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Craigslist Permanently Shuts Down Adult Services Section
When Craigslist suddenly decided to block its adult services section earlier this month, many speculated that the site was only trying to draw more public attention to its legally protected right to host such activity. As it turns out, however, Craigslist wasn't bluffing, and has now decided to permanently close the controversial section. During a hearing on sex trafficking of minors held by the House Judiciary Committee, Craigslist's director of customer and law enforcement relations, William Clinton Powell, confirmed that "there are no plans to reinstate" the adult services section. "Those who formerly posted adult services ads on Craigslist will now advertise at countless other venues," Powell testified. Although the Communications Decency Act protects Craigslist against liability for illegal transactions executed on its platform, the site has come under fire in recent weeks from state attorneys and advocacy groups claiming that Craigslist should do more to fight online sex trafficking.
Delighted as some state attorneys may be with Craigslist's decision, others worry that it could realistically hurt efforts to control illegal activity. Because such illicit transactions were limited to one place, some argue, the site actually helped law enforcement authorities to track sex traffickers and criminals. But Ernie Allen, chief executive of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, still thinks that the site's move will help root out sex trafficking and child exploitation in the long run. "We recognize that if we crack down in one area, some of this problem will migrate to other areas, but frankly that's progress," he said. "We follow the money. The goal is to destroy the business model of those who sell children for sex on the Internet."
While we certainly understand the first group's point -- that restricting illicit activity to one digital sphere could help streamline investigations, it's hard to ignore the fact that Craigslist was making significant profits off of morally nebulous transactions made on its platform. Whereas most ads on the site are posted free of charge, ads in the adult services section have always cost $10. And, according to the AIM Group consulting firm, the site is slated to rake in a cool $44 million in revenue from its erotic ads alone. Cooperative as the site may have been with legal authorities, it'd be hard for anyone to support a company that makes even a cent off of the sex trafficking market.
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Comments
10
Subscribe to commentsGerardNYCSep 17th 2010 12:37PM
All I can say is Thank You Lord. Our world and let's narrrow it down even further..this country, America, has fallen victim to evil and sin- our tv's are full of sin and nudity and women are lost in this world being used and abused and they are lured by money all the time. Women= greed and pride has ruined your name. I hope it's not forever.
Can you imagine we had a site you could call a prostitute from but this site has no links for the Bible or Christian's or any religious faction- How did religion become the bad guy? From evil, that's how...
meSep 18th 2010 12:09AM
@g4theweb
i beleave in God but i dont have my head up my ass like these bible thumping morons do...the world is sunshine and sparkles now that craiglist is taken its site down all evil is gone. grow up people its still out there, just you can pretend its gone and kids arent getting raped and girls are not selling themselves anymore.. in fact it would be much easier to have busted these child sex rings if craiglist adult still existed just the lazy, donut eating law inforcement and the "wonderful" goverment we have would have to get up of their ass and work.
dickn2000bSep 17th 2010 1:31PM
Now if we could get the rest og Craigslist shut down the internet eould be safer and the world a better place!
Ore N. MavroSep 17th 2010 8:33PM
@dickn2000b
totally. The internet would be safer for about 6 internet years--which is 2 real world hours.
tiffanieSep 17th 2010 3:51PM
Organized religion is nothing but a SCAM. No better than what goes on in Craigslist's adult section! Besides, it was pretty much an unspoken joke that Craiglists' adult services were just for hookers and johns.
ajschrodSep 17th 2010 9:58PM
Religion has nothing to do with it. America has a level of morality that won't allow low-class sleaze, and prostitution hasn't been able to show it can operate as part of our decent society. A man wanting to patronize a hooker is strictly on his own--and SHOULD be! Sex is private behind closed doors and in spite of Hollywood trying to convince us how important it is, nobody NEEDS it!
Kevin BrownSep 17th 2010 5:02PM
How did the Adult Services section of Craigslist, which everyone knows was used heavily for prostitution, become all about the exploitation of children. If someone is pimping out children put them under the jail but our laws concerning prostitution are archaic and silly.
RamajarSep 17th 2010 6:09PM
If presumably hundreds of thousands of posts were submitted to the adult services section of craigslist. And most human traffickers want to avoid the public eye and extremely underaged individuals would have been kept from there it is poor logic to say that such a site encouraged such activities.
GerardNYCSep 18th 2010 12:15AM
@marina007 if you want to build something it's one brick at a time. But unlike most things we build one brick at a time, Sin can NOT be knocked down in a single swoop! So like building one brick at a time, destroying sin must also be undone one brick at a time..
taking Craigslist's 'Adult' section down is a very good brick to destroy. Good and God.
S.S.Sep 19th 2010 10:13AM
Oh Brother.....they didn't actually eliminate ANYTHING.....everyone already know that about 90% of "massage parlors are fronts for adult services, and under the heading of "therapeudic" in the services section, are a gazillion of them.
Besides...there are many posts in other sections who ask for young "models" which can be a bait and switch system.
How naive can these idiots be?