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Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

craigslist.org

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Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#41

Post by antonvs »

daturkel wrote: post #25
cft wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know several people who met and got married with children on CL. It was a normal dating site, and it also has(d) "strictly platonic" and "missed connections"- all of it is shut down now. Are dating sites/Tinder next? We will miss the days when internet wasn't like cable TV.

I loved browsing the strictly platonic section looking for sweet/bizarre/novel posts, but it was definitely full content that was _not_ platonic.

You just have a narrow definition of 'platonic'. :)

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#42

Post by Method-X »

I'd encourage folks here to check out ZeroNet (https://zeronet.io). It's a cool little project I've been following for the past couple years that's attempting to decentralize the Internet. It's not very popular but surprisingly it has 11.5k stars on GitHub (https://github.com/HelloZeroNet/ZeroNet).

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#43

Post by SN76477 »

cft wrote: post #36
pishpash wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet is not "the internet" any more. It's a corporate owned, tapped and monitored, centralized data warehouse. Another decentralized network needs to be formed separately adhering to the original ideals of the internet. In fact this turnover may need to happen periodically. Jump ship from the current so-called internet.

I wonder how long it will take to ban that too, like is Bitcoin ban imminent? Perhaps not a ban, but a legislation rendering it practically useless due to compliance burden. Modern congress now acts impulsively, fast, like in basketball.

It is all impulse with zero long term goals in America.

This is infrastructure is poor in some places, some areas have failing infrastructure (such as flint MI)

These types of projects require an elected official to see beyond their term limits. Something few of them can do.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#44

Post by DannyBee »

This is not surprising, but sad. Years ago, i was dragged (i was the only engineer in the local office) into a whitehouse (or maybe it was state department, i can't remember) sponsored working group on online sex trafficking.

The non-profits dedicated to fighting this, while seemingly well-intentioned, were completely and totally unwilling to see any other perspective or try to find shared ground. It was scorched earth approach or nothing. Literally to the tune of "we should be burning down craigslist entirely, and yahoo, google, microsoft, etc should be required to be scanning your search history and reporting you to the police if they suspect you might be sex trafficking".

It was frustrating enough that two of the other participants literally walked out.

The only thing mildly surprising to me here is that it took them ~10 years to get the house to do it.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#46

Post by jerezzprime »

jMyles wrote: post #23
smt88 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guns removed from YT and reddit are totally different. They're corporations choosing to ban certain content from their own platform. Craigslist is responding to a change in the law, which isn't comparable.

It's comparable insofar as, in each case the sociopolitical temperature of the moment has resulted in a reduction of the content available to users, even if the actual dynamic varies in the important ways you point out.

But one is through mandated censorship, the other is voluntary. YouTube decided to stop serving certain content to better serve it's customers, that is it's perogative as a business. Nothing is preventing a competitor from hosting such content.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#47

Post by x0x0 »

danso wrote: post #30

How are Craigslist personals more affected by this law/regulation than other semi-anonymous dating sites? Or am I mistaken in thinking that there is any dating site that has the same anonymity as Craigslist?

Craigslist, from my casual observation (as someone who met my SO on there 9 years ago) had a lot of really obvious ads for sexworkers. They openly tolerated it for a while as long as it was in its own forum.

My guess is that enforcement actions will come down hardest on those with a reputation (like craigslist) for tolerating sex workers and who do, in fact (like craigslist) have a large proportion of ads from sex workers.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#48

Post by thrden »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #21

This is completely bizarre, we can't go down this route with the internet. It is madness.

Unfortunately we've had a very poor week for internet freedom. However much of it has been the result of corporate overreach.

This week: Reddit bans Cigar, beer and Alchohol trading subreddits, toy bb gun sales, and gun related coupon clippers

Youtube (and facebook?) banned Channels featuring guns they deem inappropriate. Including videos regarding proper safety and maintenance.

It has become clear to be that the internet is naturally monopolistic in a way physical institutions are not. One simply cannot move their gun channel, or the cigar trading forum to other sites and have a decent chance of maintaining even 10% of their customers. What happens if google also decides that they don't want these things to show up in search results. We need regulation to ensure that these platforms remain open for all types of users, not regulation that forces more content off these platforms.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#49

Post by dragonwriter »

x0x0 wrote: post #47
danso wrote: post #30

How are Craigslist personals more affected by this law/regulation than other semi-anonymous dating sites? Or am I mistaken in thinking that there is any dating site that has the same anonymity as Craigslist?

Craigslist, from my casual observation (as someone who met my SO on there 9 years ago) had a lot of really obvious ads for sexworkers. They openly tolerated it for a while as long as it was in its own forum. My guess is that enforcement actions will come down hardest on those with a reputation (like craigslist) for tolerating sex workers and who do, in fact (like craigslist) have a large proportion of ads from sex wo…

> Craigslist, from my casual observation (as someone who met my SO on there 9 years ago) had a lot of really obvious ads for sexworkers. They openly tolerated it for a while as long as it was in its own forum.

Its own forum was shut down under legal pressure some time ago, and it moved to other personals forums, as I understand.

Which is probably why they are now, with the new legal pressure, killing the personals forums.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#50

Post by CamperBob2 »

bsder wrote: post #34

Could someone explain to me how this isn't going to go down in flames to an immediate First Amendment challenge?

I think that's why more people aren't upset about it. The courts have been very effective at shutting down this sort of grandstanding.
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