Well, of course we all know prostitution didn't exist before Craigslist, so I have every expectation that it will magically disappear now that they're not going to run those ads anymore.
Fact is, if it wasn't for Craigslist, they'd never have caught that miscreant freak just starting out on his career of being a serial killer. And stopping the erotic services ads will simply drive the sex workers even more underground, and increase their susceptibility to vicious predators.
Unlucky Diamond?
Under pressure, Craigslist is revamping its adult services ads. But critics wonder if the change will actually stop illicit activity.
May 14, 2009 | Updated: 3:58 p.m. ET May 14, 2009
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She calls herself "Diamond." And thanks to Craigslist, the 25-year-old prostitute hopes never to walk the dusty streets of Reno, Nev., again.
But when the San Francisco-based Web site pulled the plug Wednesday on its "erotic services" section, Diamond's luck may have run out. Coming under fire from law enforcement in several states and facing bad publicity over a recent murder case in Boston, Craigslist said it was replacing the old category with a new one, "adult services," that will be actively monitored by employees.
In recent years, sex workers have flocked to Craigslist and other Web sites, believing cyberspace to be a much safer way to meet new clients than pounding the pavement. "You know they have access to a computer, to the Internet," says Diamond, suggesting that it means they're maybe a little less likely to be deranged or crack-addled. "They can read. It just feels more ... professional."
Diamond may feel safer, but critics say it's not necessarily so. In the wake of several crimes linked to the privately held Craigslist in recent months, several attorneys general moved to end a tenuous truce signed last fall between the site's purveyors and the top lawyers from 40 states. The pact was designed to rein in the selling of sex on a site that draws 9 billion page views per month and that generated an estimated $80 million in revenue last year, according to a report by the Web consultant Classified Intelligence. Most of that revenue is generated by fees from job and apartment listings.
In March, the Cook County, Ill., sheriff filed a lawsuit against Craigslist in U.S. district court calling for the company to discontinue the erotic services section and to reimburse police for more than $100,000 spent to arrest 156 people via Craigslist between January and November 2008. "Craigslist is the single largest source of prostitution in the nation," said Sheriff Thomas Dart at a press conference in Chicago. "Missing children, runaways, abused women and women trafficked in from foreign countries are routinely forced to have sex with strangers because they're being pimped on Craigslist."
In Kent, Wash., last month, King County prosecutors filed attempted-murder charges against a 24-year-old laborer named Shawn Tyler Skelton after he allegedly posted an advertisement seeking a woman he could have sex with, and then murder. The ad said "serious inquiries only." Detectives responded and learned that their suspect was also "willing to kill an unwitting person, but that he wanted to be paid" $2,000, according to court documents. Skelton agreed upon the terms, police say, and then showed up at a Seattle motel to an arranged meeting with a knife, a length of heavy chain and two long shoelaces. Skelton has pleaded not guilty.
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