Craigslist pulled down its controversial adult-services ads on its American sites over the long Labor Day weekend, without fanfare or explanation, offering up only a single word where the category link used to be: “censored.”

It’s Craigslist’s own editorial statement about all the heat it’s taken in recent months over prostitution ads. While it’s hard to read a lot of meaning into a single word, when you take it in context of blogs written by CEO Jim Buckmaster — and to a lesser degree, statements from founder Craig Newmark — the word suggests that Craigslist is taking the position that it took the ads down with objection, presumably pressured by its critics: law officers, politicians, human-rights groups, media and moralists. Craigslist hasn’t said whether the ads are gone for good or whether they’re on hiatus.

The “censored” label evidently only applies to U.S.-based browsers. Users outside the U.S. can troll for American hookers to their heart’s content –- presumably until that content expires at the end of the week. Craigslist removed the category from its ad-posting section. The irony isn’t lost on us. Last month, EBay-owned LoQuo.com blocked all browsers outside Spain from seeing its graphic adult ads after Craigslist raised a stink about them.

And Craigslist still supports adult-services listings in other countries, although it doesn’t charge for them. (The Polaris Project, a group that combats human trafficking, today called on Craigslist to shut down overseas access.)

Buckmaster and Newmark are entitled to make any statement they want, of course. Or none at all. What that single word means to me: It smacks of typical Buckmaster — uncommunicative, obstinate and petulant. Let him have his sulk. He’ll get over it and get back to what he’s good at: growing the business.

Newmark and Buckmaster, well mostly Buckmaster, took the very narrow position that they weren’t doing anything wrong and were abiding by the “will” of the communities they served. Very narrowly true on both counts. Under the U.S. Communications Decency Act, Craigslist is not liable for messages posted by others that suggest criminal enterprise. The fact that the activity flourished at all suggests that at least some members of Craigslist’s “communities” desired it.

Craigslist’s attempt to control those messages to mollify law enforcers was doomed to fail. The CDA also holds that as soon as you start editing other people’s content, you lose your “common-carrier” protection and, in effect, become a “publisher,” which doesn’t enjoy the same protection under the law.

I suspect that the decision to take down the ads was more Newmark’s doing, even though he contends Buckmaster makes all the business decisions. Newmark was clearly embarrassed by the endless replays of CNN’s interview of him -– an interview he and Buckmaster later characterized as an ambush even though he consented to it. That might have had a little to do with it. More likely, I think, was Newmark’s realization that it’s really awkward being a media darling one minute and a media pariah the next. But I don’t suspect his motives. Newmark is a good guy involved in a lot of good works -– works that can’t afford to be tarnished by the bad business of prostitution advertising. I also think Buckmaster, who’s been fiercely loyal to Newmark, saw the squeeze his friend was in, and relented.

At the end of the day, it’s simply better business for Craigslist to give up adult advertising — and to keep prostitution ads from infesting other categories. (The ads  have already. Hookers are posting in the free “casual encounters” personals, and in the paid “therapeutic services” section.)

Craigslist’s distant competitors -– notably, EBay Classifieds -– have been building their reputations on being a safer place for sellers and consumers. If Craigslist wants to maintain its comfortable marketplace dominance, it should concentrate its resources on improving trust and safety.

Even if Craigslist doesn’t make that investment –- it can afford it -– Craigslist, Newmark and Buckmaster will survive this day.

In the meantime, media, bloggers, pundits and others (besides us) are weighing in, many pondering the First Amendment effects of Craigslist’s decision:

•  Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, writing for The Washington Post, contends that policing adult ads should have not been Craigslist’s responsibility: “Policing should be left to the police and not be the responsibility of companies that don’t have either the resources or the expertise to do the task.”

• Danah Boyd, a senior Microsoft researcher, wrote on the Huffington Post under the headline, “How Censoring Craigslist Helps Pimps, Child Traffickers and Other Abusive Scumbags” -– which sums up her treatise: “… a one-stop-shop is more helpful for law enforcement than for criminals. In short, Craigslist is not a pimp, but a public perch from which law enforcement can watch without being seen.”

Craigslist has made that argument in the past. So have some of us at the AIM Group.

•  Writing for ZDNet, Christopher Dawson pondered whether it was a business decision or a First Amendment issue: “While the Digital Millenium Copyright Act protects sites from liability over the actions of its users, stepping into the territory of child-sex trafficking suddenly gives the DMCA (and the First Amendment) less teeth. No matter what legal protections it may or may not have had, what growing, profitable company wants to be at the forefront of a high-profile non-consensual sex trade case? (No, there isn’t a case like that yet involving Craigslist, but perhaps it was only a matter of time).”

•  Jolie O’Dell, writing for Mashable.com, polled readers to find that 71 percent of them felt that Craigslist’s adult ads should not be censored for a variety of reasons. Almost half of those who were against censorship said they thought prostitution shouldn’t be illegal in the first place. Of the 29 percent who favored censorship, two-thirds objected because they felt Craigslist was profiting indirectly from prostitution.

•  Writing for Wired, Evan Hansen pointed out that other sites and services haven’t been subject to the same level of scrutiny as Craigslist: “… it seems politicians are making the pioneering, 15-year-old service an opportunistic scapegoat. Internet services may accelerate and exacerbate some social problems like prostitution, but they rarely cause them. The root of these issues — and their solutions — lie in the realm of public policy, not websites and ham-handed website filtering.”

•  William Saletan on Slate wrote, “… by getting out of the way, [Craigslist is] challenging human-trafficking activists and state attorneys general to shift their scrutiny to other sites that host such ads.”

•  And then there’s this from the Fox News affiliate in Las Vegas: “Sindi Star, an adult film actress who would scour Craigslist for jobs or post looking for work, said she is unhappy with the website’s decision to shut down the section.  ‘I don’t believe Craigslist has ever hurt anybody itself,’ she said.”