Sorry for the rant, but I feel very strongly about this! This is a disgrace, and regulating things like this into oblivion will have nothing but negative impact. First, it will enable the scammers to really reign free and take control of all the narrative on the copycat clones that are sure to pop up. Second, it will put people in a position of physical risk, because mugging are about to go through the roof. And thirdly, for those that it does drive away from the internet to seek sexual relief, or find ways to experiment with partners, or whatever, it will simply depress them and make them feel like the world's worst 'rejects'. Because that's all we needed, more mental illness and more depression, am i right?
All under the false pretense that a few bad actors had infiltrated popular boards - wooo geez what to do I wonder, when you have a budget of several billion to tackle online crime - instead of fining the lenient boards and actually tracking the bad guys, let's blanket ban online personal ads all over. Because it IS all over - not just CL - fetlife, countless other 'hook up sites' got wiped out, or voluntarily shut down knowing they had no chance to go on under these conditions. To use doublelist without a VPN in the US is the equivalent of digital suicide.
It's dangerous, it's reckless and it's stupid. Can't wait to see the headlines in 2019 - 'child trafficking epidemic on the darkweb yadi yada'. What a nightmare for all involved. I'm furious.
