The Globe is outraged at prostitution ads. No, not in the Phoenix, but on Craigslist. Dave Copeland explains why this editorial makes him queasy:
I'm never comfortable when an organization that depends on the First Amendment's rights of free speech challenges, attacks, or even questions the free speech rights of another. Take away your feelings on prostitution and whether or not Craigslist is living up to its public service mission by keeping profits from the adult services ads instead of donating them to charity (last I checked CL is a private company and capitalism remained legal), and this is nothing more than a case about what people have the right to post on their own Web sites.
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Comments
Follow the money. The Phoenix
By anon
Tue, 08/31/2010 - 11:43am
Follow the money. The Phoenix didn't take away the Globe's classified ads.
.
By Anonymous
Sat, 09/04/2010 - 10:58pm
.
Craigslist Gives it Away
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 08/31/2010 - 12:16pm
Most of those sexy ads in Craigslist are no-fee ads. They aren't making money off of them.
The Phoenix? Interestingly how Coakley didn't go after the *cough*Mindich*cough* Phoenix, which does make money of escort ads.
Great question
By Dan Farnkoff
Sat, 09/04/2010 - 7:56pm
As it doesn't appear that Coakley received any money from Phoenix editors, I would ascribe it partly to a failure of imagination. Coakley sometimes seems less concerned with actual justice than the superficial appearance of justice. Markoff used Craigslist- future Markoffs will just have to settle for the Phoenix.
Anybody have time on their
By CF1
Tue, 08/31/2010 - 3:54pm
Anybody have time on their hands to investigate the Globe's corporate pimp advertisers in order to figure out how many of them are responsible for facilitating significantly more human slavery than Craigslist?
so basically...
By bandit
Tue, 08/31/2010 - 5:52pm
the globe editorial is stating that it's pissed off that craigslist is making money, or as they put it "swimming in revenue", off of adult services postings? posting that WERE FREE up until 2008 when craigslist agreed to charge for these postings at the behest of various states attorney generals?
so, really, the money isn't the problem.
as i read the globe editorial, the sex is the problem.
and the end result of the media and common culture having a problem with sex, historically, is often censorship. censorship about birth control, about sex education, about sexual violence, about healthy human sexuality and about unhealthy human sexuality.
trampling on information never fixes the problem. it just forces it underground.
i get why people might have a problem with adult services, or the previous erotic services, or with casual encounters, or with dating sites that keep swapping out all their S's with $'s. but there are better ways to combat that issue than with thinking if you don't see it, it's not happening.
One might think
By Kaz
Tue, 08/31/2010 - 11:43pm
One might think that if Craigslist or the Phoenix were such a honeypot of slavery, trafficking and prostitution that one would use it to do multiple sting operations as a cop and district attorney...rather than try to scatter the criminals to the wind where they'll just land somewhere else.
One would think one would.
Proofread much?
By adonovan
Wed, 09/01/2010 - 10:39am
I hate to be a Grammar Nazi, but
C'mon Globe, it's "attorneys general." That title is pretty much the reason that I know the rule. If you can't even take the time to have someone else read your article before you publish, how can I take it seriously?
and censorship wins the day...
By bandit
Sat, 09/04/2010 - 8:15pm
... Craigslist has removed its adult services section and has replaced it with a simple black bar that says "censored".
Ka-ching
By Dan Farnkoff
Sat, 09/04/2010 - 8:29pm
Long live the Phoenix!
Which, incidentally, I really do read for the articles. The political stuff, Bernstein and so forth, is great. The adult section sort of annnoys me, and I bet at least some of the Asian masseuses and so forth are performing under some kind of duress.
You know the kind of pothead
By anon
Sat, 09/04/2010 - 8:34pm
You know the kind of pothead who doesn't think too clearly and is generally incompetent, and acts really friendly and generous, but when it comes to their needs, can be thieving and dishonest? That's Craigslist management.
"We intentionally catered to prostitutes and lied excessively about it, and now we see that we can't get away with that anymore, so we're going to ham it up as a victim. Now, if only our drug-addled brains can recall some cliched slogans. Where's our tactical tie-dye?"