| 21 September 2010
Having vanquished the wickedly vile purveyors of filth at Craigslist, Connecticut's Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who happens to be running to win the Senate seat being vacated by Chris "Lame Duck" Dodd, has turned his attention on the rest of the online classifieds companies.
Richard Blumenthal, also a U.S. Senate candidate, said Tuesday the state attorneys general have sent a joint letter to Backpage.com. He said they are also asking the site to develop better safeguards to prevent illegal prostitution and child trafficking ads from migrating to the site's other sections.
Craigslist closed its adult services section earlier this month after the attorneys general and others raised concerns it could not effectively screen out illegal ads.
Blumenthal estimates Backpage makes $17.5 million from prostitution ads. A message left with a spokesman for Village Voice Media, which owns Backpage, was not immediately returned Tuesday.
Blumenthal's quest to shut down providers of adult advertisements is a classic case of failure to identify unintended consequences. Regardless of one's personal stance on the oldest profession, my own take is that if consenting adults elect to turn sex into a transactional relationship there should be no legal impediments to the conduct of such contracts, a public forum allows for the disinfecting sunlight of public observation to force the unsavory elements to the periphery. Craigslist worked to battle both illegal prostitution as well as human trafficking.
craigslist is committed to being socially responsible, and when it comes to adult services ads, that includes aggressively combating violent crime and human rights violations, including human trafficking and the exploitation of minors. We are working intensively as I write this with experts and thought leaders at leading non-profits and among law enforcement on further substantive measures we can take. We are profoundly grateful to those offering us their expert assistance in this regard.
One of the many recommendations we hear from experts at NGOs, in law enforcement, and from politicians and regulators, is that craigslist is uniquely positioned to lead by example, and to exert influence over other advertising venues to follow in its footsteps. Indeed, as we intensify our efforts to make further forward progress, we continue to be hopeful that other companies will take an interest in adopting measures we have had in place for years.
craigslist implemented manual screening of adult services ads in May of 2009. Since that time, before being posted each individual ad is reviewed by an attorney licensed to practice law in the US, trained to enforce craigslist’s posting guidelines, which are stricter than those typically used by yellow pages, newspapers, or any other company that we are aware of. More than 700,000 ads were rejected by those attorneys in the year following implementation of manual screening, for falling short of our guidelines. Our uniquely intensive manual screening process has resulted in a mass exodus of those unwilling to abide by craigslist’s standards, manually enforced on an ad-by-ad basis.
Manual screening matters. We are proud of the difference it has made, along with the other measures we have taken. However, there is no shortage of US companies that have not yet implemented manual screening for this ad category, or any other of the steps that craigslist has taken, and that have not yet exhibited any interest in combating human trafficking and the exploitation of minors, and other forms of violence and human rights violations.
One of the advantages of Nevada's legalized prostitution is that sex workers are afforded protections their colleagues in other states lack. They can work legally, shielding them from blackmail from unscrupulous people looking to make a buck off them. Further, a regulated industry marginalizes the exploitative aspects of the sex trade.
Melissa Gira Grant noted the same in Slate last year.
What does make news is a sex panic. After the murder of Julissa Brisman, a Boston-area woman who sold massage sessions in Craigslist's erotic-services section, Blumenthal's complaints about the site suddenly had urgency. Forgotten in that moment was the fact that, though sex workers do face real threats of violence, Craigslist isn't responsible for generating interest in the age-old institution of buying and selling sex. The claims of Blumenthal and his allies that their campaign against prostitution ads will "prevent the exploitation of women and children" ignore the obvious fact that there will always be a black market for sex. No matter how successful you are at driving prostitution underground, someone will find a way to profit from it and control it.
Craigslist's erotic-services section was simply the latest and most visible underground marketplace, a sexual public square so easily accessible to consumers, providers, and window-shoppers that it made prostitution seem less risky. For sex workers, it actually was safer than working on the streets or advertising in a newspaper. Craigslist enabled sex workers to screen potential customers and to work for themselves rather than rely on a pimp or agency. With the erotic-services section, work conditions also improved for the vice squad, whose job was made all the easier by having a dedicated and high-traffic venue to police.
The most significant difference between Craigslist and a brothel is that the former voluntarily opens its "black book" of clients to police. The records Craigslist maintains on its users played a critical role in apprehending the so-called Craigslist Killer. The Boston Police Department reported that "Craigslist was cooperative in identifying and locating" accused murderer Philip Markoff; Craigslist spokeswoman Susan Best notes that "a digital trail left by those breaking the law" allows Craigslist to support criminal investigations in a way, say, a newspaper cannot. In the case of Markoff, what could have become a series of murders was put to a quick halt once his inbox was examined. Boston cops said they relied on these "high-tech" solutions as much as "shoe-leather" investigation. The lesson here for those in law enforcement—and a lesson that Richard Blumenthal fails to understand—is that Craigslist is an ally, not a perp.
The reason that Craigslist's erotic-services section no longer exists is that the site made sex work safer without intending to, and without any input from the cops. Craigslist's power in the field of online prostitution appears to be far more threatening to Blumenthal, et al., than any modern-day Jack the Ripper who targets those who advertise there. If public safety is his goal—and not a run at the governor's office—then Blumenthal ought to reconsider who his enemies and allies are in his fight to keep the sex trade in check.
The decision to censor craigslist has led to a further intrusion into the marketplace to shut down another provider. But again, let's echo the point, shutting down the place where business is advertised won't shut down the business itself. So if the goal is to protect women and children from exploitation, why is forcing them to hide behind protectors who operate outside legal enforcement channels a logical recourse? It clearly isn't. Dick Blumenthal is running for Senate in a very liberal state. An ironic twist is that a dozen years ago, Republicans went to the mattresses pursuing the private sex life of the President. Dick Blumenthal is committed to interfere with the private sex lives of literally millions of Americans. Let's get government out of all of our lives.
UPDATE: The puritanical follies aren't limited to the attorney general. A group of busybodies concerned citizens is looking to keep pornography out of Connecticut. Yeah, good luck with that.
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