A new bill making its way through Congress has prompted Craigslist to shutter its personal ads, The Verge reports. The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, which just needs Trump’s signature after being passed by the Senate, is aimed at holding websites—including backpage.com—“liable for hosting sex trafficking content,” as well as establishing the means by which prosecutors and sex trafficking victims can “sue companies that fail to keep exploitative content from their websites.”
For years, Craigslist’s Personals section had been used for everything from posting a Missed Connection to finding willing participants for a little black magic. But, as the company acknowledges in a statement posted to the site, this kind of access or tool can be “misused.” So the online marketplace will no longer risk “jeopardizing all our other services.” But Craigslist’s leadership also hopes “we can bring them back some day. To the millions of spouses, partners, and couples who met through craigslist, we wish you every happiness!”
Some Craigslist users have criticized the decision for taking away amusing blurbs to read during their commute. But others have pointed out that they found romance and partners on the website, so the loss of the personals section means they’ll have to sign up for some dating app now. And according to The Verge, the bill is seen as a “form of censorship” by sex workers and free-internet activists, who think it will just “place an unrealistic burden on small website operators.”