Shutting down BP will just splinter the escort world into thousands of new websites and make it harder for LE to do their job. And sending escorts to strip clubs is exactly what we *don't* want.
Was speaking with a friend who is involved with LE this morning about this, said all its going to do is drive alot of the escorts back onto the streets and make it more dangerous for everybody. He said the biggest (and maybe the only) winner in this are the pimps, because now the girls are again going to need someone to "market" their services.
Luckily, I live in a locale with multiple local advertising media that were arguably as important as backpage, and will likely pick up (some of) the slack. Starting from scratch in a locale that doesn't have that will definitely be tough. You can never predict what will happen -- prices may go up or down, quality may go up or down. Consistency requires making it easy for providers and clients to find each other.
^^^ Bingo! I might add that the ones who haven't yet figured out they can post in personals still have their ads up on aggregator sites which pulled their posts off Backpage. Off the top of my head I can think of three:
If the stories I've read are true, BP fucked themselves, and their claims of censorship are so much hooey. They were editing ads to make them appear less like trafficking. Not telling the advertisers to modify them, but doing it themselves.
And they shut those sections down voluntarily. No government agency told them to.
I think they were hoping doing so would stave off any further investigation. And by claiming censorship they'd garner support from traditional First Amendment champions. I don't think either one is gonna work for them.
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I wonder if it has anything to do with Mocha offing Juice?
http://www.bitchesofbackpage.com
http://www.escortbabylon.com (has several categories for different types of girls)
http://www.eroticmonkey.com
And they shut those sections down voluntarily. No government agency told them to.