Craigslist Shuts Down Personals After Congress Acts

People who peruse “the personals” for entertainment are in for some disappointment: Craigslist, the internet classifieds site known for some far-out posts that make you wonder just how the human mind can make some of the turns it does, shut down its personals section after Congress took action that could have far-reaching effects for online platforms.

Craigslist says it had no choice. Amid ads like the one last summer when a guy was seeking a woman who would conceive a baby with him at the exact time the solar eclipse reached totality were some ads placed by child sex traffickers and other criminals.

And that puts craigslist and other websites in hot water under the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, or FOSTA, overwhelmingly approved by Congress Wednesday and sent to President Trump. It would hold websites that accept personals ads criminally and civilly liable if the ads are used for unlawful purposes.

FOSTA has strong emotional appeal as a vehicle to dent the child sex trade and other illegal activities, like the solicitation of murder and the trafficking of drugs and arms. But tech companies say it’s a first strike that erodes the Section 230 “good Samaritan clause,” a federal provision that protects website publishers from being treated as the speaker of content their users’ posts.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 ushered in an era of “blind hosts” that don’t moderate user content. Their hands-off approach stems from a lawsuit against Prodigy Services Co., which in the mid-1990s had 2 million subscribers to its online bulletin boards. A user post on its finance-themed MoneyTalk board accused the Stratton Oakmont investment firm of fraud.

A New York Court found that because the company moderated some messages for “offensiveness and ‘bad taste’,” it was a “publisher,” not a “platform,” as Prodigy’s lawyers had argued. The ruling meant that even though Prodigy moderated only a small percentage of posts, it took on responsibility for all posts.

Section 230 has stood without major revision for years. But it has also been used to defend Backpage.com, which a 2017 Senate report called a “hub” for sex trafficking of children.That formed the basis of one of the arguments in support of the action taken by Congress.

Craigslist left no doubt in a statement on its website that the personals were pulled begrudgingly.

“We can't take such risk without jeopardizing all our other services, so we are regretfully taking craigslist personals offline,” the company said. “Hopefully we can bring them back some day.

"To the millions of spouses, partners and couples who met through craigslist, we wish you every happiness!" the statement read.

The company’s decision to shutter its personals section follows a similar shift by Reddit. Unlike craigslist, Reddit didn’t specifically mention FOSTA, but new restrictions include “paid services involving sexual contact.”

The new policy also prohibits the use of Reddit threads to sell firearms, ammunition and explosives; controlled substances, alcohol and tobacco; and stolen goods, personal information, and counterfeited documents and money.

Free speech advocates and sex workers have joined the chorus of dissension to FOSTA. If they’re kicked off the internet, sex workers say, they’ll be forced back to the more dangerous streets. Several subReddit threads used by sex workers to talk to one another have already been banned.

“I don’t want to be an alarmist, but we are in danger of losing the ability to even talk about sex work in theory online,” tweeted Liara Roux, a sex worker and producer/director in the indie prornography film industry.

Also in a tweet, sex worker Louise Partridge said the legislation doesn’t really help exploited children.

“The question and solution we should be asking is how do we stop human trafficking and modern day slavery in any industry?” the tweet read. “How do we make it easier for victims to find safety & expose these criminals?

“That's what we should be talking about,” she said, “not targeting a segment” of the labor market.

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