This is not necessarily new news, but I had a heated discussion with my good friend Bill about this issue today. A federal lawsuit accuses Craigslist of violating fair housing laws by publishing discriminatory classified ads, and this really pisses me off.
I don't understand and thus cannot agree with the logic that a website is responsible for its user's misbehaviour. I understand that's how it worked in the off-line media such as the newspapers, but Craigslist is a totally different environment that does not produce any content itself, it is just a tool. I think this is like punishing an organization for the fault of its members.
Several Internet law experts said the suit seems likely to fail, citing a 1996 federal law that says an online service provider isn't considered a publisher or a speaker when it merely passes along information provided by someone else.
I believe, as long as the web site does not make any editorial contributions to the content, it should be the person who published the content that should be responsible. I think the legislators are suggesting that web sites should start policing their own community, and therefore asking them to moderate the content.
I think this has huge implications to this new way of living that we are getting used to. This law suit will not only affect the big players like Yahoo! and eBay, but pretty much any web sites that supports user generated contents - can you spell 'web 2.0'?
I don't think Craigslist will lose this battle, but I guess I am just frustrated. Am I totally missing something?
Tags: craigslist lawsuit
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