Discrimination at Craigslist?
In the Craigslist's "rants and raves" section (note the purposeful lack of links in this post) I came across some people arguing about gay men being discriminated against in the Craigslist personals sections (the right leaning trolls inhabiting Craigslist were howling about the great injustice that victims of discrimination inflict on their perpetrators by daring to raise even the existence of discrimination). Anyway, I checked and sure enough the only personals with adult content disclaimers are the "men seeking men" and "casual encounters" sections, the latter being the heavy kink section.

I did some searching and found this article. In an interview Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster says:
"The men seeking men users, they're of a culture that is different than the others," Norton said. "This link is used almost exclusively for explicit ads. And that is the reason for the warning — the norm on this link is for very explicit ads."

I just did a quick scan of the "men seeking women" section and quickly came across x-rated pictures and content. Ditto for the "women seeking women" section. So much for protecting unsuspecting adults from adult content.

The availability of adult content in all the personals sections directly conflicts Buckmaster's explanation. What then are the orientation specific disclaimers based on? Putting warnings on a group based on participants' orientations, or on any other arbitrary classifier, is discrimination.

In other Craigslist news, the list is being sued for allowing the posting of discriminatory housing ads. That article was published back in March. I didn't find much more on it. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of it (or has it already?).