Craigslist Launches Crackdown On Prostitution Ads
“It’s about to get tougher for prostitutes to connect with clients through popular website Craigslist. People who want to post advertisements for erotic services will be required to use credit cards and phone numbers, which will be verified, before the ads are placed. Police will be able to subpoena the information. Connecticut’s Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist reached the agreement to discourage prostitutes from using the site to find clients. It reaches 40 states. Forty million Americans visit Craigslist each month, according to information provided at a news conference Thursday. Buckmaster said he is confident this agreement will make Craigslist ‘very inhospitable’ for illegal activities. Craigslist has agreed to consider blocks and filters and has agreed to sue 14 companies that have circumvented its safeguards. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also participated in the agreement.” — WBIR (US)
Craigslist had already implemented some forms of moderation. For example, users could flag posts offering frankly illegal services (which is why you couldn’t openly buy, say, the materials to build a radioactive bomb on Craigslist). In March 2008, Craigslist added another step to post to the “erotic services” category. Anyone posting an ad had to provide a phone number at which s/he could receive a verification code. Community moderation can be effective, but this phone-code business ultimately didn’t do a thing to stop prostitution. Thus lawmakers — in a fine show of ineffectual but self-serving election-year politicking — have pressured Craigslist into taking this new step.
Is it working? Is it making Craigslist “very inhospitable” for prostitution? It doesn’t seem to have made the slightest dent in the copious “erotic services” listings for New York. These providers were already giving phone numbers. There isn’t much harm for them to give credit card numbers as well — for the simple reason that the odds of Craigslist being subpoenaed for the card info for any one provider are astronomically slim. Hookers have been strutting past cops on the street for centuries. Why would they bat a painted eyelash over the fear of a circuitous subpoena? And what’s the subpoena prove anyway — that the provider posted an ad on the internet? Big whoop. The provider can always say it was an experiment, an art project, that s/he never had the slightest intention of servicing anyone, etc., etc.
Furthermore, it’s not exactly difficult to procure a credit card number nowadays. In department stores you can buy credit cards for cash. On the internet you can download stolen card numbers. Hell, half these providers accept credit card payments. (Try to search the erotic listings for “credit card.”) Meanwhile, The Deets has already done a study showing that prostitutes have hardly gone out of business. They’ve simply started using other services and other parts of Craigslist.
In sum, it is difficult to see how any good can come from lawmakers pressuring Craigslist into taking this step. Hookers and johns will find ways to connect. So long as they’re not pandering to one another outside elementary schools and playgrounds, there doesn’t seem much point in harassing them all.
Speaking of which, PervScan has been meaning for months to post a link to Dave’s Little Book of Prostitute Poetry, a compilation of hysterical poems written and emailed to providers advertising on Craigslist. If you’re going to harass escorts, doubtless this is the best way to do it — not with guns or laws but with verse.
Interesting… you were the only one who took the prostitute’s side of the story. Would like to invite you to tour iList.com (http://ilist.com/tour) and let me know how you think our features might affect similar listings.
Your site’s very elegant but doesn’t have much in the way of listings yet. You seem to make use of community moderation, which is probably the most practical and effective. But that won’t stop Law Enforcement from bothering you if you get a critical mass of erotic services listings. What’s happened to Craigslist sets a clear precedent.
Of course, there are the Safe Harbor laws protecting you from liability for content posted by your users. Given that, it’s tough to see exactly why Craig caved in. Maybe it just wasn’t worth the hassle and bad press for CL…
In the “Did Ya Know?” department:
Phone Sex Girls and Prostitutes have had an ongoing battle of the sorts at Craigslist. I’ve never advertised (nor would I, it being a matter of customer quality for me), but I’ve many times seen PSOs complaining in various forums about the problem.
Seems the PSOs continually put ads up at Craigslist, only to have them flagged and removed quicker than you can say “call me you horny boy toy.”
Which I’ve never quite understood since — in actuality — it is prostitution which is illegal, while phone sex is legal. So why — even with nefarious and obstinate flagging — would Craigslist take down the PSO ads? Particularly while leaving the prostitution ads?
Things that make you go WTF???
Or maybe you or a reader has some insight?
Excellent commentary.
That’s an interesting point, Angela. One guess would be that PSO ads might come not from PSOs but from spammers? Providers often post over and over to keep their ads visible, but at least the ads come from the providers (or their agencies) themselves.
I forgot to mention that I found DAVE’S LITTLE BOOK OF PROSTITUTE POETRY simply delightful. Thanks for pointing the way.
I was so inspired that I blogged one of his “experiences,” added his site to my links under Eclectic Pearls, and even wrote him a little bit of poetry.
Thanks and Kisses, beloved Deviant Savant. You always rock and roll. And have my utmost devotion and respect.
Oh, and as for your comment that the PSO ads might be coming from spammers — I don’t think so. I just think they’re working girls just like the hookers and are hawking their wares.
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