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Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

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Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#591

Post by DataWorker »

carver wrote: post #566
manofmanysmiles wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking about this peripherally for a while, especially the bigger picture when some law is passed, and it seems exceptionally out of touch with the reality, and does more harm than good. A depressing thought: What if we apply something akin to Occam's Razor? What if the lawmakers want to hurt the people struggling at at the lower rungs of society? To me it feels unlikely it is intentional in most cases, o…

It's even worse than that: politicians created over-reaching laws and enforcement, to demographically target political opponents and take away their right to vote. > "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to…

I don’t think your assertion is supported by the facts. Your own Wikipedia citation even seems to counter your claim.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#592

Post by intopieces »

the_stc wrote: post #542
smadge wrote: post #207

Tonight tens of thousands sex workers are devestated that their safer tool for finding clients is shutting down. Exploitative sex trafficking will continue unabated, but independent working people will be forced into more dangerous situations.

We cannot launch our project too soon [details in profile]. We will do what we can to prevent trafficking: asking for ID and verifying they have an escorting presence is a good start. Analytics to look at payment flow and see if one entity is controlling multiple escorts is another.

Asking for ID and verifying they have an escorting presence, but what if they don't meet your bar? What will you do if you suspect someone is a victim of sex trafficking? Your business model is "extra judiciary" so ... what does that mean for the sex trafficking victims you will invariably come in contact with? How are you specifically planning to change an industry that exploits people?

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#593

Post by intopieces »

rmrm wrote: post #590
nicky0 wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that cheerleading it a highly skilled role that takes a lot of hard work and training, they are not just standing around looking nice. And there are male cheerleaders. Booth babes, maybe this is highly skilled too. I don't know. But I don't think they compare.

I dont understand what your point is.

The point is that cheerleaders are skilled athletes who are valued for their skill and looks. A beautiful cheerleader standing around is not in demand. Booth Babes are not valued for their skill in holding things, they are valued for their looks only. They are not recognized for their talent. They are treated as objects among objects.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#594

Post by rmrm »

intopieces wrote: post #593
rmrm wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont understand what your point is.

The point is that cheerleaders are skilled athletes who are valued for their skill and looks. A beautiful cheerleader standing around is not in demand. Booth Babes are not valued for their skill in holding things, they are valued for their looks only. They are not recognized for their talent. They are treated as objects among objects.

I agree that is true, but I dont think it changes anything about my post being true as well. A comparatively higher skilled sexual object doesnt change its nature, or why it exists as a job. Maybe you find it more respectable.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#595

Post by cpt1138 »

edraferi wrote: post #368
anigbrowl wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

While I agree with your list of things that would help there is a significant problem I've been thinking about with respect to everything that's been happening lately. There is no "government" that does anything, its all people. The quality of people we have making up our (where FOSTA/SESTA is) government are not the type of people that at the end of the day could work with anyone like drug dealers or sex workers. Then you have the problem of the types of people that could work with drug dealers and sex workers may have more fluid ethics that could be corrupted in some ways. For example, if everyone could be like Violet Blue that would be one thing. But I could imagine some less than savory person applying for the job but with the intent to look the other way for some payback. I think we really need to stop thinking about the problems as if there is some uncorruptable benevolent "government" that is going to help us. And start think about systems that are realistically run by fallible people but have checks and balances in place to remove corruption. Like maybe the "terrible" government is responsible for punishing only? I don't know how to solve the problems honestly, just seems like we are looking where the light is rather than where we lost our keys (maybe down the sewer).

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#596

Post by troupe »

AFNobody wrote: post #96
abritinthebay wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something to be said for making a discouraged activity harder to do. Yes, it pushes these people underground but in a sense that is good as it makes it harder for them and harder to access them. In return it’s not much harder for authorities to infiltrate and there’s less non-illicit activity to filter. Not perfect, but it’s not always bad.

It increases the sexual abuse of marginalized women statistically. Legal brothels have much lower rates of abuse.

> Legal brothels have much lower rates of abuse.

Because there is less overall abuse? If you make something legal you will increase the number of people who are concerned about the legality of their actions which will reduce the overall percentage of people participating who are NOT concerned about the legality of their actions. I would expect the percentage of abuse to go down in that situation, but it doesn't mean that you've actually reduced abuse.

(On the other hand if the activity is legal, it is easier to report abuse. In which case it is the ability to report abuse that is reducing abuse--not the legality of the activity.)

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#597

Post by ethbro »

cpt1138 wrote: post #595
edraferi wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

While I agree with your list of things that would help there is a significant problem I've been thinking about with respect to everything that's been happening lately. There is no "government" that does anything, its all people. The quality of people we have making up our (where FOSTA/SESTA is) government are not the type of people that at the end of the day could work with anyone like drug dealers or sex workers. Th…

This is the corruption trap that you see in narco-regimes and countries where government institutions are being built or rebuilt.

If X personal compensation exists for corrupt behavior, and If you prosecute people for corrupt behavior, then your prosecutors and justice system now have to make the same decision.

Ultimately, rule of law only exists because of tradition and a sufficiently widespread support of it.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#598

Post by omarforgotpwd »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #284
omarforgotpwd wrote: post #127

Rather than stopping undesirable activity, this will merely push it to platforms and protocol that are out of the US government's control.

It might, or it might not. And even if it did, then so what? I think the attitude you expressed is equivalent to: well since there is no way to actually stop the slave trade from using some platform, US companies might as well profit from it.

Not at all. If a certain law does not solve the intended problem and it poses costs on innocent bystanders (e.g. website administrators who are not involved in any illegal activity), then it might need to be reconsidered. The equivalent attitude would be: Requiring everyone shit in the sink and wash their hands in the toilet is not going to solve insider trading, so we should not make that a requirement. "So what, you support insider trading and letting people profit off private company information?" No, not at all. I just want to shit in the toilet and wash my hands in the sink. It won't make a difference to insider trading either way.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#599

Post by pessimizer »

abritinthebay wrote: post #76
extralego wrote: post #54

It seems this and the new Youtube/Reddit bans would push more of this communication to the dark web and/or other private communication channels. I don't think I am comfortable with that. But, hopefully it leads to more support and push for privacy and decentralization. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-21/youtube-b... https://motherboard.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/ne9v5k/reddit...

There is something to be said for making a discouraged activity harder to do. Yes, it pushes these people underground but in a sense that is good as it makes it harder for them and harder to access them. In return it’s not much harder for authorities to infiltrate and there’s less non-illicit activity to filter. Not perfect, but it’s not always bad.

To remove the layers of abstraction: what it does is force prostitutes to rely on people who can skillfully market while avoiding authorities, aka pimps. What it does is massively increase the power of middlemen in a situation where two consenting adults could conceivably have an exchange of goods and services where neither felt particularly exploited.

It probably does shrink the market, but that just makes the prices rise, maintaining the attraction for middlemen with a larger portion of a smaller pie. Whereas pimped women end up with a smaller portion of a smaller pie. This lowers the attraction of the profession for willing providers, leaving a void to be filled by the unwilling.

The internet has been good to prostitutes. At the the camgirl level, pimps (as camsites) have largely withered away to competing technical service providers, providing nearly indistinguishable commodity platforms competing on features and cost. No reason why this law won't be going for that, either. I'm sure some women on those sites are locally pimped, or follow up private shows with email contact and physical meetings. One occasion would be enough.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#600

Post by astura »

fencepost wrote: post #531
syshum wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm sure you want the police and laws there to protect children from sexual exploitation. Which is why I clearly said ADULT in my response. We protect children from all manner of things because their brains have not formed to the point where we as a society believe they can make rational choices for themselves However if we are going to have a free society at some point you become an adult, at which point I do not b…

>>The same with drugs, you don't want smack and cocaine being sold in Boots. >Not sure what a boot is, Boots is a chain of pharmacies (also "health and beauty") stores in the UK. Probably pretty comparable to the US Walgreens or CVS chains.

In fact, Boots is now owned by Walgreens. It's official company name now is Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc but it's Walgreens who bought all the shares of Boots.
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