Follow-Up: Craigslist pwns SC AG McMaster

A few weeks ago, Chris from Flying Oskar wrote a column heavily criticizing the recent threat of criminal charges against craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster by South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster. If you’re not familiar with the conflict, McMaster is claiming that “craigslist has knowingly allowed the site to be used for illegal and unlawful activity,” meaning that the site allows ads from escort services and also doesn’t censor its images. Never mind that Federal law clearly protects craigslist — and most online providers of user-content — in this situation, or that at the time of McMasters’ letter, craigslist was already moving forward with its own plan to revamp its “Erotic Services” category at the request of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and over 40 Attorneys General — including McMasters!

Of course, McMasters, who just happens to be prepping for a run for Governor, has since made all kinds of accusations about craigslist, and is now being sued by them. And, since media law is pretty clear on this kind of thing thanks to the many “safe harbor” protections for online service providers, McMasters will almost certainly lose, but not before taking as much as $250,000 out of S.C.’s public coffers for what amounts to a moralistic publicity stunt for a soon-to-be gubernatorial candidate.

And craiglist also demanded an apology, which is always a nice touch.

So what does this have to do with Spartanburg? Well, if our state’s AG is really fighting a good, moral fight, there must be some real problem with prostitution on Craiglist, right? Some real threat we here in Hub City can see with our own eyes.

Nope. In fact, according to Buckmaster, whose claim can be validated by simply clicking around the South Carolina craiglist, all of this hype is about a few dozen possibly distasteful, but definitely constitutionally protected ads.

[Our] “adult services” and soon-to-be-retired “erotic services” sections combined, for all cities in South Carolina, currently feature a total of 40 ads, all of which comply with our terms of use. That’s 40 ads out of a total of 334,180 currently listed on our SC sites.

I decided to look at the new “adult services” section of the Greenville / Upstate craigslist, just to see if McMasters was complaining about something of actual merit. After getting through the adult services warning & disclaimer, I found myself in this terrible den of iniquity.

Like this ad, placed in Greenville …

SOUTH BEACH BI-RACIAL BEAUTY!!
HI MY NAME IS SKYY, I’M VERY FRIENDLY, EASY GOING, AND I LOVE MEETING NEW PEOPLE.

It had her phone number and a photo of a fully dressed young black woman. Scandalous!

Or how about the ad from TS Amber (I’m pretty sure this means “transexual,” and that “Amber” is — or at least was — a guy). Surely there must be some terrible, morally repugnant content here, right?

Gorgeous TS AMBER is in search of generous upscale classy men who want to have fun and relax! Im cute fun down to earth and adorable! Please no txts or emails call to talk to me.

Are these people selling sexual services? Probably, yes. But, as Buckmaster points out, they’re hardly more explicit than the listings for “Escort Services” in the Myrtle Beach phone book. If McMasters wants to shut-down prostitution in South Carolina, he’s got the ADDRESSES and PHONE NUMBERS of dozens right there! He could even use his Blackberry to get the same information from Yahoo if he felt like it, complete with a map!

And, if he weren’t on some election campaign trussed up as a moral crusade, he could actually use craigslist to apprehend private individuals if he wanted to. I mean, all he’d have to do is set up a sting. But rounding up some call girls who are actually breaking the law won’t give him nearly the same level of publicity as threatening to jail a web site that not only isn’t breaking the law, but could out-spend and out-lawyer cash-strapped South Carolina without so much as breaking a sweat.

And what do we — the citizens in Spartanburg, South Carolina — actually gain from all this? Prostitution isn’t going anywhere. Online ads aren’t going anywhere. Craigslist isn’t going anywhere. And even if McMasters magically shuts down all the ads on Craigslist’s South Carolina page with any controversial content — something that will never, ever happen — how does this resolve anything?

It doesn’t. As far as I can tell, it only serves McMasters and his political ambitions. And when, as is extraordinarily likely, his case against craigslist is dismissed, he’ll have wasted all of our time and money to root out the evil that is “TS Amber” and his/her appeal for “generous upscale classy men who want to have fun and relax!”

Excellent plan, McMasters.