Craigslist right to dump ‘erotic services’

Published 11:56 pm Sunday, May 17, 2009

I’m not a fan of government deciding what we say, what we read and what we sell, but I think Craigslist has reached a good agreement with the nation’s attorneys general to dump its “erotic services” category.

Craigslist, the online classified service, is a great idea. You can find virtually anything for sale on it and usually at a pretty good price.

But that good idea also creates some problems.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who sued Craigslist in March, said there’s been a lot of prostitution through the company’s erotic services category. In fact, he called it the nation’s biggest source of prostitution.

That’s an impossible charge to prove. But you can get a sense of what went on there by looking at the Craiglist blog where the company explained its plan to cancel the erotic services category.

A woman who had used the section in the past responded to the blog post by applauding the decision. “I can see how it will negatively affect people who abuse the use of the erotic section, posting or offering services at crackhead prices, but for people who are offering legal and legitimate business services, catering to the desires of an adult audience, I say BRAVO.”

She went on to say that the quality of services in the section had declined steadily during the past two years. “The last straw for me was the posting I saw of a young woman offering herself for $40 for 15 minutes,” she said. “There is a huge difference between a prostitute and a street hooker with Internet access.”

Items like the one just described weren’t prescreened in the past. Typically, they’d only be removed after people flagged the item and complained it was inappropriate.

The new plan will include an adult services section that will carry a fee and involve a screening before the item gets posted.

Law enforcement officials say the change won’t eliminate ads that promote prostitution, but I think it’s a good step. A responsible step. As one of the blog responders noted, “This seems like a reasonable, workable solution.”

The government isn’t going to eliminate prostitution until it figures out a way to keep watch on all of us 24-7. Who would want that?

Certainly not me.

Many of the respondents to the announcement characterized it as the company caving to a lawsuit, responding to legal bullies and so forth.

In one post, the writer noted that the company was only taking action in the U.S. to a problem that clearly exists in Canada and many other countries. “It just has the feel that this move was in reaction to a legal challenge, not an honest attempt to be ‘moral,’ ” he noted.

There are a lot of legiti­mate sides to this issue. Protecting free speech is one of them. As I said earlier, I don’t think government should decide what we say and what we sell.

But government also has a responsibility to help keep people safe. And it should establish and enforce appropriate guidelines for how people do business.

What it all boils down to for me is that I don’t think any company that calls itself a legitimate business should knowingly provide a service where you push a button and get connected with a street hooker with Internet access.

Mike Benbow: 425-339-3459, benbow@heraldnet.com.