Comment by cft | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cft | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

This was no more a prostitution website than Craigslist, before Craigslist struck a deal with attorney generals of several states to shut down its Adult Classifieds section [1]. In fact, given Craigslist scale it had many more prostitution (and probably child prostitution) ads. The question is: why Craig and this CEO were given such disparate treatment? Because the times have changed, or because Craigslist was much bigger and an arrest of Craig would have unleashed a huge wave of rage from free speech supporters as a violation of the principles of Section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act, since classifieds sites are republishers, rather than publishers of content and should not be responsible for the classifieds content.

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/business/16craigslist.html :

"The sex ads cost $10 and were on track to bring in $44 million in revenue this year, according to the AIM Group, a consulting firm that closely monitors the company. Craigslist also charges for some real estate and job ads, but most listings are free"

Probably because Craig'slist also have a sizable business in other areas not related.

It's certainly easier to start with groups who only participate in activities which are uncomfortable to publicly defend.

I remember this very vaguely about 3-4 year back but I believe Backpage pretty much publicly said they were there to fill the void. If Craigslist doesn't want to deal with it, then come on over! Craigslist was a warning shot. Backpage new that fully and sprinted into harms way. $$

Backpages, unlike Craigslist, doesn't really have any other business then adulkt ads.

I was wondering about this too. Specifically, I thought websites were held harmless for the content they carry. If somebody posts a threat to the President or something else illegal on a website, is the website liable? If something slanderous shows up in Google, is Google liable for slander? How does that work?

My unverified impression masquerading as understanding is that your liability scales with the level of editorial oversight you provide: that the laws implement something resembling "if you moderate comments about drugs and movie downloads, but never seem to notice prostitution adverts, then you're probably doing that on purpose".

It's possible that the government talked to both. Craigslist walked away from hosting that service, and Backpage did not? I'm just speculating, but the Craigslist thing was a while ago, and should have at least been seen by others as a message to get out.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com