I feel like I need to ask stuff of random internet strangers. Random people of the internet, should I post an ad for my business on craigslist? I'm thinking of boycotting as I don't want to seem like I endorse acting like an asshole about the whole fair housing lawsuit.

This lawsuit will likely be dismissed as groundless, but more importantly the craigslist community will be recognized for its exemplary record in promoting fair housing for all, while fully respecting each person's constitutional right to free speech and free association.

What's with the whole 'free speech' thing? It's on my list of code words now. Also, I'm certain 'free association' has been used as a code word for a long time, for 'we don't want to associate with you n words"

Though possibly well-intentioned, this lawsuit ignores the essential nature of craigslist, demanding that we cease treating our users with trust and respect, and instead impose inappropriate, mistake-prone, and generally counter-productive centralized controls (such as manual review by our staff of the nearly 2 million free housing ads of unlimited length posted each month, a volume of ads greater than that received by all US newspapers combined), controls which would actually be less effective in catching discriminatory ads than what we have in place currently, and which would vastly reduce the number of legitimate non-discriminatory ads that the site could process.

So you can't simply have a filter that tosses out ads that say NO MINORITIES or white family wanted from your housing site? If you really care about fair housing, you don't say you're committed to it- you actually commit to it. If you don't care, fine, if you're just a venue, fine, but don't insult everyone's intelligence with BS like this:

Ironically, if this lawsuit were to succeed the net effect would be to deal multiple blows to everyone's hard won civil rights - by significantly reducing access to equal opportunity housing, by undercutting our fundamental free speech rights, and by intruding on important privacy rights - thereby doing a great disservice to the very persons these lawyers purport to represent

If you have a site with all actual equal opportunity housing, that would reduce the amount of equal opportunity housing? Yea right. the free speech thing is BS- advertising is subject to regulation. Privacy? Don't make me laugh. Basically, he could have argued his point without all these stupid fig leaves. Ebay does the whole 'we're only a venue' thing without acting like idiots, although they have submitted to some FCC regulations, I believe.