Jim Buckmaster
craigslist.com

We’re guessing as opposed to “implicit” or “vague” pornographic material; score one for redundancy.

Score another for trumped up publicity hounding and complete ignorance of federal law; score a third for bloggers brash enough to use the phrase “incompetent media whore.”

Let’s back up. Last week, Buckmaster folded under the pressure of the national media hype machine and a gaggle of state attorneys general by announcing the closure of its “erotic services” section and the formation of a vaguer “adult services” section with higher listing fees, watered down language, and internal approval process. We have the translation of Buckmaster’s announcement for your reading pleasure.

Even the concessions Buckmaster made last week were generous and unnecessary; craigslist is protected from liability from third party postings under the Communications Decency Act, a fact numerous Internet lawyers pointed out. Even if state attorneys general had legal legs to stand on, which they didn’t, one would be hard pressed to identify the difference between craigslist and a number of other services, online and off, where prostitution listings are prevalent.

In short, craigslist quickly became a hot, recognizable target solely for political gain, and Buckmaster should have never given in. South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, eyeing a run for governor, must have smelled craigslist blood in the water, issuing even more extreme verbiage:

Henry McMaster

“As of 5:00 p.m. this afternoon, the craigslist South Carolina site continues to display advertisements for prostitution and graphic pornographic material. This content was not removed as we requested. We have no alternative but to move forward with criminal investigation and potential prosecution.”

Never mind what, exactly, he would be prosecuting, unless he’d care to define “pornography” and illustrate somehow that craigslist was the sole resource for it on the Web available to South Carolinians, Buckmaster finally grows a set and gives McMaster what-for on the craigslist blog by listing other classifieds sites with 30 times the escort listings and far more explicit language, including:

• Backpage.com’s adult entertainment section for Greenville, SC.
• The print telephone yellow pages
• Microsoft’s Live.com
• Myrtle Beach escort ads on AT&T’s yellowpages.com

He forgot the sports section of the local newspaper. “Any interest in targeting them for criminal prosecution?” asks Buckmaster. “Didn’t think so.”

This is yet another reason online companies have to fight for their legal rights instead of bowing to external pressures, whether it’s Google against the AP and Viacom, or Craigslist against every politically-ambitious attorney general in the United States. Give an inch, they’ll take a mile for their own self-serving reasons. Also, if the big sites don’t fight for basic rights, what chance do smaller sites have?
 

Thankfully, Craig himself is not responsible. In 1995, when Newmark started up a little website that helped people stay informed about community events, he had no idea that it would mushroom into a global phenomenon that bears seismic impact on the economy as a whole. Entire businesses have been formed around Craigslist. People find jobs on Craigslist. People buy furniture on Craigslist. People sell houses on Craigslist. People find spouses on Craigslist. It is one of those sites that reminds you of DOS-based interface—an eyesore. But the raw functionality of the site is astounding. And it works. Nearly 8,000 people visit Craigslist every second.

With that kind of viral growth, something bad was bound to happen. Bad people can corrupt any good thing. The Philip Markoff case is enough of a warning sign to bring the bad potential of Craigslist to greater light. Now, Craigslist faces criminal investigation for its alleged role in unknowingly aiding illegal activity.

Among the illegal activity that Craigslist inadvertently supports is prostitution, "nothing but filth," according to South Carolina’s Attorney General, Henry McMaster, who is instrumental in leading the charges against Craigslist. Connecticut prosecutor Blumenthal explains, "No question, absolutely none, that Craigslist is operating an online brothel here." 

These are not light charges, and Craigslist must respond. To their credit, the Terms of Use explain that users "agree not to post, email, or otherwise make available content that is pornographic," and et. al. The thumbscrews on Craigslist tighten when prosecutors level the charge that Craigslist is not working hard enough to keep the site clean. Craigslist is not going away, but hopefully some of the less-than-desirable elements of it will. "Casual encounters" which have turned not-so-casual, and "erotic services" which overstep the bounds of legality, will be the focus of discussion and controversy as the Craigslist challenge continues.

Online video has increased in interest through 2007 to the point where people expect to find it on the websites they visit. Truveo broke down the top searches they have seen into top viral videos, TV moments, and music videos.

She may not have won Miss Teen USA, but Lauren Caitlin Upton may as well have been crowned Miss Teen YouTube after Miss Teen South Carolina’s now-famous flubbed answer to a geography question became the top viral video Truveo saw this year.

David Chase’s choice of a close to the HBO series “The Sopranos” had people frantically reaching for their remotes when the screen turned black. When it became obvious that the series had ended on that note, the querying began in earnest for what became the most searched TV moment.

In the music scene, Truveo said everybody wanted to “Crank Dat.” Even though it seems like Rhianna’s “Umbrella” has been everywhere, her video placed second in searches to Soulja Boy’s.

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Mount Holly, South Carolina is the site of one of Google’s new server farms.  And when I say “is,” I mean that construction has already started.

Nonetheless, Dan McCue of the Charlotte Regional Business Journal reports, “In spite of a response from applicants that he described as ‘pleasantly overwhelming,’ Google has yet to hire a single employee for the site, the company’s point man for the development of its new Mt. Holly facility said this morning.”

Now, I’m no director of personnel, but it seems like this could be a problem.  “We’re exited about the opportunities we have for staffing the Mt. Holly facility,” explained Andrew Johnson, Google’s East Coast regional manager for hardware operations, “but given the unique combination of skills we’re looking for, finding exactly the right people has been difficult.”

If Google’s truly exhausted the local talent pool – and Johnson made no sign to the Business Journal that it had – that would be a bad sign for everyone.  After all, similar facilities are being built in North Carolina and Iowa, so comparable shortages could crop up there.  And if Google intends to bring in lots of employees from outside any of those areas, local inhabitants and the people who arranged those tax breaks could become more than a little peeved.

Then again, this may all be a big to-do over nothing.  Johnson “said beginning in October Google will start the phased hiring of a projected 200 employees at the facility,” according to McCue, and it’s only a handful of management positions that he’s currently worried about filling.  I don’t know . . . it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.