Greg's Corner

Why you shouldn’t mourn the craigslist personals

As we posted last week, craigslist shuttered its personals section in anticipation of FOSTA being signed into law. Many in tech circles are lamenting the loss of craigslist personals as if it was some place where wholesome couples would meet so they could attend church and ice cream socials together. What they’re conveniently forgetting is that the personals section of craigslist had a much more sinister undercurrent that not much of the public was aware of.

For example, recently, 30-year-old Andrew Turley was sentenced to 60 years behind bars for trying to sell his 4-year-old daughter for the purposes of sex on craigslist. According to investigators, Turley would drug his daughter to make her compliant. After police responded to his craigslist ad they found his daughter in a ‘groggy state’ and appeared to be under the influence of some type of drug.

Sadly, this is not just a one-off occurrence as the Craigslist personals have a long history of this type of activity. This wasn’t even the youngest victim to ever be sold through craigslist as an Idaho man tried selling a 3-year-old girl through craigslist. In either case, none of the ads were flagged by craigslist’s community policing. For those of you who try to say that this will drive the predators underground, that’s the whole point. Without such a platform like craigslist, predators will have one less highly trafficked platform to find their victims and reprehensible parents won’t have the marketplace to sell their kids.