Craigslist A 'Cesspool Of Crime'? Or Are Bad Reporters A Cesspool Of Repeating Dubious Research?

from the i'll-take-the-latter,-jim dept

Fri, Feb 25th 2011 7:25am — Mike Masnick

Slashdot points us to an article at the "International Business Times," that reports on a study from the AIM Group which claims that Craigslist is 'a cesspool of crime.' Interesting claim. What seems to be totally missing from the IBTimes report is the fact that AIM Group works for Craigslist competitors and, in this case, the "research" was funded by Craigslist wannabe-Oodle. That's not mentioned in the IBTimes report at all. In fact, the only mention of Oodle in the article is a quote by the CEO of Oodle mocking Craigslis and playing up Oodle... but never mentioning that he paid for the research in question.

As for the actual "research," it seems laughable, at best, and should immediately raise questions about any AIM Group research. The "research" basically scoured news reports and found a grand total of 330 "crimes" in the past year that have some sort of loose connection to Craigslist. I have a hard time seeing how that makes it a "cesspool" of crime. That's a very small number, especially considering the hundreds of millions of posts and transactions that take place via Craigslist. This seems like a massive cheap shot by both Oodle and AIM Group, and it's sad that a reporter would repeat the claims without noting the obvious problems with it. That's not journalism. That's being a PR service.

Meanwhile, looking at the "details" from AIM Group make the results even less compelling. They play up that 12 murders had a loose connection to Craigslist, but a bunch of those appear to be from one deranged individual. It seems pretty ridiculous to blame Craigslist for that.

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Filed Under: classifieds, conflict of interest, crime, reporting, research, studies
Companies: aim group, craigslist, oodle

34 Comments

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velox (profile), 25 Feb 2011 @ 6:52am

"Sponsored by Oodle"
A link to the original AIM Group report is found Here. Featured prominently on the cover page are the words "sponsored by Oodle."

That tells you all you need to know about this researcher and his report.
-->Pre-directed custom conclusions for sale.

I suppose however that its also good to know that there were 16,204 murders in the US in 2010.
Considering the millions of Craigslist transactions, and considering the fact that Craiglist has become a dominant method of selling used good throughout the US, the fact that only 12 out of the 16,204 murders were associated with Craigslist makes it very easy to draw the exact opposite conclusion from the assertion stated in this smear attempt by Oodle
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velox (profile), 25 Feb 2011 @ 7:10am

Re: "Sponsored by Oodle"
Correction: The above US murder statistic was from a number of years ago.
Here is a better source for the most up-to-date information available -- 2009, in which there were 13,636 murders in the United States
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Feb 2011 @ 7:28am

If I was stealing stuff for a living, I could see CL as being a very good place to fence the goods, especially if I could sell them into another city instead.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 25 Feb 2011 @ 7:32am

Re:
"If I was stealing stuff for a living, I could see CL as being a very good place to fence the goods, especially if I could sell them into another city instead."

If I was Mo Bigsley, my wang would be 18 inches and I could lean forward and turn myself into a tripod whenever I was tired.

I'm not Mo Bigsley, however, and you apparently don't steal stuff for a living. Nor do most people. Nor do most Craigslist users.

So what was the point of your comment?
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 25 Feb 2011 @ 7:42am

Re: I am not a bag-man!
So... you've not followed the news then?

Meh, disregard that. As long as you're stealing non-valuable things which are generic enough to not be particularly recognizable and do not have serial numbers I'm sure you'll do fine. Have fun.
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Garrett, 25 Feb 2011 @ 7:50am

I remember back before we had these stupid, godless "internets"!! Life was so much simpler. After I walked home (uphill) in the snow, I didn't have to worry about someone using the "internets" to break my window and steal my fine china! No sir! There was no crime 20 years ago! Not until these dang wideworldhtmlcloud whatever nonsense! I say we get rid of it all.
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velox (profile), 25 Feb 2011 @ 7:51am

Re:
"If I was stealing stuff for a living, I could see CL as being a very good place to fence the goods, especially if I could sell them into another city instead."
If you were stealing stuff for a living, I could see that using a Toyota pickup could be very helpful to fence the goods, especially if you plan to transport them to another city instead.
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pixelpusher220 (profile), 25 Feb 2011 @ 7:51am

Re:
You know, Craiglist doesn't exist without computers. Probably should ban computers too.

Oh and phones since *vastly* more crime is done via phone than computer.

Oh and cars.

Oh and [insert any multi-use device here]
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Zangetsu (profile), 25 Feb 2011 @ 8:21am

Excellent response by Craiglist
IBTimes posted the response from Craiglist here.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 25 Feb 2011 @ 8:26am

Re: Re:
And legislation!

More crime get committed via legislation than any other method!!

That Science-Damned legislation crap oughta be outlawed!
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TPBer (profile), 25 Feb 2011 @ 8:32am

Not very good..
Just did a test on this oodle site and they are listing jobs from 2008, not a very good place to look for current job openings.

Not even remotely close to Craigslist as far as quality of ads. CL might have it's scammers, at least they do not live in the past.

here is the link for a Digital Print Specialist,

http://jobs.oodle.com/r_srxx_/1575184195-11078u577,20/www.hrglobe.info___R406scnyCz S_3gbDS9NtteNKfjd9RtMwJoN6o38hf13mL4qTFbRgRHxrxCVGZ2VV2_9TtBFbTioiCfQqu95MGg,,
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Feb 2011 @ 8:50am

lets apply murder stat to facebook
yaaaa riiight
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Feb 2011 @ 8:51am

Re: Hatchet Job Listings?
That's right, and the countless numbers of the same kind of transactions over hundreds of years that happened via classified print ads never, ever, never-ever resulted in any type of crime either! /sarc

Seriously, what is the difference between classified online ads and classified print ads?
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Feb 2011 @ 8:54am

Nuke the sun
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Feb 2011 @ 8:54am

Nuke the sun!
That freaking yellow ball started this whole mess!
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Michael, 25 Feb 2011 @ 8:59am

Re: Re:
I think the point was that if he were a thief, he would be using a tool that cooperates with law enforcement agencies and keeps careful details - thus insuring he would be caught.

Personally, I would fence things in a more traditional manner that required less of a trail.
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Call me Al, 25 Feb 2011 @ 9:02am

PR Service
"it's sad that a reporter would repeat the claims without noting the obvious problems with it. That's not journalism. That's being a PR service."

There is a book by a UK Journalist called "Flat-Earth News" which addresses this issue. The recycling of PR into newspaper copy is endemic these days as journalists churn out stories as quickly as they can. Very little gets checked and obvious things are missed in the rush.
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Michael, 25 Feb 2011 @ 9:02am

Re: Re: Hatchet Job Listings?
You can place classified print ads anonymously by walking into your local newspaper and paying in cash. Online ads have an electronic trail.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Feb 2011 @ 9:06am

Re: Re: Re: Hatchet Job Listings?
Then newspapers must be even bigger cesspools of crime!
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Feb 2011 @ 9:15am

Re: Nuke the sun!
Yellow ball? Where?

* Looks up *

AAAAH! MY EYES!
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Capitalist Lion Tamer (profile), 25 Feb 2011 @ 10:25am

The actual crime rate on Craigslist...
According to Fast Company: "around 0.00005% of posts are associated with crimes on Craigslist."

Taken from this Awl post:
http://www.theawl.com/2011/02/craig-newmark-will-murder-you-in-your-sleep-says-his-competitor

I'm sure most of us would love to live in such a "cesspool."
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Ryan Diederich, 25 Feb 2011 @ 11:11am

Statistics
80% of statistics are made up on the spot to support person who conducted the study.

In all seriousness, why is society doing this? Why cant people blame the people who did something, instead of what they used to do it?

Back in the day, if you killed someone with a hammer in a hardware store, you went to jail.

Now try killing someone in a hardware store with a hammer. The store gets sued for leaving out hammers, the manager gets sued for not preventing such an issue, the hammer company gets sued for making a deadly hammer and not including a "WARNING, BLOWS TO THE HEAD MAY CAUSE INJURY OR DEATH"

Makes no sense to me.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Feb 2011 @ 2:40pm

My two cents
I know a few people who were robbing off Craigslist in 2006, placing cheap Xbox 360 ads as bait. They would meet the mark somewhere and steal their money at gunpoint, and then trunk them in the car they drove up in. A few home invasions followed, until they botched one and left one of their buddies at the scene of the crime who ended up being charged with everything. I'm not sure if the rest of them kept robbing after that or quit.

Oodle's argument that they're somehow safer than Craigslist is

"When people post or respond to a listing on Marketplace, they use their real identity on Facebook".

Huh? Someone can make a fake Facebook account in less than a minute. This is a pathetic attempt to make Craigslist into the boogieman when they're just as susceptible to crime.

I'm blaming the victims... I think the problem is going to get a lot worse than it is now, and maybe police depts around the country should make an attempt to educate the public. It's really not the fault of the services that crimes are happening to these people.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Feb 2011 @ 10:08pm

Re: My two cents
"Huh? Someone can make a fake Facebook account in less than a minute."
Yes it's easy to create a fake account in FB even though that's actually a violation of FB's TOS. But it's also easy to identify a fake account in FB.
See the difference now?
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2011 @ 8:09am

Re: Re: Nuke the sun!
Z��zz!��`�^
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William Surette, 23 May 2011 @ 1:03pm

wrong Email address
I had Hotmail & Facebook compromised in 2010. I have not used "etterus@hotmail.com since last year. I notified CL of the vcompromise & requested etterus@hotmail be discontinued as hotmail has 4000 emails just pileing up.
Agin my request to unsubcribe "etterus@hotmail.com" from
my account is important. I listed 40 emails with CL and thier still going to "etterus@hotmail.com etterus is my name SURETTE backwards ETTERUS. Pull etterus@hotmail off my
account & change to bombey@verizon.net. Thats why no replies. going to a dead account
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Jason, 1 Aug 2011 @ 1:57am

Response to: Anonymous Coward on Feb 25th, 2011 @ 7:28am
Earths up on the porch
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Aug 2011 @ 2:50am

Response to: Anonymous Coward on Feb 25th, 2011 @ 7:28am
Hormney
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Shine (profile), 24 Oct 2011 @ 4:46am

cautious
I think it's best to be cautious and not be hasty in any of our dealings online. In the first place we don't really know the person we are dealing with. It's really hard to trust people nowadays.
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Andrew, 3 Dec 2011 @ 6:25am

Crime happens. Because we lack love. If everybody just follow the golden rule, Don't do to others what you wouldn't want them do to you - nobody will ever get hurt again.
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Nicole, 25 Jan 2012 @ 8:04pm

Lesson learned: Be wise in your dealings and be cautious whether in CL or anywhere else.
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Ann, 30 Mar 2012 @ 10:01am

You shouldn't be very trusting with people you just met online, especially when you have to do business with them...do your homework and maybe search about them online first.
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jdennifer, 22 Aug 2012 @ 4:07pm

milwaukee band saw
I have a bandsaw "Milwaukee "
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Rand A Shukair, 4 Jan 2014 @ 3:22pm

Re :
d29c9d2e47c1394a94a2cf7ce8fa11e7@reply.craigslist.org
This email somebody keep emailing me and hurasting me
Please see if you can assist me with or should I have forward it to the High level
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