Craig’s list has stopped offering links to the adult services in the United States. according to the Washington Post:
One of the world’s biggest providers of Internet classified advertising abruptly shut down the “adult services” section of its U.S. Web sites this weekend, apparently in response to criticism from prosecutors that it had become a tool for prostitution.
But it was unclear whether Craigslist – an icon of the new media transformation of American society – had closed the site to placate those critics, or to hit back at them, casting itself as the victim of censorship. On its famously bare-bones Web sites, the blue-lettered link for adult services was gone. It had been replaced with a black box, containing one word: “censored.”
Craigslist’s usually outspoken leaders gave no explanation for their move and no signal as to whether it would be permanent. Last year, the site increased the screening of these ads after authorities in New England said a man had killed one woman and attacked two others he’d contacted through Craigslist.
On Craigslist sites in other nations, the “erotic” sections remained open.
The site’s critics greeted the change with praise and wariness.
Craigslist has been a connection for prostitution, murder, human trafficking and child pornography. The links to adult services in other countries still remains. Unfortunately, people tend to worry more about what they can see rather than on what they cannot see.
While some area residents and politicians worry about an unscale adult boutique coming to Old Town Manassas, many people continue to drop their children off at the mall and allow kids and teens on the internet without supervision where any number of perverts await young, unsuspecting kids.
UPDATE: From hamptonroads.com:
The online classified advertising site Craigslist has been asked by a group of state attorneys general, including Virginia’s Ken Cuccinelli, to remove its adult services listings category, which they say features ads for prostitution and “trafficking children.”
A bipartisan assembly of prosecutors from 17 states this week sent a letter to Craigslist officials calling for “immediate action to end the misery for the women and children who may be exploited and victimized by these ads.”
According to Cuccinelli, the recent letter follows a 2008 agreement between state prosecutors and Craigslist owners who pledged to step up monitoring for illegal activity and to coordinate with local law enforcement.
Since then, Cuccinelli contends, there hasn’t been much evidence to suggest that the number of “illegal advertisements on the Web site” has been reduced.
“The Adult Services section of Craigslist.com has become a forum for inviting illegal – and potentially very dangerous – activity throughout Virginia,” Cuccinelli said in a statement about the joint letter. “Given the frequency that law enforcement finds these ads on the site, it seems clear that whatever monitoring Craigslist may be doing of posts is not sufficient.”
I guess this means no free internet advertising for that proposed sex toy shop in Old Town Manassas.
You know, I am tired of hearing sex toys for consenting adults, many of them married couples, being compared to child molesters, prostitution and rapists.
Where is this coming from? Are Americans really that sexually repressed? How have people lived with Victoria’s Secret and trashy old Spencers at the Mall all these years?
I expect the owner of KK Temptations is probably going to handle her own advertizing. I doubt she needs to publish on Craigslist.
Who really gets to decide community standards? When do we start burning books? When are we going to separate crime from what people do in private in their own bedrooms?
Shut it down on Craig’s List, it’ll just go somewhere else.
Actually, Moon, I would guess that many believe that an establishment which starts with the sale of adult sex toys will inevitably expand its product line and earn the XXX label. When there is money to be made….. Sort of like Target now being in the grocery business in my neck of the woods.
I have never known that to be true. That has not happened with Fantasy Fashion or with other upscale stores in the Northern Va area. If you start off as a trashy store, you stay one. If you start off with a decent establishment, it is likely to stay that way.
I am beginning to think from listening and reading that men don’t understand the adult boutique because they are judging it by guy standards. Adult boutiques genrally cater to women or couples. If one thinks for a minutes about the differences of women and men biologically, it makes it easier to understand. Most of the stores I have been in over the years have sold what might be called Erotica or secual enhancement ‘toys.’ There is nothing ‘porno’ about them.
All our male contributors should consider buying their wife or girl friend that special Christmas gift. 🙂
So, what the heck. I’ll just wrap myself in Christmas paper and put a bow on my head.
And would Mrs. W consider you her favorite gift?
I’m pretty confident that my wifey would trade me in for Mr. Jonathan Rhys Meyers. And I thought she was watching The Tudors for the ‘acting’!!!