Craigslist faces new wave of political attacks | Politics and Law. A year ago, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark was busy touting e-government, promoting neighborhood social networks, and blogging about squirrel-proofing his bird feeder. But now the 57-year-old entrepreneur is spending his days in more nerve-wracking pursuits: responding to attacks from ambitious attorneys general, legal threats from antiprostitution advocacy groups that sometimes seem to be actually anti-Craigslist, and critical articles written by journalists employed by the same newspapers that his company is helping to slowly eviscerate . And now, two sources have told CNET, a congressional committee has asked Newmark to testify at a hearing in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday afternoon on the topic of "domestic minor sex trafficking. " About the only thing that might make matters worse, perhaps, would be President Obama himself joining the anti-Craigslist fray.
Newmark himself was an unwitting catalyst. "There's probably not going to be an amicable solution at this point," Powell said. 2009 post: Erotic Services Out, Adult Services In. Hey Craigslist, What’s the Difference? If Craigslist is your go to site for NSFW extracurricular activities, then listen up, because Craigslist just put you and your naughty behaviors on shout. Well, sort of. Starting today, the classifieds service, not immune to coming under fire for racier listings, has caved to pressure and will no longer allow new ads to be posted to its controversial erotic services section. In its place, Craigslist will erect a pricier and moderated option termed adult services (funny, that sounds like the same thing to us).So what's the difference?
Adult services listings will cost $10 per post, and go through a manual approval process. Also of note is that proceeds won't necessarily go to charity, as was the case with erotic services ads of late. We think today's news is less of an actual change in policy by Craigslist, and more of a reactionary switch to avoid legal repercussions. How Censoring Craigslist Helps Pimps, Child Traffickers and Other Abusive Scumbags (Danah Boyd/The Huffington Post) At this moment, the must-read stories in technology are scattered across hundreds of news sites and blogs.
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Launched in 2005, Techmeme remains independent, bootstrapped, and privately held. Feeling Burned By the Press, Craigslist Hunkers Down. The powers behind craigslist.org appear to have decided that withdrawal is the best strategy to deal with recent controversy around the "adult services" section of the site. Last week, Craigslist shut down "adult services," which normally features paid advertisments for sex. "Adult services" was recently the subject of legal threats from 18 states, but it looks like it was media coverage that drove the people behind Craigslist underground. Craigslist has not responded to any media inquiries since the shutdown. A CNN primetime investigation that aired last month featured human rights advocates who accused Craigslist of facilitating human sex trafficking and even prostitution of minors (see "Craigslist Under Fire for Kids on 'Adult Services'").
In the special, CNN's Amber Lyon approached founder Craig Newmark after an event and asked him some accusatory questions about how the site polices its community. In the days after the special, Newmark was friendly and very responsive to my emails. Danah Boyd: How Censoring Craigslist Helps Pimps, Child Traffickers and Other Abusive Scumbags. For the last 12 years, I've dedicated immense amounts of time, money and energy to end violence against women and children.
As a victim of violence myself, I'm deeply committed to destroying any institution or individual leveraging the sex-power matrix that results in child trafficking, nonconsensual prostitution, domestic violence and other abuses. If I believed that censoring Craigslist would achieve these goals, I'd be the first in line to watch them fall.
But from the bottom of my soul and the depths of my intellect, I believe that the current efforts to censor Craigslist's "adult services" achieves the absolute opposite. Rather than helping those who are abused, it fundamentally helps pimps, human traffickers and others who profit off of abusing others. On Friday, under tremendous pressure from US attorneys general and public advocacy groups, Craigslist shut down its "Adult Services" section. 1. 2. Visibility is one of the trickiest issues in advocacy. 3. 4. Craigslist Adult Services Section REMOVED. Craigslist appears to have surrendered in a legal fight over erotic ads posted on its website, shutting down its adult services section Saturday and replacing it with a black bar that simply says "censored.
" The move comes just over a week after a group of state attorneys general said there weren't enough protections against blocking potentially illegal ads promoting prostitution. It's not clear if the closure is permanent, and it appears to only affect ads in the United States. The listings came under new scrutiny after the jailhouse suicide last month of a former medical student who was awaiting trial in the killing of a masseuse he met through Craigslist, a popular site that lets users post classified ads, often for free. Craigslist's adult services section carried ads for everything from personal massages to a night's companionship, which critics say veered into prostitution. "They don't like being pushed around" Zittrain said.
Readers Say Craigslist Should Not Be Censored. Over the weekend, we noticed Craiglist had replaced a certain notorious section of its site with a black bar reading "censored. " A longtime and well-known digital resource for prostitutes and the people who engage their services, Craigslist has come under fire many times over the past few years for its erotic/adult classified ads. Craigslist has stated it does everything it can to comply with government and legal stipulations and has an attorney manually screen all of its Adult Services ads. The company once said that 700,000 ads were manually rejected in just one year.
Still, this hasn't stopped sex trafficking on the site, nor has it stopped the site from coming under harsh criticism for its business. In a recent poll, we asked if you thought Craigslist's "Adult Services" section should be censored. Our readers are surprisingly liberal-minded about the Adult Services section.