Nanny State Watch

by Chris Bodenner

South Carolina's AG is threatening Craigslist with prosecution if the company does not completely rid its site of erotic postings. “Some large Internet communities are coming to a controversial conclusion: the Web can’t always police itself," writes the WSJ. Jeff Jarvis pounces:

But the truth is that this episode only shows the gap between the law and the community. Craigslist’s community does police itself against the things that matter to it: fraud, spam, trolls. That’s how craigslist’s founder, Craig Newmark, spends his days, in customer service: policing against the things that bother and matter to his community. But sex? Who gives a damn? Clearly, the community doesn’t think it needs to be protected from that. So who are these cops protecting and from what? ... Craigslist is a society and it has its own laws and means of enforcement.

Meanwhile, Craigslist's blog is chronicling examples of sex ads placed in mainstream outlets not being threatened by the state government. (And those ads are even more explicit.)

(Photo via Daily What)