February 2007

Police make prostitution arrests from online classifieds site:

Regular media is slowly but surely starting to catch on to the craigslist prostitution problem. This time from Nashville. Basically the article states that it definitely makes it easier for police. It also exemplifies the tragedies involved with it.

“It makes it easier for us,” said Lt. Mitch Fuhrer of the Specialized Investigations Division, which deals with prostitution busts.

“In the past, escorts used to advertise in magazines and newspapers, but all those have been shut down. They’ve all gone to the Internet.”

Fuhrer said disguised prostitution offerings are often obvious — massages for $200 per hour, for instance — but added that others weren’t as apparent.

“We arrested one that was a mom that was working off her daughter’s computer,” he said.

As usual craigslist is evasive on the topic.

Representatives for craigslist did not respond Tuesday to an e-mail from The Tennessean requesting information concerning the site’s “exotic services” section.

If I had mad photoshop skills I’d p-shop a picture of the craigslist CEO sticking his fingers in his ears going “la la la la la I can’t hear you…”

Prostitutes Using Craigslist To Solicit For Sex:

This is just another local news article about prostitutes using craigslist to advertise. Once again Craig himself deflects the blame.

CBS13 went straight to the source in San Francisco to find out why you can find sex for sale, right next to an easy bake oven in Sacramento.

Pallas: Clearly prostitution is illegal, you know prostitutes are selling sex on your website.
Craig: There are prostitution ads on our site and people who care flag them and they do get removed but the message from our community overwhelmingly is live and let live message, people’s priorities are elsewhere.

Craig Newmark makes it clear the user driven, open forum, free speech philosophy behind/foundation of Craigslist puts what the customer wants first and he argues very few are complaining.

?People tell us to prioritize scammers and we’ve had very few complaints about prostitution…it’s something like one out of every one hundred thousand users or one out of a million,? says Newmark, ?I want ‘em off our site.?

So why not shut it down? He sites two major reasons.

?We wanted to draw away suspect ads from more on conventional sections like women seeking men, another is we wanted to offer legitimate erotic services to people who want them to give people a break,” says Newmark.

Again, users flag what they suspect is illegal.

“Right now we have overwhelming feedback from our community. They don’t want us to monitor the site, not in that way. People are happy with the flagging mechanism,” says Newmark.

Newmark says his company won’t police the site because he might be held legally liable for what people post and he doesn’t want to get sued.

That’s the bottom line right there. He doesn’t want to get sued. So rather than worrying about his user base getting robbed, assaulted, or killed he’s more worried about lining his own pocket. So since Craig makes money off of craigslist which provides prostitutes with a place to advertise doesn’t that make him the world’s largest pimp?

Accused Online Prostitute in Court:

That stunning diva at left is one 46-year-old Ann Schrader. She’s a Milwaukee craigslist prostitute. She was in court recently to plead not guilty to prostitution charges.

Schrader has served time in the past for prostitution and drugs but claimed she turned her life around. She even started her own ministry called “StretcherBearers,” that helps give former inmates a second chance.

Now it’s Schrader herself who may need another chance.

If she is legitimately trying to turn her life around then I wish her the best. But her picture should serve as a reminder of what a life of prostitution can do to someone’s life. When you patronize craigslist hookers this is what you’re contributing to. And for craigslist to allow this to continue is an abomination.