After a murder, a suicide, two girls saying they had prostituted themselves via the site, and a plea by 17 state attorney generals, I am eager to see if Craigslist backs down. The issue is whether or not Craigslist will stop running “adult services” classified ads.
With much fanfare, the attorney generals in 17 states recently called for Craigslist to pull the adult ads. The state prosecutors ran their own ad in The Washington Post that included a letter from two girls who said that they sold sexual services on Craigslist.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/08/25/craigslist.adult.content/index.html
The AGs also wrote their own letter to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster and founder Craig Newmark.
“The increasingly sharp public criticism of Craigslist’s Adult Services section reflects a growing recognition that ads for prostitution — including ads trafficking children — are rampant on it,” they wrote.
“We recognize that Craigslist may lose the considerable revenue generated by the Adult Services ads,” the letter said. “No amount of money, however, can justify the scourge of illegal prostitution, and the suffering of the women and children who will continue to be victimized, in the market and trafficking provided by Craigslist.”
According to CNN, Buckmaster blogged about the girl prostitutes, writing, “Craigslist is anxious to know that the perpetrators in these girls’ cases are behind bars.”
The AGs also cited a report CNN’s Amber Lyon, who posted a fake ad in the adult section and got 5 calls soliciting sex in three hours.
The AGs who wrote the letter to Craigslist are from Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
They made their plea days after accused “Craigslist killer” Philip Markoff committed suicide in jail. He was charged with the 2009 murder of Julissa Brisman. A model, Brisman ran an ad as a masseuse on Craigslist. Police believe that’s how Markoff might her.
In its defense, Craigslist has made changes to its adult services ads. In 2008, under the gun from prosecutors, the site increased its rate for running adult services ads. And in another gesture, in 2009, Craigslist began donating part of its revenue from adult ads to charity.
After the warning letter from the state AGs, Craigslist offered some platitudes about cooperating with authorities.
“We hope to work closely with them, as we are with experts at nonprofits and in law enforcement, to prevent misuse of our site in facilitation of trafficking, and to combat such crimes wherever they appear, online or offline,” a Craigslist spokeswoman told CNN.
Craigslist also said that as a precaution it began manually screening adult services ads in May 2009, and that each individual ad is reviewed by an attorney. Those lawyers enforce Craigslist’s posting guidelines, “which are stricter than those typically used by yellow pages, newspapers, or any other company that we are aware of,” according to Buckmaster.
It doesn’t sound like Craigslist is willing to pull the plug on its adult services ads yet. I think it should.
If a murder, a suicide, girl prostitutes and a plea from more than a dozen AGs can’t convince Craigslist to discontinue its adult ads, maybe some lawsuits from slain Brisman’s family, or the prosituted girls’ relatives, will make the website do the right thing.