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Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Craigslist Sued for Housing Discrimination Print newspapers are required to review all ads for housing to ensure that they do not violate the federal Fair Housing Act, which bars discrimination on the grounds of race, religion, sex, family status or national origin. Rather than having official editors review each posting, Craigslist relies on its community of millions of users. When a reader sees an ad which is offensive, illegal, misclassified, or otherwise objectionable, they click a link on the site to "flag" the ad for review by one of Craigslist's 19 paid staffers. Ads which violate the rules or the law are typically quickly flagged and removed. The crux of the case against Craigslist will be whether the online site is a "publisher" in the same sense that a newspaper. The activist group's spokeswoman, Laurie Wardell, acknowledged that the conventional wisdom is that online sites do not have the same legal responsibilities as print publications, noting that advertisers wishing to discriminate "just shift to the Internet". Print newspapers are losing enormous quantities of their lucrative classified ad businesses to Craigslist and to other sites, largely because the online sites are faster, have larger user bases, and are often free. (Analysts estimate that newspapers in the San Francisco area alone lose between $50 and $65 million annually). This lawsuit is in essence an attempt to rein in the Internet, to require it to follow the same standards as the print publications. The activist group in question, Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, released a press release announcing their suit. The release focused on why housing discrimination is bad, and did not advance a theory as to why an online community site should be held to the same standard as an old-media print publication. Update: The Lawyer's Committee is a veritable who's-who of the Chicago law community. One wonders whether a lawsuit by the Chicago Tribune - which is also losing huge ad revenues to Craigslist - would have been perceived as too crassly commercial to have much chance for success, leading the Tribune's well-connected publisher to do an end run using the Lawyer's Committee as a smokescreen. Blogger News Network is advertiser-supported, and your visits to our advertisers help BNN to meet its expenses. Help keep us afloat! posted by Robert at 1:13 PM |
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3 Comments:
This group obviously has done their homework.
Federal law (47 USC Section 230 aka the CDA) that says that USERS are liable for what they post. Craigslist is a passive intermediary (aka an interactive computer service) and CANNOT be sued.
The ACLU, Public Citizen, and EFF have all put the smack down on dumbass attorneys that try to undermine this law.
Fair Housing is no different from libel or other barred claims under the CDA.
I think many others have a suspicion that some newspaper idiots posted these ads. Here are actual examples from the lawsuit:
"Non-women of Color NEED NOT APPLY"
"African Americans and Arabians tend to clash with me so that won't work out"
"Requirements: Clean Godly Christian Male."
Um, yeah. Sure. Racists and bigots are no longer so blatant, especially when it comes to advertising. They are far more subtle. These ads over so over-the-top that I can only conclude they are phony.
Anyone can be sued for any reason or no reason at all, the question is how fast the lawsuit gets chucked. That's why you forum shop.
Craigslist isn't being sued because of the ads, they are being sued because (unlike the users who posted the ad) they have money. You always sue the deep pockets.
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