Lately Craigslist has been taking a lot of flak over incidents of violence against women who have offered “erotic services” to men through their ads. From the media coverage you would think this never existed until Craigslist came along.
I picked up a copy of the DC City Paper today, the alternative weekly where I first started reading The Straight Dope in 1983. There are a couple of pages of these adult services ads, and there always have been. There even used to be some dicey ads at the end of Washingtonian, though it looks like that has dried up.
Well, without being able to actually see their thoughts, all we have to go by is their official position. . . whatever that is.
My opinion: State AGs want to get in the news. AG stands for either “attorney general” or “aspiring governor.” Sorta like the sheriffs locally often have highly publicized raids in the months leading up their reelection.
I agree with Earl. Most of the issue is political grandstanding. But anther big part is most people have the internet now. Craigslist is pretty widely known for having something like classified ads. The alternative weeklies are really under the radar of most voters so there is not a lot of political power to be gained by outing them.
It’s just more media inspired paranoia. Member of the media love to be alarmists in order to get ratings; political types love the attention they get when thay take a “hard” stance against something vile.
Most people don’t blame Craig’s List. But that doesn’t keep people from believing they are being blamed by the masses when the media and the politicos keep beating their drums.
I thought it was directly as a result of the “CraigsList Killer” guy and the press coverage it got. I think the same thing would have happened if the guy used eBay, or any other media that would allow him to anonymously meet other human beings with some randomness.
>From the media coverage you would think this never existed until Craigslist came along.
Thats like saying “My dad got a ticket for speeding, but everyone speeds!” Two wrongs dont make a right. Right now the easiest way to get a prostitute is through craigslist. The law has finally noticed.
As far as media conspiracies go, well, I disagree. Ive known for years about erotic services and frankly its no secret. The cops knew as well. Lately, the AG of some states have decided to move on this, especially since the recent murders of prostitutes off the site.
This is just like file sharing or other common crimes. The best strategy is to get the largest and most popular service down. Thus the alt weeklies can still have ads about “adult massages” and my ftp server full of music isnt getting raided, but craigslist and napster are paying the price.
The media, particularly the daily print media, has suffered a huge loss of classified advertising revenue due to Craigslist. It’s sometimes the reason cited for so many newspapers shutting down altogether.
I have a feeling the print media is jumping at the opportunity to badmouth the competition in a sensational way.
I think is has to do with, of course, grandstanding politicians, but it also makes a difference that it is on the internet a keyboard stroke away from everyone.
Before, you had to go to the seedy side of town and buy a Swinger magazine or go to a filthy peep show. Now, that device sitting right over there in your living room is the gateway to this. It seems as if it invades your home almost.
If you don’t open the door, it can’t come in. You make it sound like some insidious creature of inky darkness slithering up from the sewers to sodomize you while you’re sitting on the toilet.
It’s a classified ad service. If one doesn’t either visit it, or doesn’t answer the ads, it’s not like it can “invade your home”.
I think HorseLover was saying: “Just because those free, weekly newspapers have kinky ads advertising sex for money, it does not make it okay for CraigsList to do the same. So it’s not a valid defense for CraigsList to say ‘Well, they’re doing it! Why can’t we?’”
I doubt there’s a single factual answer to this question, so I’ll feel free to post this bit of wildly unsubstantiated speculation:
Craigslist is really putting a hurting on the newspaper industry by taking classified advertising revenue from them. All politics is local. If I’m an AG, and I can simultaneously please a local newspaper, who buys ink by the barrel, and grandstand by railing against the evil internet company based in San Francisco(!), what’s not to love?
Craigslist is just the best known, that gives it much more exposure and subjects it to more slams.
There is also NO control over it. Anyone can use it or abuse it too.
From putting fake ads in with pic from camera phones to flagging ads for no real reason it’s just a big open unregulated space.
It’s also frustrating to users. For instance, I wanted to put an ad in and no matter what I did, the code they gave me (they send you the code via a phone message) doesn’t work. So I couldn’t use CL. No one from their help ever contacted me and the help forums are full of people who just joke around.
So even legit users get frustrated and are happy to see the website taken down a peg or two.
Craigslist offers a significant increase in scope combined with greater ease in promulgating certain illegal activities, with prostitution being a good example. Hookers can reach more potential customers with less bother than through other methods. As the logistics of the market have evolved to reflect this, police departments have come to realize that it’s often a more effective use of their resources to focus on Craigslist than, say, alternative weeklies or streetwalkers. The interest isn’t as sudden as it might appear from media coverage, but it probably did recently reach a tipping point of some sort to where it seems more relevant and newsworthy than it did months ago.