Tag: Craig Newmark

  • Craig himself on the murder of Katherine Ann Olson

    Charges expected Tuesday in Craigslist killing:

    Craig Newmark, the founder of craigslist, had the following to say about the murder of Katherine Ann Olson.

    The founder of Craigslist.org believes that Olson’s death is the first killing ever linked to the website.

    “I can’t recall a single case like it,” Craig Newmark told KARE 11 News. “This is the worst that I can recall.”

    “I’d just like to express my condolences,” Newmark said by phone from California Sunday. “This is a real tragedy and we’re more eager than ever to help deal with the bad guy.”

    Newmark says Craigslist works closely with authorities to investigate crimes tied to the website. Those crimes include identity theft cases, scams, robberies and sex crimes.

    Does he not see anything wrong with the fact that these crimes are happening on his website?

  • What Craig said today

    What Craig said today

    Prostitutes Using Craigslist To Solicit For Sex:

    This is just another local news article about prostitution being advertised on craigslist. 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 traffickers with a place to advertise, doesn’t that make him the world’s largest pimp?

  • 100 craigslist johns busted…ah ah ah!

    100 craigslist johns busted…ah ah ah!

    Prostitution sting leads to nearly 100 arrests:

    Rented furnishings and hidden cameras were among the props Seattle police vice detectives used to arrest nearly 100 men who showed up at a ritzy downtown condo in the past two weeks expecting to pay for sex.

    Nearly three-fourths of the men who were arrested on suspicion of patronizing a prostitute responded to postings in the “erotic services” category on craigslist, the free online community where people can search for apartments, jobs, used cars, friends and dates. The rest answered escort ads found in the back pages of The Stranger and Seattle Weekly.

    Vice detectives then turned their attention to men who, instead of cruising the streets for prostitutes, respond to online and newspaper ads looking for sex, he said. To make their ads believable, Sano said, female detectives were photographed in flirty poses, phone lines were established and appointments were set up.

    When a man arrived at the rented condo, he was greeted at the door and ushered inside, Sano said. As other detectives hid in a bedroom watching live footage from hidden cameras, the female detective, posing as “a provider,” would engage in a conversation about sex and collect her fee, he said.

    Once money had changed hands, Sano said, other officers would then walk out and arrest the man.

    All but five of the men were interviewed, cited and released: One man, a registered sex offender, was booked into the King County Jail for violating conditions of his release, three others were booked on drug violations and another on a weapons charge, Sano said.

    Arrestees have included “bank presidents, state employees, business owners, construction workers, physicians and surgeons,” Sano said.

    And here’s what Craig himself had to say…

    Craig Newmark, who founded craigslist in San Francisco in 1995, said he has heard that “prostitution is a significant problem” on the Web site and noted that craigslist has built a “top-notch” reputation for responding to complaints of illegal activity.

    As for the local craigslist review board where men discuss the sexual exploits they paid for, Newmark said those who operate the site are improperly using the craigslist name and that legal action is being discussed by the Seattle-based law firm representing his site.

    Craigslist, which is now available in some 300 cities worldwide, doesn’t monitor what people post.

    “We are a democracy … and we find we can trust our community,” he said. “I don’t know what the situation is like in Seattle, but we would prefer that [police] go after violent criminals or crooked congressmen.”

    I’d prefer that my local police would go after all of them. This is not a debate on whether or not prostitution should be legal. Right now, it’s illegal in most of the country.

    When prostitution moves into a neighborhood, it’s not long before the drugs move in, then the violent criminals. Cracking down on prostitution is stopping the flood of crime before it even starts.