods, and/or services then isn't the act of consensual sex simply trading sex (a service) for sex (another service) and thus is prostitution? And that would also make rape equivilant to robbery, so there's that too...
More prudish Americans trying to impose their values on those people trying to enjoy.....yes,....shock....horror..................SEX!!!
I guess that rather than allowing people to meet their needs for finding prostitution etc discreetly within an Adult section of a website, they would rather drive these people back onto the streets. Idiots.
"The figures were also trotted out in response to a federal lawsuit filed by the Illinois Sheriff Department earlier that month. The suit alleges Craigslist's copious quantities of prostitution ads strains the department's ability to enforce the law."
So, having all the prostitution ads concentrated in one place made it hard to enforce the prostitution laws? Traaaagic.
That said, I can see having Craigslist close the section -- there's VERY few places in the US where prostitution is legal, so having basically a prostitution area on Craigslist was always rather odd for the vast majority of areas Craigslist lists ads for.
If Craigslist would continue to fight back against they would probably find themselves amidst a banking problem. As you may be aware Craigslists requires anyone posting adult personals to go through credit card verification. So Craigslist has been using the banking system to pre-approve it's 'adult services'.
If things were as innocent as Craigslist would like you believe im sure this step wouldn't be necessary. If it wasn't for personal ads the people behind craigslist never would of made it to first base.
Almost every classifieds site has "dating" or "erotic massage"... Look at vivastreet.co.uk Thats practically a portal for prostitution. Photos and everything, its amazing they have gotten away with it for so long. Not to mention the sites that link from some of these "escort" services.
Buckmaster's bouyant opinion of the effectiveness of flagging is a joke. I won't comment on the "erotic services" business, because I don't go there, but the "for sale" areas of my local craigslist are being spammed to death and flagging is totally incapable of dealing with it. A few of the spam listings get flagged off eventually, but by then they've generally been up all day, done their job, and will be replaced again by tomorrow's flood of the same crap. The bar on flagging is set too high for it to be of any use.
I have no interest in paying for sex, but I really don't care what other consenting adults chose to do in private.
Seriously ... of all the crime out there ... people having sex for money in private somewhere ... really doesn't rank high on the list.
Now instead of hooking up on the internet, it will be on some public street corner in someone's neighborhood. Our tax dollars at work!
This effort should have been put to use fighting more serious crime.
"In a prepared statement, [Connecting attorney-general Richard Blumenthal] said 'We will be monitoring closely to make sure that this measure is more than a name change from erotic to adult and that the manual blocking is tough and effective to scrub prostitution and pornography.'"
When did pornography become illegal?
If you want to solve all of the problems with prostitution, then legalize it and regulate it, enforce mandatory condom use and mandatory health checks to protect against disease, etc. Two consenting adults having sex should not be illegal. Then again, neither should simulating sex with a bicycle inside your locked hotel room.
I really wish that Buckmaster had quite literally said: "We're protected by Federal law, so sit and spin. Oh, by the way, you should know this, so you're clearly incompetent hacks as well - we're really not worried about seeing you in court. Hugs and kisses, craigslist."
I can understand why he didn't, though - the system has evolved to the point where being dragged through court is more punishment than most people would deserve even if they were guilty of breaking the law. Frankly, this country fucking disgusts me.
-Daniel
This just demonstrates American prudishness to the rest of the world, maybe the Iranians etc will think better of them.
But this is not too dissimilar to the W.I. "campaigning" against the 'personal services' adverts in local papers here in the UK.
Not that I'm a user of such services, but I find it offensive and objectionable that some people can stick their noses in the private business of others.
Here's another that costs $1... http://Live-Vegas-Classifieds.com
Here in Las Vegas, a Print ad is $72 for a weekend in the local newspaper, and $14 a week in the free one at the door of your market. For adult services in Las Vegas, there is also a small army of people handing out pictures and phone numbers of 100 or so girls.
Spammers won't pay. Most juristictions license (and tax) adult services, and our friendly local TELCO had 250 pages of entertainers in the yellow pages.
Somehow missing in all this coverage is the murder in brooklyn last fall of a man who went to meet a "woman" he met on CL.
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