Craigslist Urged To Kill Adult Services Worldwide

(By EVERTON BAILEY Jr., AP)

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and national nonprofit organizations said Tuesday they want Craigslist to be "a model for good policy" and officially get rid of its adult services section globally.

Blumenthal said he sent a letter to the classified advertising website seeking confirmation that it no longer carries adult services ads on its U.S. websites and urged Craigslist to improve its policing methods to block ads that promote prostitution and child trafficking.

"Our message to Craigslist is to put people above profit," Blumenthal said at a press conference. "Sacrifice the money if necessary. Clearly make a public promise that you are shutting down adult services and set a model for the industry in using screening and filtering technology."

Two weeks after 17 state attorneys general sent a joint letter to Craigslist demanding it remove its adult services section over concerns that the company could not completely block illegal ads, Craigslist replaced the section link with a black-and-white "censored" bar Saturday.

Separately Tuesday, four Washington D.C.-based anti-child trafficking organizations released a statement asking Craigslist to close their adult services section on their websites outside of the U.S. as well.

"While this is a good first step in the U.S., there are still more than 250 other Craigslist 'erotic' pages around the world where children and young women are still being sold for sex through Craigslist," the statement said.

The nonprofit groups, the Polaris Project, the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, FAIR Fund and Courtney's House, also said the website has become a major player in the child and women trafficking market.

Craigslist has yet to explain the censored label or publicly respond to the request of the organizations. Company officials have not returned phone and e-mail messages from The Associated Press.

The website has come under increased scrutiny since the jailhouse suicide last month of 24-year-old Philip Markoff, a former Boston University student. Markoff was awaiting trial for the fatal shooting of Julissa Brisman of New York City and the armed robbery of a Las Vegas woman. Rhode Island prosecutors also accused him of attacking a stripper. Markoff had met the women through ads for erotic services posted on Craigslist.

Blumenthal said he talked to Craigslist attorneys over the weekend but received no indication of what the website's long-term plans are for its adult services section. Meanwhile, he said, he has found evidence that potentially illegal ads may have migrated to other sections of the website.

"Simply removing one portion of your site where you permitted and profited from prostitution ads is insufficient if ads go elsewhere," Blumenthal, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat, said in his letter to the company.

Blumenthal said he and 20 other state attorneys general are looking into whether any legal action can be taken against the website to permanently shut down the adult services section.

Comments

[Christine M Gilbert]

12:05 PM on 09/10/2010

I find it a bit ironic that the advertisement in the middle of this article was (on my first visit to this page) a racy ad from american apparel featuring two young women in lingerie. Really?

[VegetableMan]

05:40 PM on 09/10/2010

those women aren't hookers offering a rub n tug for $250 an hour...

[Phil11514]

02:38 AM on 09/11/2010

But they probably wish they were....

[Hdaryl01]

01:29 AM on 09/10/2010

"Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and national nonprofit organizations said Tuesday they want Craigslist to be "a model for good policy" and officially get rid of its adult services section globally."

Why am I not shocked that the eminent AG of a US state (Connecticut) and others in the U.S. are so unwittingly arrogant, self centered, self absorbed, naive, isolated, and downright imperialistic?

Are these folks completely unaware that prostitution is legal, regulated, and/or decriminalized in the vast majority of the countries of the world? Do they simply not care? Oh, that's right, everyone everywhere does, or should do everything the way the U.S. does, or they're wrong, and in need of changing their ways to the U.S. way. As the influence of the US declines, this arrogance will not be missed.

The eminent AG should review the concepts of jurisdiction and sovereignty. If prostitution is legalized and/or decriminalized, as it is, in global places as far away from the U.S. as Canada, or Mexico for that matter, what grounds does the AG of Connecticut have to demand the immediate cessation of a legal business enterprise not even in his state, let alone own country? Doesn't Canada have jurisdiction over all websites that serve Canada? Shouldn't Canadian law and rules be applied to posting in any section of any website in Canada?

Wake up. The rest of the world does not do things exactly as they are done in the U.S. contrary to what unworldly idiots believe.

[GregoryAButler]

03:33 PM on 09/09/2010

The real agenda of the forces harassing Craigslist is simple - the total suppression of sex work. The "child trafficking" thing is a smokescreen, behind which the rights of consenting adults to exchange sex for money are being attacked.

[VegetableMan]

05:42 PM on 09/10/2010

probably true; but while we both agree that prostitution should be legal, CL is basically using their service to promote an illegal act.

i would, however, like the various attorneys general use the same logic against the ny phone book, the village voice, the ny press and the scores of papers around the country that have "escort" ads, and see how far they got with that!

[DismayedRepub]

02:20 PM on 09/09/2010

I think this whole childhood prostitution thing is an election year fabrication. They pick on Craigslist as they have the recognized name that will get them the media attention. About six months ago our local county and federal prosecutors held a press conference to declare that the community had a Big Problem with this. You would think there had been a rash of arrests for this crime. There has not been a single one.

[Hijacked]

10:02 AM on 09/09/2010

"Our message to Craigslist is to put people above profit," Blumenthal said at a press conference. "Sacrifice the money if necessary ...."

I wish he was as outspoken as this about Wall Street's financial institutions that put profits even over dead bodies and become what we are now. Take any telephone directory in any state and look under escort services where women are bought and sold by glorified p. imps. Craigs List as the woman in the article says, gives them more choices, screen clients, choose time/place, and give-up as and when desired. Blumenthal is representative of American Puritanical prudery and hypocrisy.

[Phil11514]

02:55 AM on 09/11/2010

"Our message to Craigslist is to put people above profit," Blumenthal said at a press conference. "Sacrifice the money if necessary ...."

Dear God, how sickly and ironically hypocritical can Blumenthal get? I don't think he's even come close to hitting his "limit".

Apparently Mr. Blumenthal is either supremely ignorant of, or else has simply chosen to completely ignore, the FACT that to Craig's List, it was never, ever about money in the first place!

Craig's List never even used to charge to post ads in the "Erotic Services" category AT ALL!!! It used to be COMPLETELY FREE to post ads there!

The ONLY reason that Craig's List even started charging people to post ads in that category IN THE FIRST PLACE was because the government SPECIFICALLY ASKED THEM TO!

The monumentally inept attorney-generals previously tried suing Craig's List -- and they got their clocks cleaned in court!!

Following that embarassment, they tried (successfully) working with Craig's List -- they asked Craig's List to require people posting ads in the "Adult Services" category to provide a verifiable phone number and a traceable credit card. They did this in the belief that by requiring this, they could cause the number of ads posted in the "Adult Services" category to dwindle dramatically. As usual, they were wrong.

Rather than simply admitting that they had been wrong, though, they (once again) blamed the failure to achieve the results desired on Craig's List, rather than putting the blame right where it belonged -- on themselves. 

[thinkforasecond]

01:21 AM on 09/09/2010

Why cant two consenting adults have sex with a partner they found online? Because almighty govt said so?

[mara k]

12:42 PM on 09/09/2010

Two consenting adults is not the problem. The problem comes about when adult ad services such as those offered by Craigslist are used to offer services that aren't consensual - many ads in the adult services section of Craiglist feature children or unconsenting young women who have become victims of human trafficking, and are being forced to perform sexual acts.

[Phil11514]

02:57 AM on 09/11/2010

Excuse me but that is utter nonsense. NO ads in the "Adult Services" section feature children. They never have. And NO ads in the "Adult Services" section feature "unconsenting young women who have become victims of human trafficking, and are being forced to perform sexual acts." That's utter nonsense and a complete lie.

[waldopepper]

12:27 AM on 09/09/2010

I thought it was going to be some technical article about the perils of high heels based upon the misleading and salacious cover headline combination. But instead the saucy teaser masks a news items of considerable seriousness dealing with a self inflicted threat to free speech that we should all be protesting against.

[Amalek]

11:07 PM on 09/08/2010

I don't live in the US and I resent Blumenthal trying to push his morality on me.

[TruEngineHearing]

10:15 PM on 09/08/2010

Blumenthal is posturing in a most disgusting and transparent way. He is lying about reality - I wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances.

[gnomic]

09:34 PM on 09/08/2010

We need to ban Congress. After all, Vitter and others have hired prostitutes.

This is nothing more than government intimidation in violation of the 1st Amendment. Funny how these same guys will fight to put a gun in every zygote to protect the 2nd Amendment, but have no respect for the 1st.

[FredKnowsBest]

09:50 PM on 09/08/2010

Yes...Richard Blumenthal the Democrat has no respect for the first. Here is one of his quotes about Craigslist.

"Our message to Craigslist is to put people above profit,"

Don't you care about people?

[VegetableMan]

05:46 PM on 09/10/2010

don't you know when a politician is lying to you? if ANY politician put people above profit, the nyse would be a nursing school or an aids hospice or a battered women's shelter.

[curiousasheck]

08:34 PM on 09/08/2010

That headline should please The Google Gods

[fds]

08:20 PM on 09/08/2010

Possibly the worst headline and photo combination in a while for this website.

"Take It Off" and a picture of some woman's legs? Neither the headline nor the photograph offers any information. None.

[Amalek]

11:08 PM on 09/08/2010

Got me to click.

[fds]

12:15 AM on 09/09/2010

Yes because it's sensationalized without information. Starve your audience of the information contained in the story, but put a photograph of a woman's legs and the words "Take It Off."

What a sad new branch of journalism HP created.

[David Jonsson]

06:54 PM on 09/08/2010

what next? ban the use of streets cuz prostitutes use them? womens lib!

[gfs5541]

05:58 PM on 09/08/2010

Legalizing prostitution only benefits the pimps and the clients.

[The Rewd]

06:04 PM on 09/08/2010

Two out of three ain't bad.

[supergenius02]

06:07 PM on 09/08/2010

Why is it that a woman should have enough control over her body to end a human life via abortion but not enough to rent out her body for cash? Either women should have control over their bodies or not. Craiglist also has guys on there selling their bodies. How come no uproar about the dudes?

[Dolphinfan65]

08:35 PM on 09/08/2010

PLEEZE, you know as much as anybody that most women(men) who sell there body have other issues going on in there life!!!
To me the issue isn't about legalization of prostitution, but the REAL REALITY of prostitution.
People will do what they want with there bodies, be it legal or not. but to equate basically slavery , with abortion, they are just too issues that should not go together or better yet, they are one problem, creating another.

[Draekia]

01:05 AM on 09/09/2010

It's American culture. Women are seen as pure and innocent until some eeeevil man comes along to dirty them.

[Max Shaw]

04:56 PM on 09/08/2010

So...anyone else think its messed up that as you read this article there is a picture of a (clearly) underage girl posing topless in an American Apparell ad. right in the middle of the article?? At least thats the ad I got...

[DaMojo]

06:44 PM on 09/08/2010

She does not look underage. She's at least 18...looks closer to 21. Sorry to spoil your little fantasy there...I guess we see what we want to see.

[HighInfoVoter]

08:48 PM on 09/08/2010

You may, or may not, have gotten the same ad (I got none).

[Amalek]

11:13 PM on 09/08/2010

I expect the American Apparel ads have the effect of selling more prostitution services than clothing.