Shirley Franklin

Teen suicide spurs war on child prostitution:
This is an article about Atlanta’s war on child prostitution. It briefly mentions craigslist and it’s usual denial of facilitation…

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin wrote to craigslist founder Craig Newmark and Chief Executive Jim Buckmaster in August, urging them to remove postings of women engaged in activity that broke Georgia law and called on other mayors to file similar protests.

Buckmaster said the company “shares Mayor Franklin’s concerns and are evaluating her suggestions.”

The site warns its users that it prohibits illegal activity but he added: “We do not monitor the content of more than 25 million free postings craigslist users self-publish each month.”

But I mostly wanted to point out the plight of Samantha Walker who committed suicide after testifying against one of the men who paid to have sex with her when she was 15.

This is why I believe that craigslist needs to eliminate it’s erotic services section. Please read the entire article.

There are no victimless crimes.

Oldest Profession Has Young Victims, New Methods: Ann Woolner:
This is a great article about Atlanta’s perceived problem with child prostitution and what police are doing to combat it. Of course craigslist is brought into the conversation because Mayor Shirley Franklin previously called craigslist on the carpet for facilitating child prostitution.

The author of the article, Ann Woolner, tried to contact craigslist about this and was met with the usual response.

I tried to contact craigslist Chief Executive Officer Jim Buckmaster to ask whether he had instituted any reforms since Franklin wrote him in August seeking closer monitoring, more stringent warnings and a tougher attitude toward those who advertise illegal services or otherwise break the Web site’s rules. Questions e-mailed to a press contact for Buckmaster weren’t answered.

How long will craigslist continue to stick its fingers in its ears and go “LALALALALALALALALALALALA I’M NOT LISTENING”?

Responding to concerns:
It wasn’t that long ago that the Mayor of Atlanta, Shirley Franklin, chided craigslist for facilitating child prostitution. Of course craigslist brushed it off. One of Ms. Frankin’s advisors even mentioned that Facebook and MySpace have been very forthcoming with the mayor’s office even when not legally obligated to do so.

However our favorite craigslist mouthpiece, Susan MacTavish Best, had this to say…

“Craigslist has an erotic services section on the site because our users asked us to create it in order to keep the personals section clear of erotic service ads. (Some folks when looking for a date do not want to have to look at ads for erotic services). Certainly, we … don’t want the site to be used for illegal activity. But we do believe that there should be a place for people to advertise legal escort services. We have over 30 million users a month. As we responded to the Mayor of Atlanta, we are always interested in hearing how we can make Craigslist better. Craigslist makes no money from erotic services because like most of the site, it is free to post there … “

Legal escort services? No such thing my dear. They may pose as legal but we all know what they’re fronts for. And again you say that you don’t want craigslist used for illegal activities but you’re not doing anything to discourage it. So basically by moving the erotic services section out of the personals you just swept in under the rug hoping nobody would notice.

What’s it going to take craigslist before you do something about this? Are you waiting for a toddler to get pimped out or worse?