March 27, 2008
26/3/2008- From pornographic Web sites to instructions on how to build bombs, it is evident the Internet is tough to censor. Although there are many sites and not enough time to filter through everything posted online, where should we draw the line of what is acceptable? Recently, the well-known online classified site Craigslist.com was the center of a suit filed by Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The group filed the suit, stating it violated the Fair Housing Act when real estate ads ran displaying discriminating statements like, "no minorities" and "no children."
A judge in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Craigslist was not responsible for the listings as they were simply a messenger and should not be liable for the content of the ad. The judge felt it was an impractical expectation to suppose Craigslist would be able to monitor ads at close watch, due to the complexity of the task. But Craigslist is getting off the hook too easy with this one. True, there may not be enough man power to facilitate such thorough filtering on each ad, but something needs to be done.
Sites like Craigslist should be held liable for content that is listed on their site. Though Craigslist did not create the statements in the announcements, they still allowed the derogatory statements to be posted. Sites should not only be monitored for the content they allow to run online, but there needs to be a system implemented that will provide an appropriate filter or rating system to keep certain ads from being displayed.
Not just anything should be listed on Craigslist. There has to be some decency. The more exceptions made for sites like Craigslist and the info they allow, the wider floodgates would open for more inappropriate ad listings.
This case of discrimination is indicative of just how far things can get without proper monitoring. Recently, Craigslist was reported to have listings advertising underage prostitution. A Sacramento man, 46, is being investigated for taking nearly nude photos of a 14- and 17-year-old and posting them on Craigslist under the "exotic services" section. This is a prime example of the leniency that is practiced in Internet policy, making it easy for just about anything to be advertised. It's understandable that a filtering system for sites like Craigslist can't be implemented overnight. Thus, this action needs to be applied through a gradual process. If people start acting now, something can be done.
Laws can be put into effect, making it mandatory that classified ads be reviewed before being posted online. If discrimination is not allowed in newspaper classifieds, then why should it be allowed in online classified ads? Newspaper publications have time to edit explicit or offensive content and Web sites need to have the same standards. If a particular organization or private property owner wants to take it upon themselves to weed out a group of people, then they should handle it themselves, not on a Web site. Everyone is entitled to their preferences, but there are certain steps to take to have this done in a professional way.
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