CARNAL NATION

After years of being targeted by law-enforcement officials, Craigslist has finally caved to pressure and agreed to remove their controversial "Erotic Services" section within seven days. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan described the section as "nothing more than an Internet brothel," and said in a statement that she was "encouraged that Craigslist has agreed to fundamentally change how they operate and monitor their site." (more)

The changes that Craigslist has agreed to are a little perplexing, though; at first glance, it looks like they're doing some creative reshuffling of the site to make it not quite such an easy target for lawsuits and allegations of criminal activity. Such allegations have been made recently by attorneys general in Illinois, Connecticut, Missouri, and South Carolina. Craigslist already made an agreement in November with 40 attorneys general in which they would combat online prostitution on their site by charging "erotic services" advertisers $5 to $10 and require them to submit a working phone number. Earlier this month, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster said that Craigslist was not doing enough to stop its site from being used for prostitution. On May 5, he gave the site 10 days to remove postings that were "pornographic" or "encourage[d] prostitution" or face criminal charges. Under the new agreement, Craigslist will remove the "erotic services" section and instead put up an "adult services" section. The new "adult services" section will not allow nude or suggestive pictures and will be manually reviewed by Craigslist.

And again—what's the difference? It almost seems like the real concern is the fear that dirty pictures are being published on Craigslist, or that sex workers are getting a little too obvious for the tastes of law enforcement officials. As always, the specter of trafficking is thrown up, but it's hard to believe that these changes will do anything to make anyone safer. On the contrary, they seem designed to make sex workers' lives more dangerous and financially harder. If they protect anything, it's mainstream moral sensibilities about sex work. For sex workers themselves, many of whom rely on Craigslist for their livelihood, the effects are going to be much more direct and material. How severe and far-reaching those effects are remains to be seen.