Craigslist Who Are You Crapping?
by Frank Jovine on 05/13/2009 in Community, People
If the intent was to extinguish prostitution from Craigslist, why not moderate the classified postings to begin with? This is just a play on words and nothing more.
According to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal – The Craigslist new section called “adult services” will be manually reviewed by Craigslist staff. I think they just should have moderated the erotic services to begin with.
Craigslist’s sex-service listings have faced intense scrutiny following the April 14 murder of 25-year-old masseuse Julissa Brisman, who advertised on Craigslist in Boston. Philip Markoff, a 23-year-old Boston University medical student, was charged with killing Brisman and with attacks on two other women he met through Craigslist.
Officials from Craigslist were not immediately available to comment.
The “erotic services” section will end within seven days and be replaced with a new section called “adult services”
“Closing the erotic services section — a blatant Internet brothel — should lead to other blocking and screening measures, and set a model for other sites, if Craigslist keeps its word,” Blumenthal said.
I am not sure this will make a difference. How can such a small staff monitor the millions who use Craigslist each day?
Jacob
May 13th, 2009
This change in policy will do very little to change the way that consenting adults hook up on the internet, it will simply change the website people use to do so. As Craigslist has placed increasing barriers like fees and restrictions for those wishing to post in their erotic section, competing sites in the space like Naughty Reviews, which offers free classified ads, have grown significantly. My point is that law enforcement is simply wasting resources with this current campaign as stopping the world’s oldest profession is just not possible in today’s day and age.
Frank J
May 13th, 2009
Jacob,
Thanks for agreeing!
BJ
May 13th, 2009
Newsweek just did a feature on this very thing. One of the things they mentioned is that Facebook has a group that they call the “nipple cops”, whose job it is to review all the graphics submitted for erotica.
It’s a difficult task. The Facebook “nipple cops” got themselves into a controversy when they censored pictures showing new mothers nursing.
But they have had plenty of successes, and in fact work closely with law enforcement in efforts to find the perverts.
Extreme John
May 13th, 2009
Sites can be monitored, if in fact the site mgmt/owners decide they actually want to monitor it. As pointed out by BJ, Facebook has done an excellent job at keeping Facebook clean, You Tube also does a good job of keeping adult content off of the web as well.
Mitch
May 20th, 2009
Everyone seems to be missing the point about what Craigslist was supposed to be. Except in a few instances, it’s supposed to be free advertising, plain and simple. To keep it basically free, you have few employees and allow people to put up whatever they want to put up. They do have something, though, where people can complain about an ad, and then they’ll review it, but otherwise, it was buyer beware.
Overall, I think this crackdown on Craigslist is a dodge. You see the same types of ads in every alternative newspaper in every city, and it’s easy for most people to find what they want elsewhere online. To highlight Craigslist as the main culprit is moronic for most cities in America.
Frank J
May 20th, 2009
Mitch,
Welcome! I am a fan of CL, but the latest fiasco really didn’t sit well on how it seemed like a play on words.