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  • Geebo 10:00 am on April 4, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: craigslist, ,   

    Facebook and craigslist team up to fight fake news, not notice irony 

    Facebook and craigslist team up to fight fake news, not notice irony

    Since the 2016 Presidential Election, ‘fake news’ has been the story that’s refused to die with Facebook being ground zero for most fake stories that are perpetrated on the internet. In the past Facebook has taken steps to combat this problem without really fixing anything in our opinion. Now Facebook must be absolutely serious about the problem because they’ve teamed up with that bastion of truth and integrity, craigslist. Sarcasm fully intended, by the way.

    While we’ve been over this before, but it bears repeating. With Facebook, anyone can post just about anything no matter how libelous it may be, pay to get the story boosted, then when the story turns out to be blatantly false, it takes nothing short than an act of God to get the story removed. As for craigslist, you can post an ad for just about anything including, but not limited to, revenge ads soliciting the sexual assault of just about any person you feel has wronged you. That’s not including the paranoid, racist and otherwise hate-filled scribes that inhabit the rants and raves section.

    Both sites, and their founders by extension, are acting like they’re standing on some kind of moral high ground. In reality the high ground their standing on is the mountain of lies perpetrated by their users and encouraged by the sites themselves.

     
  • Geebo 10:58 am on February 3, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , craigslist, ,   

    Craigslist founder spends half a million to combat harassment, just not at craigslist 

    Craigslist founder spends half a million to combat harassment, just not at craigslist

    Craigslist founder and namesake, Craig Newmark, has recently donated $500,000 of his own money in order to combat the “trolling, harassment and cyber-bullying” of users of a certain website. Of course that website is craigslist right? Um not exactly.

    Newmark recently spent the half million to fight the trolling on the oft-vandlaized Wikipedia.

    Wikimedia says the money will be used to launch a program to help editors “more quickly identify potentially harassing behavior.”

    While Wikipedia is a highly resourceful and valuable website, it can’t possibly contain the amount of trolling, harassment and cyber-bullying that craigslist does. In the past, ads on craigslist have been flagged and pulled because the business posting the ad said that they spoke Spanish. Go to any of the rants and raves sections and it won’t take you long to find some racist hate-filled diatribe. Convicted mass murderer Dylann Roof even placed a craigslist ad looking for a travel buddy that said “No Jews, queers, or (racial slurs)” prior to his killing spree. That’s not even counting the number of revenge or prank ads on craigslist that end up sending potentially dangerous people to the houses of unsuspecting victims.

    When you’re own home is in a state of extreme disrepair, you normally don’t spend money to help fix the nicer house down the street.

     
  • Geebo 12:05 pm on December 20, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , craigslist, ,   

    Everything old is new again: Facebook Marketplace used for robberies 

    Everything old is new again: Facebook Marketplace used for robberies

    Back in October, we posted on this blog about how Facebook’s new Marketplace feature was not only rife for abuse, but that the abuses were already taking place. These were some of the same abuses that have plagued craigslist for years.

    Now, industry watchdog The AIM Group, is reporting that Facebook Marketplace is now suffering from an even bigger problem that is also reminiscent of craigslist, robbery. At least two armed robberies have occurred and in one incident a victim was stabbed while being robbed. If history is any indicator, it won’t be too long before the media is calling someone the ‘Facebook Marketplace Killer’. By AIM Group’s own estimate there have been 105 murders related to craigslist as of October, 2016. With as many users as Facebook has, they could potentially dwarf that unfortunate number.

    The problem with Facebook Marketplace is the same that craigslist has always had and that’s the lack of moderation. Facebook is making the same mistake as craigslist by relying on the community to police the ads rather than having in-house moderation. While human curation isn’t the be all and end all to keeping its users safe it can go so much farther than relying on an untrained community. Unfortunately, Facebook has a history of mishandling any kind of human editing staff. With its brand and userbase, Facebook has the potential to be even a bigger criminal hive than craigslist ever was.

     
  • Geebo 7:44 am on May 19, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: craigslist, ,   

    The craigslist safety app is too little too late 

    The craigslist safety app is too little too late

    Recently craigslist announced that they have sanctioned a smartphone app that shows users where they can supposedly make transactions safely. The app is said to show the locations of coffee shops and police stations. While we commend craigslist for finally starting to think about the safety of their users we here at Geebo have to ask, what took them so long?

    We’re not even talking about the fact that Geebo is an industry leader when it comes to assisting in our customers’ safety. For example back in March of last year Geebo CEO Greg Collier partnered with the SafeTrade Stations initiative that was started by industry watchdog, The AIM Group. The SafeTrade Stations program was started in response to the fact that at the time 84 people had been violently murdered after using craigslist. That number has since risen to 103. While these deaths may only be a minute fraction of the number of transactions that take place on craigslist it should be a large enough number to cause craigslist concern. However this is the first step, as far as we can recall, that craigslist has taken in years to aid in the safety of their users, except they didn’t even take this step. Another company developed the app and craigslist just gave it their seal of approval. So in reality craigslist barely lifted a finger.

    This is not surprising considering craigslist’s lax history when it comes to safety. They say that their site is too large to moderate their ads yet they have no problem in pulling all sorts of ads that aren’t even flagged by their so-called ‘community police’. In the past they’ve pulled ads for such things as unlocked iPhones to recalled baby strollers yet they don’t pull ads for such things as illegal drugs, firearms, human trafficking and the multitude of scams that craigslist is awash with. Speaking of their community police, it seems the term police is used rather loosely. For lack of a better term it seems that the craigslist community police are a case of the inmates running the asylum. Too often craigslist ads are flagged for personal reasons like the ad is flagged by a competitor of the ad’s poster. While on the other hand they tend not to flag any ads for obvious illegal activity. In contrast Geebo has its ads moderated by staff members who have a keen eye when it comes to scams and illegal content.

    In the past craigslist was infamous for its adult ads where human trafficking thrived. Although it did remove those ads after consumer and media pressure, craigslist still has sections that could be considered dark alleys of the internet. An inordinate amount of arrests have been generated from their personals and the ‘casual encounter’ section of craigslist along with an inordinate number of victims of online predators. Years ago Greg Collier, against common practice, removed personal ads from Geebo  in order to better provide a safer experience to Geebo’s users. At no point did Geebo ever accept ads that had their roots in human trafficking.

    Geebo even takes the safety and welfare of those unable to defend themselves seriously. Another Geebo policy is that we do not accept ads that deal  in animals. This is because of the number of puppy mills that deal in unhealthy animals but also because of the number of scams that involve animals. However on craigslist you can find a number of either wild, dangerous, illegal or unhealthy animals.

    For a company that professes to be such a pillar of not only the online community but the real world community as well craigslist doesn’t appear to be acting in any community’s self-interest except its own.

     
  • Greg Collier 2:43 pm on March 8, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Cornell University, craigslist, , , University of Maryland   

    Why Does Craigslist Make It Easy for Scammers to Find Victims? 

    Scams have long been – and probably always be – a part of our lives. From the smooth-talking snake oil salesmen of yesteryear to the Bernie Madoff schemes of a new generation, this criminal element has long preyed on the naive, the trusting types who buy into bargains that sound too good to be true because they are.

    Over the years, scammers have had to be quick on their feet, ready to run from a spurned customer looking for revenge or to skip town ahead of a sheriff with an arrest warrant. Today, the anonymity of the Internet allows scammers to not only avoid personal contact but also cast a wider net to a greater pool of victims under the guise of many different personas.

    It’s no surprise that thousands of those ads appear on craigslist. And it should also come as no surprise that craigslist does a poor job of identifying and removing those ads in a timely manner, leaving the door open for even more victims hours after ads are flagged.

    That’s according to a study jointly conducted at University of Maryland, New York University and Cornell University that closely examined the rental listings in 20 cities over a 141-day period to identify scams. In all, the researchers put together a series of formulas that was able to detect and identify about 29,000 scam listings, many of which followed patterns that made identifying them that much easier.

    That’s both good news and bad news. It’s good news because the researchers were able, in a short period of time, to produce a solution that could rid craigslist of many of these ads, saving some of its visitors from being exposed to them. The bad news is that a study of craigslist’s filtering and flagging systems for removing the ads was determined to be ineffective, with less than half of the ads identified by the research team actually being removed by craigslist during the test period.

    In a 18-page report, the research team explains that, while craigslist filtering system for taking down scam ads is largely inefficient, there are other ways that the site could take down and deter the scammers, including government fines for deceptive advertising or working with the credit card companies to stop them from collecting funds. Without the ability to collect money from unsuspecting victims, the scam itself is no longer worth the effort.

    But counting on craigslist to do the right thing, or to invest any real time or energy into making the site safer, is probably a long shot.

    At Geebo, we do our best to be proactive against scams, largely by partnering with many other sites so that we only post legitimate ads from known sources, whether home listings or cars for sale. Likewise, I have devoted a page on geebo.com to tips on how to avoid being a victim of a scam.

    At the end of the day, there will always be scammers and there will always be the types who fall for the scams, possibly because they’re naive or simply too trusting. One of the most important tips I provide my visitors is to follow their gut instincts – even if it means passing up a great deal or the perfect home. Your instinct will tell you that wiring thousands of dollars to a landlord who’s currently out of the country is probably a bad idea. Likewise, jumping through hoops to get an inside peek at an apartment should be a red flag.

    Neither I, nor craigslist, can offer a 100 percent guarantee that an ad isn’t a scam. Those types of criminals are creative and are always finding ways to get one over. But we can do our parts to make it harder for scammers to infiltrate our sites.

    Now that a team of university researchers have identified how to do that, we’ll see if craigslist takes action to make its site safer.

     
  • Greg Collier 8:51 am on May 13, 2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , craigslist, , , partnerships, ruling, Scraping   

    Site scraping may be bad business, but courts say it’s legal 

    The purpose of a classified ad is to reach the largest audience possible, casting the largest net, if you will. After all, whether you’re selling a car, renting a home or advertising a service for hire, the goal of the classified ad is to make sure that a large number of people see that ad

    So, why would anyone want to hinder the ability to reach the largest audience? Through a lawsuit, that’s exactly what craigslist was trying to do by arguing that it held copyright on the user-posted ads that appear on its sites. But, earlier this month, a judge ruled against the large classified site, noting that the site itself – craigslist, in this case – does not hold copyright over an ad unless it’s granted exclusive rights to it.

    Call it a victory for the “scrapers” in that the courts have defended the ability to take an ad from one site and repurpose it on another. As a site owner, I’m definitely not advocating the idea that a new site could steal ads from Geebo and make a profit from it. But I also understand the importance of large net.

    By law, scraping may be allowed – but I think of it as the lazy approach. At Geebo, we take pride in our syndication efforts. We create solid business relationships with other sites to maximize the exposure for the people who have something to advertise. Geebo has relationships with real estate sites and car buying sites, for example, to not only put Geebo’s ads into bigger nets but also to put other ads in front of Geebo visitors.

    For us, syndicating content is good business. We’re open and upfront about it, making sure our customers know what we’re doing and why. To us, scraping content is not a good business practice, despite the widespread practice. It’s a free ride on the sweat of someone else’s work. Still, the court was right in noting that the ad itself does not belong to the site publisher but instead to the user.

    We know that publishers are constantly looking to harvest Geebo’s content. But instead of blocking them, we reach out directly and try to establish a bona fide partnership that includes cost-per-click/lead pricing, something that’s fair to both parties.

    Bottom line: The content is out there for the taking. But site publishers can either attempt to block the practice of scraping the way craigslist did or they can embrace it as a new business opportunity, the way Geebo has.

    The courts have spoken, leaving the ball back in our courts so that we can embrace the best business practices. The goal is to make sure the user – whether someone looking to buy or sell – has the best experience.

    That’s good business.

     
  • Greg Collier 4:46 pm on May 22, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , craigslist, , , OLX, online prostitution, PennySaver, Recycler   

    Responsible Classifieds Sites: Yes, We Exist 

    There’s an old expression about the squeaky wheel being the one that gets the oil. It’s an an analogy that’s widely used in different scenarios – the school officials who pay attention to the trouble-maker but give no recognition to kids who pay attention in class or the boss who deals with the complainer in the office but takes little notice of the employee who meets all of his deadlines.

    In recent months, the attention on the online classifieds news business has focused pretty much on craigslist and backpage – and not in a good way. Mind you, I’m not complaining – and I’m guilty of also focusing on them – because it puts pressure on these sites to recognize the harm that they’re inflicting on society simply because they seem to turn a blind eye to human trafficking, child prostitution and other morally-objectionable crimes that flourish on their sites.

    I’ve spoken out on this time and time again and I’ve made no secret of how I feel about these sites. But what I – and the news media – have failed to do in our awareness-raising reports is to shed some light on those in the online classifieds business who are providing safe online marketplaces where prostitution – disguised as “personals” ads – are simply not allowed. Much like Geebo, sites such as recycler, pennysaverusa and olx.com, which followed Geebo’s lead and also dropped personals ads, have operated in a responsible manner. Though these sites are competitors to Geebo, I also like to think of them as allies in the fight to clean up online marketplaces and provide safe forums for people to advertise everything from job listings and car ads to real estate listings and garage sale items.

    It’s sad that the face of classifieds has taken such a dark turn. There was a day, back when newspapers dominated the industry, that these sorts of taboo activities that have become the mainstream were isolated to red-light publications and neighborhoods. Sure. it was a problem back then, too, but it was isolated. We could warn our children to stay out of those neighborhoods and away from those elements. Law enforcement officials were able to monitor the areas and enforce the laws when it was so warranted.

    Today, those sites have put these criminal activities into the mainstream, in a place where our children can easily access bad people with bad intentions without any supervision. Despite what the operators of these sites claim, their efforts to monitor are laughable.

    We should all take a lesson from the pioneer of classifieds ads – the newspapers. Mainstream family-oriented newspapers, which provided a forum for news and community on their pages, never would have allowed such ads on their pages. They were the gatekeepers that set the rules and standards for what was appropriate and what wasn’t. As an operator of an online classifieds site, I believe in following in their footsteps when it comes to serving as that gatekeeper for my own site.

    I continue to be both amazed and saddened that a handful of sites can disregard that gatekeeper role and let criminals roam freely on their sites to seek out victims. At the same time, I am proud to be part of another group of sites that have chosen to take the higher road and provide safe marketplaces.

    Today, I applaud them and encourage people to patronize them. Let them know that you appreciate what their efforts and responsible business practices.

     
  • Greg Collier 10:38 am on December 15, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Adult Services, , craigslist, , , Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, PGA, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, The Salahi’s, Tiger Woods, Virginia socialites, White House Secretary Desiree Rogers   

    Does life happen in 3’s? 

    big-phony

    The most masterfully crafted images are only that, an image, and nothing more. In recent weeks three public images have broken down, proving that they are mere facades, and capable of hurting many when they fall apart. 

    It turns out that Tiger Woods is not a saint, but rather a mere mortal. With an image backed by multiple million dollar endorsement deals, Tiger can no longer hold up his end of the bargain. I am confident, however, that there are golfers and other athletes out there that could use those now available endorsement dollars by providing a genuine image brand that the public demands.   

    Tareq and Michaele Salahi, Virginia socialites, who crashed the recent White House dinner, have also portrayed themselves to be people they are not. The Salahi’s were able to convince many people that there was substance behind their image—how else do you get White House Secretary Desiree Rogers to consider adding your names to “the list”. Is this a victimless crime that is being transformed into a bigger issue than it should be? I don’t think so. How much of our tax dollars will be spent investigating this breach of White House security? How much time will be wasted on news networks dissecting every move that was made that night instead of covering issues and events that genuinely impact our world? How about those who lost their jobs for letting the masquerading couple make it through the gates? Or, most importantly, how did the dinner honoree-Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh-feel about an uninvited couple stealing the night’s spotlight?  Unfortunately, a night both Indian’s and American’s will never forget hinges upon the false images portrayed by their fellow citizens. 

    To top the list, though less public and less glitzy, is Craig Newmark, the founder and president of Craigslist.  Last week, a trial between eBay and Craigslist shined new light on Newmark’s ‘aw-shucks, power to the people, do-gooder’ image.  It turns out that he may be in it for the money after all – shocking!  Who is hurt by Newmark’s faulty façade? Those loyal followers who fiercely defend Craig Newmark’s image, while he is the backroom counting his $9.5 million!  Perhaps the anarchy of the “Adult Services” section is not about autonomy and non-governance after all, but rather about the insane amounts of user traffic that area attracts. Once free, this morally bankrupt section even charges users a listing fee! What a brilliant business model he has created…Newmark is no different than the rest of corporate America that care more about their personal bottom line than the personalities who make their business possible.  

    We have been given 3 masterfully crafted images… and 3 facades that crumbled in the midst of their self-serving objectives. They say life comes in 3’s…I wonder who will be next?

     
  • Greg Collier 2:08 pm on October 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , craigslist, gary wolf, , , jim buckmaster, wired   

    Craigslist Is Such a Mess 

    Craig NewmarkAfter reading The Tragedy of Craigslist in the September issue of Wired magazine I felt compelled to share some thoughts on CL and the people behind it.

    I applaud Gary Wolf and Wired for the well-researched article on the anomalous characters and odd decisions going on behind the scenes at Craigslist. For a business with this much traffic and this much income, the problems its users encounter day after day, post after post, are really beyond comprehension. They make enough money to fix this stuff, folks – and they refuse to do it!

    And that’s not all they refuse to fix. Over the last few years, newspapers and television news stories across the country have been reporting stories about victims – from theft to rape to murder – whose only mistake was responding to a Craigslist ad. Note to Craig: telling us that “most people are good,” is not a sufficient answer! For years, law enforcement agencies have been fighting with Craigslist to clean up the obvious illegal activities on the site – and Craigslist has repeatedly balked or stalled.

    The word is spreading that Craigslist is a dangerous place to buy, sell, or look for a date. This is sad state of affairs in an era when technologies exist to ferret out much of the illegal activity, and good old fashioned monitoring can clean up much of the rest – and yet Craigslist resorts to a flag system that, as your article points out, benefits troublemakers as readily as legitimate users. Yes, the criminals are in the minority; I’ll give Craig and Buckmaster that. But the problem is this: more than on any other site I’ve ever seen (and I work in this industry), criminals flock to Craigslist.

    Buckmaster’s analogy to GM seems an effort to confuse the issue. Autos come with safety ratings, and manufacturers go to great lengths to ensure their cars’ safety ratings – because people’s lives are at stake. And that’s just the point. Craigslist users have every right to expect that their safety come before some abstract concept of “democracy.”

    This is probably the most important difference between Craigslist and the community classifieds site I operate. At Geebo.com, we monitor our community classifieds to make every experience as safe and enjoyable as possible.

    We pay attention to our users, and we are constantly improving our technologies and systems. Given how hard we work at this, it’s hard to watch the arrogance and nonsense that go on at Craigslist. When users run into problems there, they get a haiku? Give me a break! Why would anyone intentionally create a system where users’ concerns are mocked rather than addressed?

    People aren’t fools: as long as Craigslist refuses to evolve, the site will increasingly be defined by bugs, scams and illegal activities – risks and frustrations that fewer and fewer users will be willing to put up with. Please let your readers know that there are alternatives to Craigslist – including ours. I welcome every Craigslist user to surf on over to Geebo where we work hard to make yours a safe, easy, enjoyable and successful community classifieds experience.

     
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