Erotic ads on Craigslist, a brothel or a free speech? What should be done?

On Tuesday lawyers for the online classifieds service Craigslist met with state lawyers to discuss excluding the social networking site’s "erotic services" ads which were linked to the recent murders. The meeting held in New York was attended by attorneys general for Connecticut, Illinois and Missouri, reported the Reuters.

State authorities called on Craigslist to change its policies in light of the murder last month of a 26-year-old masseuse who advertised services on Craigslist in Boston. The federal prosecutors charged Philip Markoff, a 23-year-old Boston University medical student, with murdering the masseuse. Besides, Markoff, dubbed as “Craigslist killer” was also charged with assaulting and robbing a woman in Rhode Island.

"The erotic services section of Craigslist is nothing more than an Internet brothel," Madigan told Reuters. "Hopefully they will recognize the problem, and they claim to."

Meantime, Craigslist chief executive Jim Buckmaster said he was optimistic that the issues could be addressed "while preserving the beneficial aspects of Craigslist ... without compromising the quintessentially American values of free speech embodied in our Constitution."

Actually this is not for the first time when a crime is being committed in response to Craigslist ads. In March, New York reporter George Weber was stabbed to death after meeting his accused killer through a Craigslist personal ad. Michael Anderson of Minnesota was convicted of killing a woman who responded to a babysitting ad placed on the website. Thus the problem is not in “Erotic services” section on the social networking site, the problem is in American society itself. While Craigslist advocates human rights for freedom of speech, being right in its position, state lawyers advocate human life protection, being also right in their position. We constantly look for the problems and flaws in the regulation or policies while actually it is a mentality that should be changed.