Craigslist to remove 'erotic services' section

Craigslist's San Francisco headquarters. The company agrees to remove ads from its erotic-services section.

(Credit: Greg Sandoval/CNET)

Updated at 9:33 a.m. PT to include a statement from Craigslist and correct an error. See details below.

Craigslist has yielded to law enforcement officials from all over the country, deciding to dismantle its "erotic services" ads.

"As of (Wednesday), for all U.S. Craigslist sites, postings to the erotic-services category will no longer be accepted," the publication said in a statement. "In seven days, the category will be removed. Also effective today for all U.S. sites, a new category entitled 'adult services' will be opened for postings by legal adult service providers.

"Each posting to this new category will be manually reviewed before appearing on the site to ensure compliance with Craigslist posting guidelines and terms of use. New postings will cost $10, but once approved, will be eligible for reposting at $5." (To read Craigslist's full statement go here)

For the past several months, authorities have claimed that Craigslist has become a seedy digital street corner where prostitution is rampant.

ABCNews.com is reporting that Craigslist's decision comes after the company's attorneys met with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, as well as with the attorneys general of Connecticut and Missouri. According to an Associated Press report, the states' officials demanded that the site pull ads that they contend are advertisements for illegal sexual activities.

Lawmakers from a number of states have claimed that Craigslist's erotic-services section is a huge Internet bordello, where thousands of people solicit for sex. Law enforcement officials have complained for years that prostitutes are more difficult to apprehend on Craigslist because they are cloaked in the anonymity that that service offers those who post ads.

CNET News Poll

Behind closed doors
Did Craigslist cave too quickly on its erotic ads?

Not fast enough. Those ads should never have been on the site.
Yes. The service was being targeted by grandstanding politicians.
Who cares? The ads will just move back to alternative weeklies.
It's window dressing. They're opening a new "adult services" section.

View results

Craigslist's managers responded to the complaints by trying to create deterrents, such as requiring anyone posting an ad in the erotic-services section to provide a credit card number. They have pointed out in the past that prostitutes don't need the Web publication or its erotic-services section to do business, and they have predicted that doing away with the section will only push people to solicit similarly in the site's other areas.

But Craigslist received some bad press after a woman was murdered and two others were robbed in the Boston area. The alleged killer reportedly found his victims via Craigslist ads, and media outlets began calling him the "Craigslist killer." Police have arrested a suspect in that case.

"Completely contrary to some of the sensationalistic journalism we've seen these past few weeks," Craigslist said in the statement, "the record is clear that use of Craigslist classifieds is associated with far lower rates of violent crime than print classifieds, let alone rates of violent crime pertaining to American society as a whole."

Correction: This report misstated the number of recent murder victims in connection with the alleged Boston-area "Craigslist killer." There is reportedly one.

[friday04]

These prostitutes are not just going to leave Craigslist because that one section gets pulled. Now they are going to infest all other areas of legitimate Craigslist like "Help Wanted," "For Sale," and "Dating"

Do-gooders with their high-and-mighty intentions almost never solve the problem. They just make it hide somewhere else.

[drfrost]

Your government hard at work doing something that anyone with an iota of common sense realizes isn't going to help at all. At least in this case it won't make matters considerably worse...

[Michichael]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't they just renaming the section? They're "closing" one and "opening" another with the exact same pricing policy...?

[jahf]

Michichael: you're wrong. They're opening a different section with higher cost and human review before posting.

Sadly, it won't matter, the prostitution won't move to the new section (since the human review will remove any illegal postings, of which 99% in Erotic were), it will just completely destroy the last remaining ability to use the Personals section with any chance of finding a real person.

[ferricoxide]

Do you really think it's good intentions?

[CaribDigita]

Dumbest move ever.... So called "Ethical" people have been able to ignore that area of the site for the last 7+ years they could have ignored it for many more... As said now the whole activity will just move underground or to more specialised websites.... Prostitution has been around since the beginning of time it isn't going anymore... It will even outlast the Republican/NeoCon party.... Now you'll see it scatter all over the Internet again in forums, personals, yahoo chat, aol chat, you name it.... All this did was move it out of a well defined corner out into the wild as it tries to find a new home.... I bet the newspapers would love to see Craigslist overall shut down since it replaced them mainly. Having politicians continue to regulate the Internet sucks... They're starting to act just like China... China doesn't like people on the Internet talking about their government and now the U.S. politicians don't like citizens on their Internet meeting up for sex. They're one in the same. Both governments are seeking control.

[CaribDigita]

Lets just cut to the chase. There's money to be had by prostitution. The U.S. Government wants in on it... Shut down the free providers... Force all to pay providers... The U.S. government could have just admitted to their aim and say they want Craigslist to start collecting tax ID#s of prostitutes. Then the Gov't could just pass their law making Craigslist turn over those tax ID#s every year.

[Spats30]

So they remove one section and add another. I doubt this will have much impact.

[algates]

It all depends on how it is managed.

[Dleon84]

Prostitution: a victim-less crime where services is performed and compensated for. I know plenty college students who wouldn't have received their degrees had it not been for prostitution during difficult times. This is a shame and a sad step in the progression of the legalization of prostitution.

[dacopper]

I know (not personally thank God) of quite a few serial murderers who were brilliant individuals and would've contributed greatly to the society with their work but because of the discriminatory anti-serial-murderer laws, they were arrested and executed or are spending the rest of their lives in behind bars. What a shame!

[odubtaig]

Thankyou Dacopper.

It's amazing the kind of twisting of logic that's required to justify any situation where a woman has to sell herself to get anywhere.

?There?s a knock at the door of the project. A young girl is standing there. Her pimp has cut off the tops of her fingers. We take her to hospital.?

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2006/10/05/55910/prostitutes-and-the-charities-working-to-help-them-leave-the.html

Victimless my arse; self-serving little bastard.

[pentest]

If it weren't illegal, the number of violence acts against them would be severely reduced. The prostitutes could open a shop, and hire legitimate security.

The reason hookers are targeted for violence so damn much is because it is illegal.

How many people die over cigarette related violence vs. pot?

[Dleon84]

It's a victimless crime where both adult individuals are consenting. I'm not speaking of minors you sickos! Besides, in countries where prostitution is legal, the rate of sexual violence and spread of STD/STI have diminished. This is because the services are regulated by many means: government, brothels with security, mandatory STD/STI testing, etc.

[odubtaig]

More crap.

"Anti-slavery campaigner and labour party city councillor Lodewijk Asscher already raised the issue in February. This week he submitted a detailed report , noting that between 50 and 90 per cent of all the prostitutes working in Amsterdam's inner-city were found to be working there against their will - coerced and forced by international criminal gangs."

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/263117

[ferricoxide]

@Dleon84: don't try to argue facts against the self-appointed morality cops...

[odubtaig]

Unsubstantiated claims count as facts compared to verifiable reports from people who have actually checked whether these assumptions are true or not?

Well, excuse me for checking the actual and real facts instead of the ones I've made up in my head. Excuse me for providing a checkable report that actually, in a place where prostitution is entirely legal up to 90% of them are still forced into it by criminal gangs.

Where are your facts that prove otherwise? Do you have any? Bunch of *********.

[hutwarmer]

If the following statement from the article; "Lawmakers from a number of states have claimed that Craigslist's erotic section is a huge Internet bordello, where thousands of people solicit for sex." is true, shouldn't this be sending a resounding message to lawmakers in this country? If the POTUS wants to hand out healthcare cards to every man, woman, and child, this is where you can get the money. People are going to do this stuff regardless of whether or not there is an erotic section on Cragislist. It's time we stop pretending that we are some nation full of moral do-gooders and just admit that we enjoy sex.

[Dleon84]

I agree entirely.

[drfrost]

The government can't enforce morals. Especially when they have none themselves.

[PunkAtHeart]

Plus, like marijuana if we finally get off our moral high horse and legalize it, the government can tax it and thus instead of spending all this money trying to hunt it down and stop it, we can regulate and tax this income and make money on the deal!!

[Dleon84]

*where services are performed

[rookeee]

Big brother needs to leave the Internet alone

[rookeee]

big brother needs to leave the internet alone

[SpiritMatter]

Because Craigslist has chosen to bend over for the religious police, the Taliban, and those "Christians" of like mind, have renewed hope that the U.S. Constitution will continue to be raped.

[drfrost]

Attorney General of Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal: Democrat
Attorney General of Illinois, Lisa Madigan: Democrat
Attorney General of Missouri, Chris Koster: Democrat

Yep... this is a right wing conspiracy for sure!

If you think the democratic party is any less authoritarian than the republican party, you need to wake up and smell the roses.

I have one word for you: libertarian.

[kojacked]

@drfrost:

SpiritMatter never said anything about either the Republican nor Democratic party. You did. Thanks for polarizing the issue. Are you related to Hannity?

[rcol4jc]

Christians are the reason this country is not more of the evil place it it. I resent you comparing Christians to to the taliban. It's just that you want anarchy and lawlessness. The funny thing is that you would be the first one crying foul if someone killed someone close to you, but it is that Judeo Christian values that says murdering is wrong. Christians and their votes for right are responsible for the good that this country has had. Do a study for yourself sometime and look at what happened when they took God out of our schools. Prior to that, the number one problems in school were chewing gum and talking. After that, the main problems were violence, rape, murder, etc. You do the math.

[odubtaig]

They didn't take god out of the schools, god was never in the schools. Separation of Church and State. It's in the constitution you're so strongly defending lower down and I'm pretty sure Bhuddists, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and others would have more than a few words to say about the 'judeo-christianity' of such morals.

Truly, the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy.

[rcol4jc]

obudtaig, First off, the phrase "seperation of church and state" is nowhere in the consitution. The "ESTABLISHMENT (emphasis mine) clause" is article 3 of the bill of rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or adridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or of the right of the people to peacably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievences." Everything that the politcally correct crew is trying to do is violate the "...prohibiting the free excercise thereof". The establishment clause was to prevent another "church of england" type situation over here. There is no church of america. I'm sick and tired of my freedom to publically state and practice my faith being trampled on. The new "hate speech" initiative will be used to hang a hammer over the heads of anyone who wants to practice their faith. Unfortunetly, we do now have a church of America. It's a religion of worshipping liberalism and Obama is its pope.

[odubtaig]

I'm sorry, was there a message in all that ********? I'm sick of people who whine about their 'rights' being 'infringed' when it's their 'right' to **** all over everybody else that's being restricted. You even managed to throw the term 'politically correct' in there which is something your type always tries to use as a bludgeon to silence all opposition.

Ratification of the Constitution: 1788

Ratification of the First Amendment: 1791

Yes, the first amendement, which makes it part of the constitution. Get over it.

So, there's a whole three years out of 221 it wasn't in there. I'm sure that makes all the difference.

Now, I'm sure you've got a lot of whinging to do about how you're not allowed to spout bigoted gibberish about anyone with dark skin and a beard so I'll leave you to it.

[djson1]

Haha..I think it's funny. They replaced "Erotic Services" with "Adult Services"?? haha...ok~~~. Wouldn't that be the same as a prostitute just moving down the street and using a different name? Roxy to Trixy?

[sanenazok]

Roxy to Trixy would not make any difference, but a switch to Candy or Lixxxy would.

[Police_States_of_America]

ban prostitutes, increase rate of rape

[odubtaig]

Rape isn't about sex retard, it's about violence against women.

[BigGuns149]

@ odubtaig: While I don't think all rape is merely about sex, I think it would be incredibly arrogant to claim that a perverse desire for sex plays never plays a role.

[odubtaig]

No, it's not arrogant. It's an understanding of psychology.

[Dr. Kardasz]

Craigslist: Thanks for doing the right thing. Time to get illegal activities off of Craigslist.

[mistergray]

And back into the local papers, which need the ad revenue.

[terminalblue]

yeah dumbas$ maybe you should look at the Casual Encounters section on CL today, the ****** are starting to move into there...for a long time they just left that section alone...
thanks madigan

[veritat2009]

To Dr. Kardasz: It is legal to cause cancer by selling tobacco and therefore death since (lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women.) but illegal to sell pleasure.....If I were you I will begin to question the reasoning of our lawmakers.

[ferricoxide]

Yep. Lord knows the moral crowd can't stand up to temptation.

[txag1981]

The states' AGs don't care about the hookers on Craigslist. The main "problem" with Craigslist is that it has been the largest contributor to the demise of the newspaper industry. People buy newspapers for the ads and coupons, not the news. When their advertisements disappeared and went to Craigslist, their source of revenue dried up. Make no mistake, the saber rattling by the Attorneys General have nothing to do with hookers and everything to do with the demise of print media.

[llungster]

When I was much younger in NY, I sold newspapers; and people usually bought their favorite rag for different reasons. For instance if you bought the Wall St Journal, you were likely into business. If you bought the NY Times, it was for real news. If you read the NY Post, it was for the sports section or for the stock market results (they ran several editions a day including one after the closing bell), etc. The Daily News was the every-(wo)man's paper. The sunday edition was for the ads. Craigslist touched on some of what the newspapers did but the overlap isn't anywhere as big as with online news (cnn.com for instance) and other online services.

Consider the number of car ads that are in newspapers. It's much easier to buy a car now - browse online for model information, use online sites to get the best price, call dealers to barter further. Who needs all those car dealer ads in the papers?

In my mind, free online information, news or otherwise, is a much bigger reason for the demise of the local papers; not Craigslist.

[drfrost]

The vast majority of the ads are NOT related to prostitution. Even if all the erotic services ads go back to using the paper, it's not going to be more than a drop in the bucket. Realizing this, your argument simply doesn't make any sense...

I don't know whats motivated these three democrat AG's but it's not newspaper ad revenue...

[drfrost]

"In my mind, free online information, news or otherwise, is a much bigger reason for the demise of the local papers; not Craigslist." -Ilungster

Quoted for truth. Newspapers are the dinosaurs of the early 21st century. Those who have adapted are moving on to be more successful. Those who were unwilling or unable to adapt... are trying to get the government (i.e. the entity that steals money from the taxpayers to pad their own pockets and those of their friends) to prop them up.

The government should never fund a news organization that reports in any way on that government AND the news organization in question should never accept any money from the government. Never! It's a blatant conflict of interest for the news organization.

When the government starts funding the newspapers, they should just change their name to "Pravda" and be done with it...

[MizzQuezzaire]

Aww man, this is going to make the personals section virtually impossible to read. It's not like these services are going to disappear -- they are just going to migrate someplace where more people are exposed to them.

[Understarsidream]

And in Los Angeles that's already started to happen. This is a huge fail on the part of craigslist.

[jahf]

Exactly.

When CL started the payments for posting in Erotic the Personals section became flooded with this stuff -and- the rate of spambot replies to postings quadrupled. Now that Erotic is going away completely the Personals section will become truly useless. Prostitution will still happen on CL ... what will go away is the place where other people found "real" connections. I know 2 people who married the person they met in CL Personals ... I doubt I'll be saying that much again.

Truly stupid. The ONLY people this benefits are ... the expensive paid-for dating sites.

[Matthew Es]

Who the hell uses craigslist to find a date? Thats so lame!

[lang0502]

What if someone starts looking people up on Google and killing them? They might have to shut down Google.

[coorguy]

removing the listings will not stop murders.
how about governments stop releasing the murderers and crooks on the streets?

[sudcm]

I'm a little disappointed in Craigslist. An erotic services section of Craigslist is not the culprit. The person who committed the crime is the culprit. This "Craigslist killer" would have committed this crime with or without Craigslist. I'm not really sure what the thought process is of those who place the blame on the classified ads. To think this would never have happened if it weren't for Craigslist is completely ridiculous.

[Heebee Jeebies]

If someone wants to sell their body for money or for trade of services that is their business and no one elses. They should have to go through frequent health checks, pay a licensing fee and pay taxes on any money or property their receive. Those that do not should then be treated like tax cheats. It is time the church and their supposed high morals get the hell out of our lives unless we invite it in by going to a church or otherwise choose to believe in their messed up teachings. Religion is after all the most evil of all human creations.

Robert

[jskrenes]

Typical Democrat/liberal argument. Legalize everything and tax it to the hilt. You'll still have people breaking the law, but they'll be committing the worst crime that a liberal can think of: not paying taxes. It's pretty short-sighted to think that if you legalize stuff, whether it's drugs or prostitution, that the end result would be the shutting down of the underground economy.

[altonido]

Oh the rank hypocricy! I can hire a man and woman to have sex on camera and then sell the tape as porn and make money. That is all legal. But if I hire a man or a woman to have sex with me, that's illegal! Explain that one to me. This just drives me nuts!

[llungster]

The irony is that having an "erotic services" section makes things easier on everyone - those who are shopping and law enforcement alike. If gov't officials are truly interested in making arrests and enforcing prostitution laws, what better way than to look at the very same ads that the "johns" read? But we all know they lack the resources to truly fight prostitution so they get deals like this to make the headlines and make the general public believe that there's progress being made. What a farce.

[NoHypocrisy]

To quote the great George Carlin:

How can it be illegal to sell something that is perfectly legal to give away for free?

It is a sign of an immature society to be so afraid of sexuality.

Violence against women is a direct result of sexual repression.

This nation has no business legislating religious morality.

Please, dont bother with how we should then legalize theft and murder (though the state of the economy shows that theft is perfectly legal for the elite financial class). It's a logical fallacy.

Don't give me the 'poor beaten prostitue that is abused by her pimp' argument either. Solution: Arrest and charge the pimp, leave the woman alone. No one should be extorted to work for free (though the state of immigration in this country shows that this is also legal as long as the person working is an illegal immigrant)

This crap is pushed by the same folks who fight legalization of gay marriage: Religious nutjobs who think it is their duty to push whatever moral code they believe in on everyone else. Sexual relations between consenting adults are no one's business but those involved, regardless of whether it is gay, straight, free, or paid for.

Religion is not about morality, it is about control.

And mostly hypocrisy.

[Brent212]

AGREED

[ferricoxide]

Well... Institutional religion is definitely about control/power.

[odubtaig]

Wow, I've never read so much utter bollocks in such a short post.

For one thing, I'm agnostic.

But you've got one thing right, arrest the pimp, the kerb crawler and offer help to the prostitute. Unless, and I'm just guessing, that's not what you meant.

Ferricoxide, why don't you just admit you coudn't give a **** about anyone but yourself and you think you should have the right to do whatever you please without caring for the consequences for anyone else?

[rcol4jc]

NoHyprocracy, First of all, I've never met a liberal that is not a hyprocrite. You guys talk about "tolerance" when you would gladly silence in any way possible any point of view that is not your own. What you are forgetting is this country was built upon moral principles. For example, I reallze that southeast asia is primarily Buddhist. I would not go there and try to silence and shut down Buddhism. I would also deal with the fact that, while i'm there, I'm going to need to respect and be okay with seeing people practicing their religion. I would not even be upset if they came up to me and started telling me about Buddhism. I would just politely tell them I'm not interested. So why is it that everyone either living here or that comes here thinks that they can tell Christians that we can't publically excercise our faith and fight within the rights that the Constitution (you know, that piece of paper you liberals hate) have given us to keep and have laws that uphold traditional values???? Why is it that when the MAJORITY VOTED in california to uphold traditional marriage that the liberals are basically saying that they are criminals. Christians have just as many rights as you do. What Liberals want a communist state where the government controls everything and any speech that does not conform with their ideas is hate speeh. The whole politically correct movement is a thinly veiled attempt at controlling people like in a stalinist state. America, wake up and smell the prison bars! Our freedom of speech is on its way out.