In fact, South Carolina is the latest state to join the anti-Craigslist crusade, lead by attorneys general from Missouri, Connecticut and Illinois. The site’s “Casual Encounters” section is considered to have a very important channel that promotes prostitution.
Craigslist has been taking measures to comply to such demands for a while, given that now shady ads are removed from the webiste in a matter of hours. However, this still didn’t stop the attorney general to accuse Craigslist that the company is in fact “knowingly” keeping up the service .
In response to the latest allegations, Craigslist responded that it’s willing to discuss the issues at hand directly with attorney general. On the other hand, the company stressed out that:
“However, we see no legal basis whatsoever for filing a lawsuit against craigslist or its principals and hope that the Attorney General will realize this upon further reflection.”
Later on, the company added a quote from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF):
“Attorney General Henry McMaster has no case. Neither do AGs Lynch or Blumenthal. And neither does Sheriff Dart, as craigslist explained Monday in their motion to dismiss his March lawsuit. While the AGs may wish it was not so, federal law protects craigslist and no amount of posturing will change that fact.
And that’s a good thing. The existence of sites that rely on third party content depends on strong uniform legal protections against liability based on material posted by users. If site operators were forced to screen all third party contributions under risk of civil or criminal penalty, the Internet would lose many of the vibrant services that have made it so dynamic.”