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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

#481

Post by matthewn »

Noos wrote: post #319
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.

LOL at craigslist being "safe." That site was always sketchy as hell.

When you say "always" are you indicating you've been using the site roughly since its inception? I have, and my memory of its first 10 years or so does not match your description at all.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#482

Post by Fjolsvith »

kirykl wrote: post #402
Fjolsvith wrote: post #371

So, Craigslist no longer allows Americans to use personals because of FOSTA. What's to keep Americans from going a foreign based service/server for their hookup needs? It wouldn't necessarily have to be Darknet, right?

The CLOUD act https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/cloud-act-dangerous-ex...

I see supreme court challenges all over that.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#483

Post by ayemiller »

nathan_long wrote: post #451
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…

> 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. I understand what you're saying. However, compare sex work to slavery (which it often is). Nobody wants to be a slave. Some desperate people might agree to be enslaved to pay off a debt. Yo…

I would argue that the sea between "sex slavery" aaaand "sex worker" is just as vast as that between professional engineer and enslaved engineer. Again, polite society would have you think otherwise...

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#484

Post by kevin_b_er »

zrobotics wrote: post #22
smt88 wrote: post #14

I hope a lawyer will chime in, because this seems pretty obviously to be an indefensible law. If you make analogies to other services, the justification falls apart. Are landlords responsible for weed dealers' business cards stuck to peg boards? Is USPS responsible for people mailing bombs? Even under DMCA, no public/high-traffic communication service is responsible for its users this way.

Actually, a landlord can be responsible for tenant's drug dealing. https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/landlord-liab... Granted, they have to at least have a suspicion it is occurring, but there is potential liability there, and business cards stuck to a pegboard may be enough.

A better comparison would be that the privately owned toll road operator must check for drug traffickers itself or be shut down by a law like this.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#485

Post by jacques_chester »

rnnr wrote: post #315
jacques_chester wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of these are opinion page pieces. Newspapers publish a wide variety of these without endorsing the position.

they still pick the opinions they publish.

Because atoms are in limited supply. It does not mean endorsement.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#486

Post by spocksdoom »

SeeDave wrote: post #117
DannyBee wrote: post #44

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 good of the dozens outweighs the liberty the entire species?

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#487

Post by pixl97 »

lagadu wrote: post #415
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #260

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?

Most monetary transactions involving victims of sex slaves involve money, should we remove it too? He's saying that this affects far more legitimate users than sex traffickers by multiple orders of magnitude, while at the same time not preventing sex trafficking from taking place anyway.

No, no, we don't ban money, we just move to systems where the government gets to monitor all your financial transactions in real time and they get to selectively block those they don't find morally wholesome.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#488

Post by 77pt77 »

dilap wrote: post #446
downandout wrote: post #100

I just read the text of this bill. The way it reads, the entire online dating industry should be closing its doors...tonight. CEOs of these companies face penalties of up to 25 years in prison. Why were there not massive protests over this? I had never heard of this bill before today.

it'll be selectively enforced; small players will be pushed out because they can't afford the liability, and the behemoths will use their weight to ensure nothing happens to them.

> it'll be selectively enforced

This is the crux. These laws are not meant to be enforced universally.

The objective is having ammunition to use when other motives determine the target to strike.

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#489

Post by ryanobjc »

balls187 wrote: post #430
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…

> Life is too short to make excuses for stupid behavior. Like meeting strangers on the internet and buying/selling sex for money? If it was legal, it could be better regulated, and they could operate with more safety...but it's not legal. While I'm in favor of decriminalizing adults engaging in adult behavior, I don't believe anyone goes into selling sex with a healthy attitude towards sex. They're typically victims…

That belief isn’t just something they got from nowhere. Your contempt for their choices is bizarre and really offensive.

If they have a better option, perhaps you could illustrate what that might be. Perhaps grab a coding job? Or waitressing, with all the benefits and pay that comes with (and sexual harassment with no recourse, not much #metoo for underpaid waitresses)?

Or, are you offering a job?

Re: Craigslist takes personals sections offline in response to FOSTA

#490

Post by tfuop »

ekiru wrote: post #341
DannyBee wrote: post #44

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…

> The only thing mildly surprising to me here is that it took them ~10 years to get the house to do it. Some of the non-profits dedicated to fighting this opposed the bill!

Hail drumpf!!!
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