Craigslist has self-censored its Adult Services section in the US (instead of its usual location the word “Censored” appears and the section is no longer accessible). There has been a lot of discussion of this move already. Two pieces in particular are worth reading. Jeff Jarvis points out that one of the reasons why Craigslist is under attack (and possibly the main reason) is just how disruptive it is to existing media businesses. Danah Boyd - guest writing at the Huffington Post - provides a pragmatic defense based on the benefits of transparency and a centralized location for law enforcement.
I have long admired Craigslist as one of the first truly net native businesses. Whether by accident or by design, Craigslist has chosen to maximize the size of its marketplace and charge only a fraction of its users for a fraction of their activities. That has made it a formidable competitor in the classified advertising space. Their success over existing media businesses was made possible by net neutrality – the fact that access to Craigslist’s servers is as fast and unencumbered as that to those of much bigger companies: Craigslist has fewer than 50 employees.
Therein also lies an important problem. Craigslist does not have the resources to review every listing. The original section in the US was titled Erotic Services (as it still is in other parts of the world, e.g. the UK). Under pressure from several AGs, Craigslist replaced this with Adult Services and started charging a listing fee to generate the revenues to cover the expenses of examining listings in that category. Yet that still was not good enough to keep the AGs at bay.
So the upshot is that as the fight to protect existing legal protections (the DMCA safe harbor) and de facto regimes (net neutrality) heats up, it is important to watch out not only for legislative initiatives but also for misguided enforcement. Because otherwise it will be Craigslist today, Blogger tomorrow.
