Live data from Hacker News

Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

craigslist.org

361–370 of 654 posts

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#361
post #322
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>But it is obvious to anyone who has used them that CL personals were utterly overwhelmed by people who are selling the other kind of Saas (Sex as a Service). That is also largely the government fault because back in 2010 they more or less forced CL to close the Sections of the site that was dedicated to Adult Services... and as predicted the people that were in those sections simply moved to the personals

Its their fault they forced craigslist to shut down a section openly advertising illegal content? I love the contortions people make. It's not like sex work is even legal in the majority of western nations

>>It's not like sex work is even legal in the majority of western nations

It should be legal that is the point

>Its their fault they forced craigslist to shut down a section openly advertising illegal content?

yes, that was the entire point of Section 230 of the communications act, to prevent platform from being liable for users content, even if the users were doing things that were illegal

Further it is a violation, imo, of the 1st amendment to prohibit speech, while they may be able to make the ACT of prostitution illegal they should not be able to prohibit speech about prostitution.. There is a very very big difference

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because a minority of users make a living through sex. // So you deny there is trafficking of people as sex slaves? Or that particular sites enable it? Or?

I think the point is: imagine government banned bars , because some percentage of rapes involve perpetrators stalking victims in bars and getting them drunk.

Or why can't we ban churches because pastors can use them to rape or molest church members?

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#363

I am fucking sick and fucking tired of people interfering with the free choice of individuals in any effort to "fix" society and "help" people. Lawmakers and advocates, have some epistemic humility and acknowledge that your own perspective may be mistaken. Not everything is oppression. Not every activity is injustice. Sometimes, people just fucking disagree.

> I am fucking sick and fucking tired of people interfering with the free choice of individuals in any effort to "fix" society and "help" people. What is shocking is that it is the liberals who are now pushing for more censorship, more control and less individual freedom. Growing up, it was usually the conservatives/religious who wanted rap, violent video games, blasphemy, etc banned and censored. And their argument…

> Growing up, it was usually the conservatives/religious who wanted rap, violent video games, blasphemy, etc banned and censored.

You weren't paying attention—except for blasphemy, those things were from across the spectrum: the most prominent figure for censorship of music (including rap) was Tipper Gore, who was only “conservative” in the sense that the dominant faction of the Democratic Party is center-right. Similarly, the Clinton Administration was active in promoting online censorship in law.

> Now, the push for censorship and control is being spearheaded by the liberals.

It wasn't a liberal Congress that just passed the bill that has is discussing censorship, so I think again you are falsely attributing something they exists across the political spectrum tomone side, just making the error in the opposite direction.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These problems can also be avoided by not owning guns.

And you can avoid gross plumbing problems by not owning a plunger. You can have professionals with plungers deal with that. Frankly, it's a privilege to able to rely on public and paid services to protect you and your property. Not everyone gets the same service levels and not everyone can afford to pay to fix the problem.

How many times have firearms been fired on your property in an act of protection? When was the last time?

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#365

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 ear…

In defense of the "scorched earth approach or nothing" folks: from my perspective... it's a completely and totally human response to faceless, blameless, unapproachable (from their perspective) perpetrators and facilitators of systematic abuse and exploitation of innocent and vulnerable people. If you've ever felt frustrated at an IVR system for routine tasks such as banking, restaurant reservations, canceling a gym…

> In defense of the "scorched earth approach or nothing" folks: from my perspective... it's a completely and totally human response to faceless, blameless, unapproachable (from their perspective) perpetrators and facilitators of systematic abuse and exploitation of innocent and vulnerable people.

No, its more like the Salem witch hunt.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bring forth a compelling theory, but I don't think it's true. Compare the market for contraband or counterfeited booze and cigarettes, which "mirrors" legal booze and cigarettes, with the market for cocaine and heroin, where "all the surrounding paraphernalia is direct evidence".

OK, go on, if someone is smoking an illegally imported cigarette it's nearly impossible to tell just by looking that there's been a crime. If they're doing a line you know within a small error margin without any investigation. Why, because the former is hidden by the legally allowed behaviour.

No, you can't tell if a given cigarette being smoked is contraband or not, but buying a pack of smuggled cigarettes is a very different experience from buying a legal pack.

When all brothels (escort services etc) are illegal, operators have very little incentive to enforce all sex workers being 18+, non-trafficed, getting regular medicals, whatever. Even a conscientious customer has very few options to check for themselves. If brothels on the other hand are legal, operators have every incentive to do this, and if anyone is looking for an illegal brothel (which looks very different from a legal one, just like the place you're buying smuggled smokes looks very different from a 7-11), this "paraphernalia" is direct evidence that they're looking for something bad.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems some of the men living in Sweden are among the planets worst sexual predators, to word it carefully. Sweden is pushing new legislation that will increase the number of rapes even more. It will be a law of consent and will shift the burden of proof from the victim to the rapist. Unless the rapist can prove consent, he will be sentenced for rape by negligence. Under the new law, having sex with a traffic victi…

I'm curious, is there any Norwegian commentary on Sweden in English?

Google translate is far from perfect but (except for media clips obviously) it's extremely helpful for getting the gist.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In defense of the "scorched earth approach or nothing" folks: from my perspective... it's a completely and totally human response to faceless, blameless, unapproachable (from their perspective) perpetrators and facilitators of systematic abuse and exploitation of innocent and vulnerable people. If you've ever felt frustrated at an IVR system for routine tasks such as banking, restaurant reservations, canceling a gym…

Great, like the trade is going to suddenly end. All they've achieved is 'out of sight, out of mind.' I'm quite annoyed about this, both because it affects numerous friends of mine who are sex workers and are now scrambling to find alternatives to working on the street, where they're far less safe, and on a more pedestrian level because I met my wife on a Craigslist date years ago. Life is too short to make excuses fo…

I've been thinking about this a lot this morning.

I think almost every vice would be less damaging to society if it was in the open. Polite society doesn't want to see sex work or drugs, but they still exist. Hiding them makes things much worse for the people directly involved. It's trafficked kids with broken immigration status who are more scared of the cops than their captors. It's drug addicts who OD on tainted drugs.

Bring it all into the open. Have the government certify providers directly. Crack down on unauthorized middlemen. Tax it. Use the taxes to pay for programs that help people leave when they realize they can have a better life without it.

We need the classic American Market here: free trade enabled by regulation that ensures market quality and protects participants from fraud.

Unfortunately I don't think this is politically possible. It would take a long, well funded campaign. The people who are willing to do that kind of work are motivated by stories of individual tragedy and focus on draconian solutions like this mess of a law. The people who would push for openness can make more money elsewhere, and don't want to make their name "Advocating for drugs & sex."

Frustrating.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am fucking sick and fucking tired of people interfering with the free choice of individuals in any effort to "fix" society and "help" people. What is shocking is that it is the liberals who are now pushing for more censorship, more control and less individual freedom. Growing up, it was usually the conservatives/religious who wanted rap, violent video games, blasphemy, etc banned and censored. And their argument…

> Growing up, it was usually the conservatives/religious who wanted rap, violent video games, blasphemy, etc banned and censored. You weren't paying attention—except for blasphemy, those things were from across the spectrum: the most prominent figure for censorship of music (including rap) was Tipper Gore, who was only “conservative” in the sense that the dominant faction of the Democratic Party is center-right. Simi…

> You weren't paying attention—except for blasphemy, those things were from across the spectrum:

I didn't say it was only the conservatives/religious. I said it was usually them. Sure, tipper gore was against rap, but it was also the liberals who defended rap music.

> It wasn't a liberal Congress that just passed the bill that has is discussing censorship, so I think again you are falsely attributing something they exists across the political spectrum tomone side, just making the error in the opposite direction.

Once again. I didn't say only liberals are censoring now. I said the liberals are the ones spearheading the push for censorship.

The conservatives/religious have always been for censorship. Now the liberals have joined them. Even more, they are the ones spearheading censorship in much of the internet, etc. I'm sure the conservatives/religious are more than happy to follow along.

Just because I said liberals are bad doesn't mean that I think conservatives are good. Liberals seem to always think that because they live in a black and white world. Liberals and conservatives can both be bad.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#370

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 ear…

In defense of the "scorched earth approach or nothing" folks: from my perspective... it's a completely and totally human response to faceless, blameless, unapproachable (from their perspective) perpetrators and facilitators of systematic abuse and exploitation of innocent and vulnerable people. If you've ever felt frustrated at an IVR system for routine tasks such as banking, restaurant reservations, canceling a gym…

The difference is that this approach could work against IVRs, but not against sex trafficking.
Post reply on HN