Craigslist founder: No plans to shut down Erotic Services

[TotallyOz]

In the wake of the murder of Craigslist-advertising masseuse Julissa Brisman, and the arrest of Philip Markoff, Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster of Craigslist gave interviews Friday to Martin Bashir of ABC's Nightline.

Their attitude was both defiant and a little uncomfortable.

Bashir asked Newmark whether he was a law-abiding citizen of America, to which the Craigslist founder said he was "very consistent" about that.

As the interviewer read out a few Craigslist ads and asked him if he thought they were ads for prostitution, Newmark replied: "Probably." He said that if there are ads of a criminal nature on the site, he wants help to get rid of them immediately.

Asked if Craigslist facilitates prostitution, Newmark said: "I wouldn't put it that way, no." Which did seem a little like the answer of a politician.

But when asked about whether, in the light of crime associated with Craigslist, he intended to make any changes to the site, perhaps closing down the Erotic Services section, Newmark leaned heavily on Craigslist's roots.

"The decisions we make on our site are consistently based on feedback from the entirety of the community," he said.

However, he did seem to leave the smallest of crack open for a change of heart: "That feedback changes over time."

Bashir then wondered whether the idea of donating proceeds from the Erotic Services section to charity might seem a little strange.

"Do you think," he asked Buckmaster, "that charities will welcome donations from adverts where people promise to beat each others' backsides till they bleed?"

Buckmaster replied, somewhat nervously: "We'll be making public the donations that are available to charities and they can contact us if they want to take advantage of that."

In this fascinating interview sequence, one could easily conclude that Craigslist wishes that the few in society would just stop behaving in a way that can affect so many so that Craiglist can just carry on with its business.

Unfortunately, the few in society aren't so easily persuaded.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10227621...ag=2547-1_3-0-5

[JKane]

I've just noticed that in both Los Angeles and Las Vegas CL now requires registration to post in even the m4m section. It's free and quick, involves confirming both an email and phone number. Takes out some of the anonymity (between the poster and CL--the site users don't get any more info), but just like pay-to-post in Erotic Services it doesn't seem to have caused any major changes. It's also kinda hard to see how it's more than just window dressing in the day of free email and disposable pre-paid cell phones.

That the media is pretending that it's some big newsflash that prostitution (yeah, massage...) can be dangerous is kinda funny. Didn't Jack the Ripper establish this how many years ago?

Ohh, but it's special because it's internet-based hookups... no, that story's pretty much done to death already too.

It's just the media doing their typical sensationalist BS instead of any real journalism. But it is a little surprising how big and mainstream CL is while still hosting such services.

[AdamSmith]

But it is a little surprising how big and mainstream CL is while still hosting such services.

Yes! Encouraging sign of at least some de-stigmatizing of sex work in the general public's view.

Would be fascinating to know what % of total CL clickthroughs are to the paid-erotic-services section.

[MsGuy]

Yes! Encouraging sign of at least some de-stigmatizing of sex work in the general public's view.

Would be fascinating to know what % of total CL clickthroughs are to the paid-erotic-services section.

Back in the day, pornography drove sales of VCR's. Not many folks bought a $1000 machine in order to view Disney in the privacy of their homes. Most mom and pop video stores were fronts for the sale of porno. I would think sex, paid or not, plays a declining but still important roll in CL's business plan. You're right. Those numbers would be a great peek into the mind of America.