Craigslist, Ontario government to meet over prostitution listings

Toronto - After Ontario's opposition parties urged the Liberal government to force Craigslist to block its erotic and prostitution listings, the online community company asked to speak with Ontario officials.

In September, the San Francisco-based website Craigslist.com banned United States Web users from accessing its adult services and replaced the link with a big, black label “censored.” More than one week later, three Ontario cabinet ministers wrote a letter to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster urging him to end the prostitution links on his website. The province of Manitoba later announced that it was following Ontario’s lead: “Ontario has led the way. We plan to follow along and we hope those ads will also be removed from Canadian websites,” said Manitoba Justice Minister Andrew Swan. According to the Montreal Gazette, Buckmaster asked to meet with the Ontario officials and both sides agreed. On Wednesday, the offices of Attorney General Chris Bentley, Community Safety Minister Jim Bradley and Children and Youth Services Minister Laurel Broten received a fax from Buckmaster. A spokesperson for Broten said Ontario is “very, very interested” in meeting with Craigslist officials. However, a specific time and location for the meeting has yet to be confirmed. The Ontario Conservatives and New Democrats believe if states across America were able to convince Craigslist to censor its erotic listings then the Ontario government shouldn’t have problems following that route, reports the Winnipeg Free Press.