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."

Comments

Craigslist brought all this crap on themselves...

[Man On Pink Corner]

... 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>

Sue'im for slander

[Tanman]

If he wrote it down, sue him for libel, too. It's pretty obvious that saying your business is a criminal enterprise that endangers its customers' lives would be damaging to your business, and there seems to be plenty of evidence showing that it is better run than many unmentioned competitors.

Excuse me, Mr. AG

[MikeRT]

But I doubt your state has exhausted its backlog of murders, rapes, armed robberies, child molestation cases, etc. Until you do, here's a polite suggestion: get your fucking priorities straight you worthless politician.

I swear, the fatal flaw of democracy is that it relies on the public to make the highest office holders do their job and not just use the office as a means of personal advancement. At least under a monarchy, the king could bitch slap a guy like this for grandstanding (not saying we should go back to a monarchy).

Re:Craigslist brought all this crap on themselves.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

To me, it sounds like you're advocating reasoning with people that may well be unreasonable. Embarking on that is like arguing with pigs.

Re:The problem with politicians

[Jherico]

Given a choice, I'd go with the tyranny of the majority, rather than the tyranny of the minority.

Spoken like a true member of the majority, who doesn't know what its like to be surrounded by people who will discriminate againt you at any chance.

The minority has almost always ruled, historically. The concept of royalty, and the hocus pocus of religion were both designed for the purpose of enforcing minority rule.

I'm a non-christian living where there's a church on virtually every block. Don't talk to me about 'religion' and 'minority rule'