Canada Continues To Grandstand Over Craigslist Adult Services

from the grandstanding dept

Last month, we noted that some Canadian politicians were jumping on the censor Craigslist bandwagon, though some pointed out in our comments that the politicians in question actually had little influence. However, it looks like those who actually are in power are jumping onto the same grandstanding train. Canada's Justice Minister, Rob Nicholson, has now demanded that Craigslist censor its adult services section -- and he does so with statements that are blatantly intellectually dishonest:

"With respect to newspapers, there are editors, I am sure, who take precautions to make sure they’re not getting into the business of child exploitation or human trafficking and so on" in their classified ads, Mr. Nicholson said after the Conservative caucus meeting on Wednesday. "It seems to me with Craigslist there's no regulation at all as to what goes on."

Except, most of that is inaccurate or misleading. Newspapers work on an entirely different scale and different model than Craigslist, which just acts more as a platform. Second, there is quite a bit of "regulation," it's just that this doesn't sound good, so Nicholson apparently decides to ignore it. Nicholson also claims he's going to introduce new legislation "that would create two new offences under the Criminal Code to close loopholes in Canada's laws against child pornography." If he's complaining about Craigslist and talking about loopholes, that sounds like that new legislation may create secondary liability for platform providers. Hopefully someone can explain to Nicholson the ridiculous unintended consequences of such secondary liability, which would create massive liability for an awful lot of the internet.

Filed Under: canada, granstanding, rob nicholson
Companies: craigslist