My challenge to craigslist: Keep criminals off your site
Last week, I penned an open letter to my counterparts in the classified ad business, challenging them to follow me in imposing new policies to make their sites safer. (Press release)
Not surprisingly, none of them has yet to respond to my letter. After all, the changes that I’m suggesting are not easy ones for the site owners to make. Ridding their sites of personal ads and other adult-oriented categories that run amok with criminal activity could impact their bottom lines.
But those changes could also save lives. And in my opinion, saving a life is more important than making a buck.
Of course, this is not a new effort. The horn has been sounded many times in the past as the leader in these sites – craigslist – has been put into the spotlight over the criminal activity that has been prevalent on that site, with only a tool for others to “flag” posts as a means of keeping the site safe. Just a few weeks ago, the AimGroup, publishers of the Classified Intelligence Report, called craigslist a “cesspool of crime” and posted details of the crimes that have been linked to the site – from murders and assaults to robberies and prostitution.
It may be easy to point fingers at craigslist, seeing how the site is the biggest in the online classifieds business, but it’s not the only one turning a blind eye to some of the criminal activities on its site. Change.org recently called out backpage.com for reports of teenage prostitution that originated on that site.
For several years now, I’ve been that “crazy guy” in the corner screaming about the elephant in the room. But, now that there is a conversation going on about Internet safety, the time is right for this “crazy guy” to once again wave his red flag. It’s not enough to warn users to be careful while interacting with people they meet on classifieds sites. Site owners need to do their parts to deter criminals from making it so easy to lure in victims.
My goal is to get other classified site owners to join me in an effort to establish best practices in consumer safety. In the long run, it’s good for the industry. But more importantly, it’s good for the consumers. These are our users. Without them, we don’t have a business and we don’t have any income.
The Wild West days of the Internet are over. It’s time for those of us who operate sites on the Internet to take responsibility for what we’re allowing on our sites. More importantly, it’s time for us to fix the areas that are broken, to allow our humanity to supersede our economic interests so that we can collectively save lives, prevent robberies and rape, halt human trafficking, and stop other scams and illicit activities from occurring.
Anything less is unacceptable.
And while the owners of the other classified sites out there – craigslist included – have chosen to ignore my cries for change, I’ll continue to stand on that soapbox – just as I’ve been doing for years – trying to bring some responsibility to the online classified ads business.
I’d rather be the “crazy guy” in the corner who can sleep at night knowing that I’m doing everything I can to make the Internet a safer place than to be the guy who collects the money at the expense of the innocent victims who found themselves at the hands of a killer – a killer who had a key to an unruly place on the Internet where criminals are welcomed.
Carolina, 
Tiffany Husted 3:31 pm on March 16, 2011 Permalink
I cannot fathom why these people would not want to make such a significant and obvious change. It makes me ill inside that they do not care about people’s safety and lives to make a few changes to their sites and operations.
Peter Franklin 12:35 am on March 17, 2011 Permalink
From what i gather, craigslist already does quite a bit to screen their ads. Yes, they has the erotic services ads which ran for quite some time. Unfortunately, what was not recognized is that craigslist fully cooperated with legal authorities in the pursuit of criminals around those ads. You think those providers of illicit services or gone? I doubt it, they are probably now further eluding law enforcement or operating elsewhere. I guess I want to applaud your efforts, but cannot help but think you are trying to generate buzz around your site and elevate yourselves to the level of craigslist whereas I suspect they are far more successful than Geebo. Go ahead and correct me if I am wrong.
Greg Collier 7:57 am on March 18, 2011 Permalink
Before addressing anything, I want to reiterate that our call to action is extended to all online classified sites. Human trafficking is an industry wide epidemic that must be fought collectively. Now, upon your suggestion, allow me to correct your shiny spin on Craigslist’s past. The only screening Craigslist provides, and has ever provided, must be undertaken and enforced by its users. A post goes live immediately, with no review by a Craigslist staff member. The plethora of illegal activity that has gone on, largely uninterrupted, is indicative of the failure of their “review process.” Cooperation with authorities is relative when it could be legally compelled. And yes, we are generating buzz about Geebo…because a safe, secure online classified site that cares about its consumers is worth buzzing about. We hope you agree!
Randy 1:49 pm on March 27, 2011 Permalink
I recently saw your comment on a Times Standard article, linking to your blog post and open letter, and have to disagree with pretty much absolutely everything you said.
First, your claim that sites should be responsible for the actions of their users. Huh? If I make a telephone call and convince some old lady that she’s won the lottery and needs to send me a check, is the telephone company responsible? Should the telephone company have monitored my phone call, scanned it for keywords, and reported it to the police? Or maybe the telephone company should have delayed my call until it was reviewed? Claiming that carrying third-party-generated traffic gives you a responsibility for monitoring and filtering it is utterly absurd, as well as illegal (common carriers were declared responsibility-free a long time ago).
Filtering ads is not only wrong, it’s impractical. Maybe your useless site has so few postings you can hire a team of people to scan every one of them, but for any useful site, it’s not practical.
Second, you talk about “adult” ads, then mention housing scams and similar, an obvious attempt at implicating them in many things they are unrelated to. Despite your wording, it is obvious that eliminating “adult” ads does not in any way relate to scams. Only slimy politicians and pr people do stuff like that. If you need to try to trick people to make a claim, you shouldn’t be making it.
Third, despite some fuzzy happy delusional christian idea that adult activities do not exist, they do. People try to find other people to date. People have sex with other people. In many places, including in this country, people legally perform sexual activities for money. Despite what Alabama would like, people sell “adult” items too. What do you hope to accomplish by attempting to prevent people posting these ads? Every negative thing you mention will still go on regardless of what your classified site does, but you’ll drive off your legitimate users.
Do you really think some murderer/rapist/whatever is going to stop murdering people because they can’t post a classified ad? Did murders not exist before the internet? “I want to rape and kill someone, but waiting in the bushes is way too much work, so since I can’t post a classified ad, I’m going to take up knitting instead.”? That’s just as idiotic as the people who think banning guns on school grounds will keep school shootings from happening, possibly more so.
I could go on, but I have useful things to do with my day. However, before doing them, I will be emailing craigslist and every other site I imagine you might have sent your open letter to, with a letter requesting they ignore anything you may say to them.
–Randy
(Who has somehow never murdered, raped, or scammed anyone, nor been murdered, raped, or scammed, despite using “unsafe” classified ad sites for a decade and a half or so)
Greg Collier 7:14 pm on March 29, 2011 Permalink
Your comment is one reason why I love the internet and the First Amendment. Where else could we have such a quick, furious exchange of ideas? Geebo, however, recognizes that with such freedom comes responsibility and that is where our policies are derived from.
Your phone carrier example is an interesting one. Sure, phone carriers are blame free when their customers are unfortunately scammed, but it doesn’t mean they should facilitate or accommodate individuals wishing to utilize their services for illegalities. Those who want to commit a crime are going to do so. However, if Geebo can prevent that crime from being directed at their users or preempt its commission entirely, even once, we will consider ourselves successful.
Geebo does not ignore the fact that “adult” activities take place. In fact, we are all for it. However, when it comes to love connections online there are sites, such as Match.com and eHarmony.com, that are more suited for the job. The reason over a million people use these outlets are because their private information is protected and fellow users are screened. It is a matter of prioritizing what is important to you as a company.
Just like you are entitled to your opinion, we are entitled to ours. Where you seem willing to accept the status quo, we are not. There is no right or wrong, just different. We are proud of our approach and, in the interest of internet user safety and security, we will continue to suggest its application to other classified sites.
bob gomez 3:46 pm on March 30, 2011 Permalink
For years the police tolerated street walking prostitution on El Cajon Blvd and they still do. We neighbors knew this would never be tolerated in La Jolla or the neighborhoods of the rich and powerful.
We would find used condoms on the street, hookers hanging out at bus stops with children and people going to work, Johns parked with hookers in the evenings, violent pimps hiding in the shadows. We have a high school that abuts El Cajon Blvd. NOT good for kids to be around that kind of thing.
We begged the police for years to do something. Nothing happened for decades.
Online ads for prostitution have cut the frequency of streetwalkers by 80% or more. Before online ads the only way for streetwalkers to access their clients was our streets.
Online ads for hookers are the best thing that’s happened to our neighborhood for years.
Hopefully online porn will put the porn shops and strip clubs in neighborhoods out of business too.
Greg Collier 10:45 am on April 1, 2011 Permalink
Hi Bob,
I don’t think you and I want separate things. You wanted the police to do their job in monitoring your streets to keep yourself, your family, and your friends, safe. Geebo wants online classified sites to do their job in monitoring their sites to keep yourself, your family, and your friends, safe. I am glad that prostitution has decreased in your community. However, Geebo is a community as well. Aren’t we equally entitled to want something done to clean up our online community? I believe so.
The problem, whether online or out your front window, might never truly disappear. But this isn’t a reason to do nothing to prevent or preempt its facilitation. I trust you didn’t stop calling the police and requesting action to be taken. Similarly, we won’t either.
Hypnogal 12:33 pm on April 8, 2011 Permalink
Randy. You are not a woman. Gee. Think that might have something to do with your “luck” so far?
Hypnogal 12:37 pm on April 8, 2011 Permalink
As long as there are men who want it and can pay for it, and women who need the money, there will always be porn. Porn is defined by whatever is NOT sexually socially acceptable in public. This varies from generation to generation, culture to culture / nationality to nationality (different for different people). What is considered “porn” or “taboo” to some is not to others.
Doesn’t make it right – or wrong. It just is.
But – people dying in the aftermath is very wrong… on many levels.
Killers don’t kill people – Craigslist kills people?
Uh, I don’t think too many people wil be buying that bumper sticker anytime soon.
PL Frank 1:46 pm on April 8, 2011 Permalink
Greg,
What, specifically, does GEEBO do to keep your classifieds safe? What do you recommend other online classifieds sites do?
Greg Collier 4:53 pm on April 8, 2011 Permalink
The ability to engage in, possess, distribute, and enjoy pornographic materials is a right protected by the First Amendment. The ability to traffic women, men, and children into that industry, or any other industry, is not. Geebo is not against porn, internet or print. We are against classified sites refusing to monitor themselves and facilitating human trafficking.
We agree that your bumper sticker phrase is unlikely to catch on. However, we would suggest that one along the lines of “Safety First, Fun Second” just might.
Rob 8:11 am on April 11, 2011 Permalink
To Greg Collier: You have every right to your opinion and can run your web site any way you want, within the frame of the law. However, you don’t have the right to try and force other websites to operate within the same bounds you do. As long as the other sites are operating within the boundary set by law, you should butt out. You are like politicians who try and push their religious values and morals on the rest of the country, regardless of what the law says. And that is where you will fail. We the people are not bound by yours or anyone else’s moral clause, we all run our lives based on our own moral code and that is how it should be. Run your website how you wish, but don’t try and generate interest in your site at the expense of other legally run websites.
Greg Collier 8:31 am on April 11, 2011 Permalink
PL, thank you for your inquiry. Every submission that Geebo receives is reviewed by a member of our staff. Where other sites allow classified posts to go live immediately, we require them to pass our assessment before becoming accessible to others. This allows us to control what is being posted and ensures that all posts adhere to our guidelines.
In addition to our thorough evaluative process, Geebo also removed our personal ads section a few months ago. Fortunately, we never had a problem with this section, which we largely attribute to our review system, but we decided to preemptively remove the category. We would rather be safe than sorry when it comes to our users.
Our suggestion to other online classified sites is to employ an active monitoring process that keeps them safe. Yes, it does take time and it does take money…but aren’t those that keep your business running worth it? We think so.
Greg Collier 10:42 am on April 12, 2011 Permalink
Rob,
I admire your faith in the law, but most businesses prefer self-regulation to those of the governmentally mandated kind. Government intervention is the likely next step if other classified sites do not modify or enhance their security practices. Geebo surely isn’t expecting everyone to do as we say…but we are sharing our method because it has proven successful and pragmatic in preventing and preempting many evils that have found a home on internet classified sites.
Admittedly, our decision is both a personal and business one. However, we are a business and, as such, entitled to educate the public about our practices while distinguishing ourselves from others. That is capitalism. Fortunately, our business decisions have translated into a safer online destination.