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Craigslist Fires Back Over Adult Services Accusations
Craigslist has fired back at South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster in an open letter defending the company's policies and procedures surrounding the much debated "adult services." Stating not only the measures that have been taken to minimize illegal behavior, CEO Jim Buckmaster suggests that Craigslist is doing much better at minimizing questionable ads than other major competitors like Yahoo!, Google, and others. "Mr McMaster, I strongly recommend you reconsider and retract your remarks, and positively affirm that you have no intention of launching criminal investigations aimed at any of these upstanding companies, because in truth none of them are deserving of such treatment. [...] We're willing to accept our share of criticism, but wrongfully accusing craigslist of criminal misconduct is simply beyond the pale. We would very much appreciate an apology at your very earliest convenience. As I'm sure would all of the other fine companies whose executives you've called out as criminals."
The problem with politicians is, well, that they exist as a profession.
Instead of having a dedicated, small group of individuals in charge of everything (leading to ridiculous situations like this, where they posture for the electorate), why not have anyone be as involved in government as they wish?
Sounds like somebody is setting himself up for a run at the Governor's Manson.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Kudos to Craigslist. Sex sells. They have done more than they should have to prevent this kind of activity on their site. The way I see it, they are keeping officers employed by busting the prostitutes and the people who use their services. Its a personal choice if you choose to use the services. they control their content but honestly stopping craigslist from have an adult section is gonna do absolutely nothing to stop prostitution in cities. There are plenty of other websites such as backpage or citypages that do the same exact thing at no charge and I've yet to see any of them make the news. The claim that the "prosititute" was killed because she posted on craigsiist is bogus. She's the one taking the chance by sleeping around and she'd do it whether or not craigslist existed or not. It's about time someone grew a pair and stood up to the corrupt legislatures in this country and told them to politely f*ck off.
If he were using this as a leg up to the Gov. position, then he's really barking up the wrong tree. Attempting to sanction (or shutdown) a free service in SC during an economic crunch would be stupid.
... when they refused to grow a pair and claim First Amendment protection, not to mention the safe-harbor provision of the CDA. Paternalistic, moralizing governors and DAs have no Constitutional basis to object to anything Craigslist was doing, and the company should have told them to STFU and GBTW.
But instead they tried to "negotiate," "compromise," and otherwise find a middle ground with religiously-motivated censors and nanny-statists.
Yeah. That always works. Because those sorts of people always go away and leave you in peace once you give in to their demands. <rolleyes>
Ah. So, you're calling Craigslist out for trying to be civil. Good man! We need more people flying right off the deep end without any sense of negotiation. We also need more stereotyping, darnit, because without that, we might be seen as a serious culture! We have to preserve our l33t, underground status as overreacting outsiders whom nobody should try to understand because we get in huge screaming fits over what the other 90% of the planet just doesn't give a rat's ass about!
Shame on you, Craigslist! Shame on you for trying to be civil! Next time somebody looks at you funny, break his/her nose to restore the balance!
Actually, the GP poster has a point. It's not pretty, but there are a lot of people out there who see compromise as weakness. If you look at recent history of the Basque separatist movement, for example, as soon as there was some level of conciliation, the level of violence skyrocketed.
Part of it may also be that people who have lived for so long fighting a particular cause end up being more attached to the fight than the cause itself, and as soon as it looks like their way of life is threatened, they try to do things which encourage the fight to continue.
In this case, however, I feel it's a much baser motivation. Like a shark smelling blood, this guy decided he could have a little PR feeding frenzy to fuel his gubernatorial run. Silly AG, don't you know that a well-educated populace would never fall for such a thing?
The CB App. What's your 20?
Yup, we've all witnessed self-righteousness due to guilt
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
But Craigslist isn't committing the crime. They're providing a means of communication in the same way Google Gmail or AT&T do - or any Internet provider. And they should bear no more legal responsibility for the communications people make with their service than AT&T, Google, or Comcast do. To modify your examples, it would be like prosecuting the manufacturer of the car for letting people speed with it, or prosecuting the manufacturer of the Louisville Slugger that someone gets beaten with.
The sign of a good compromise is when both sides are unhappy. Just because you have the right to free speech, it doesn't always mean it is in your best interests to use it all the time. People are complaining about something even though it is in your rights you can always choose to back down too. Or are you the guy who never lets some one in front of you when the lanes are merging in the road.
Putting your self fully in the firing line. Espectially with "religiously-motivated censors and nanny-statists" is always a big fight. If they see that you can at least meet them half way they tend to back off a lot, so they can focus on the next big evil. Sure you not in the clear there will be some point where you need to draw the line. However to keep things running smooth it is easier to compromise.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Or like prosecuting the manufacturer of the handgun that ... oh wait. Never mind.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
By attempting to reason with unreasonable people and failing, you can more easily demonstrate to the rest of the world that they're unreasonable.
This is handy when you're dealing with, say, an elected official.
I am officially gone from