The Unbelievably True Story Of How Craigslist Murdered Over 100 People
from the the-real-killer-here-are-the-killers dept
It's time to panic about Craigslist again. If it's not a key player in the human trafficking scene, it's the unwitting accomplice in over 100 murders.
[A]ccording to the Advanced Interactive Media Group, an industry watchdog and analyst, Craigslist passed the 100-murder mark just three weeks ago, when a 22-year-old man from Gary, Ind., attempted to rob the middle-aged couple who’d arranged to buy his car.Frankly, I'm surprised the number isn't higher. Not because Craigslist is the best thing that happened to pimps and murders since the invention of the internet, but because it encompasses nearly every major and minor city in the United States.
And, seriously: "Craigslist passed the 100-murder mark?" I realize "users of Craigslist passed the 100-murder mark" is a much clunkier sentence, but this sounds like it was written by a grandstanding sheriff, rather than a journalist.
Not only is it accessible by a vast majority of the US population, but its reach goes far beyond the buying and selling of goods. It also handles personal ads, searches for roommates and dozens of other ways for two strangers to meet face-to-face.
Sure, the voice behind this latest "let's worry about Craigslist" isn't a misguided government official or law enforcement officer with an anti-sex worker ax to grind. It's AIM's Peter Zollman, who's put together a completely not-for-profit SafeTrade "initiative," which helps set up safe areas for meetups and transactions, usually with the assistance of local law enforcement.
But to suggest this is a Craigslist problem -- rather than a human being problem -- is off-base. Nevertheless, Zollman makes this assertion:
Zollman and other critics say Craigslist has done “next to nothing” to encourage safe use or deter criminals. Among other things, the site doesn’t provide safety information unless a user explicitly seeks it out, and the company has not endorsed any third-party efforts — like Zollman’s own campaign to create “SafeTrade” spots at local police stations.Zollman wants the site to make safety warnings more prominent and to get behind some sort of "safe trading" program, whether his or someone else's. But his company's tracking of "Craigslist murders" tries to imply it is somehow worse than the old system of classified ads in newspapers -- which arguably led to an exponentially higher number of murders than Craigslist has, even given the limited, very local reach of most papers.
Zollman's take on Craigslist is decidedly more measured than it was a few years ago, when he referred to it as a "cesspool of crime." Unfortunately, his willingness to play into fearful narratives that sell better than more measured takes on the issue undercuts the sincerity of his "SafeTrade" offer. And it does nothing to dissuade law enforcement and other government officials from attacking Craigslist for the acts of a very, very, very slim minority of its users.
Even when Zollman takes into account the positives of Craigslist, he still undercuts his own arguments by saying things like the company's "ethos of anonymity" makes it prime territory for criminal behavior -- something that throws shade at Craigslist and anonymity, as if both of these elements were inherently suspect, rather than just being treated as so much thrown baby/bathwater by the SafeTrade founder.
Common sense and personal responsibility are in short supply, which is why people are always happy to suggest it's the platforms they use that should be doing more, rather than doing anything of their own will and volition. Meeting a stranger always carries a risk. Doing so while carrying lots of cash even more so. (However, given the ubiquity of asset forfeiture programs, I'd be somewhat wary about taking large sums of cash to a police station…) I agree Craigslist should feature safety information more prominently, but then again, nothing in its warning is groundbreaking or otherwise unavailable to potential users.
And Zollman's murder tracker would be a lot more honest if it were simply a list of people who've used Craigslist to facilitate their criminal acts, rather than giving the impression that Craigslist is somehow, in some very minimal way, responsible for these incidents.
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Filed Under: blame, murder, peter zollman, platforms
Companies: advanced interactive media group, craigslist
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Safe Trade spots?
I once thought so. But the police aren't there to protect you. Even if you are perfectly law abiding, they are there to find something, anything that they can charge you with. Real, imagined or manufactured.
Thanks, but no thanks. I'll stick to the safety of somewhere not so close to a police station. Somewhere public, maybe with friends present or nearby.
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Maybe we should be asking what is Craigslist doing right to have such a low statistical probability of getting murdered compared to legacy implementations of meeting people!
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Is that why he has so many cars for sale?
While traditional local print media certainly hates Craigslist, I'm pretty sure they would hate a slew of 'vicarious responsibility' lawsuits even more.
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Its the tool and not the user
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Carrie Fisher in 30 Rock episode
This reminds me of an episode of 30 Rock with Carrie Fisher in a guest spot. Her character and Liz walk by a man with a gun. Liz reacts with a shocked 'he's got a gun!' Then, Fisher's character reassures her with 'don't worry, it's not a cop.'
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What's the difference
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/pzollman
So he knows how to write linkbaity stories without much vetting.
"My goals: To work with great people (colleagues and clients); keep my company profitable and growing; make more money and work not quite as hard; continue enjoying the daylights out of what I'm doing (as I do now)."
So it isn't to protect the public, it is to protect his income.
His company publishes things that facilitates classified advertising, how many murders has he been complicit in?
As with most things, when someone is talking about the horrors of X look for the angle where they seek to profit from X.
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Re: Safe Trade spots?
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Re:
"The AIM Group is receiving no money or other compensation for SafeTrade."
Other than getting links from news stories back to the company profile.
How many other online trading sites do they run blogs about?
http://craigslistkillings.blogspot.com/
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Re: Its the tool and not the user
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Re: What's the difference
You need to compare Craigslist to every newspaper and "nickel ads" paper everywhere, for as long as classified ads have existed.. Or even just as long as Craigslist has existed.
You'd think this problem would have come to national attention earlier, or not.
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Wait a minute
Forget the war on Terror, wheres the war on Craigslist?
Why is their leader, Craig, not behind bars for running this murder list?
And what a sick-o list it is, when I looked on there I see one person advertising death by Chainsaw, lawnmowers, boats and even this one guy wanting to kill people with a bucket of rusty nails! The Chainsaw guy only needed $25 to pull of his murderous acts, crazy!
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Re: Re: What's the difference
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Re: Safe Trade spots?
And trading goods at a police station does have benefits: after all, they're there to find something to charge you with, ergo the transaction is above board on the part of the seller. And the place is under heavy video surveillance, so should anything go wrong after the transaction is complete (the perp waits around outside and tails the other party home and does X), the police have some good footage to use to find them.
And at the station, the employees are too busy filling out paperwork behind glass walls to get involved with a peaceful transaction. The last thing they want is MORE paperwork.
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Re: Safe Trade spots?
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murder
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Re: Safe Trade spots?
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Re: Wait a minute
To be fair, almost everything is responsible for more deaths in the US since 9/11 than terrorists. Especially if you use the right wing definition of terrorist that pretends that only Muslim terrorism counts.
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Re: Safe Trade spots?
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The Right Way To Provide A Safe Spot
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The THING thats at fault
About that car, what brand did the murderer use to facilitate the murder, and has that auto manufacturer hit their 100 murder accomplice milestone?
What breakfast cereal(s) gives the calories to burn and facilitate murders?
I imagine the very oxygen in the air acted as an accomplice.
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Craigslist is a Sponsor of Corporate Terrorism in the World
The main purveyor of corporate sponsored terrorism in the United States, is Craigslist who recruits and arm terrorists through their terms of service. They call them flaggers but they are unknown terrorists who destroy ads and cause economic damage. They are rearmed themselves with illegal malware that circumvents the flagging system and in effect have hijacked the flagging system, They criminally stalk the ads daily and illegally remove ones they have a personal issue with. Craigslist sponsors this marauding and is daily recruiting more flaggers.
They call this community moderation but that's the same words the Nazi's used when they set up spy networks in regions under their control. Craigslist is promoting Nazi like conditions in America and has set up a vast terrorist/5th column network to make sure they are the only economically viable enterprise on their websites.
The Craigslist Advertisers Association has issued an extensive press release and copies are available by writing to cladvertisers2012@ymail.com Investigations are under way and a federal lawsuit charging Craigslist with sponsorship of international terrorism and criminal negligence will go into federal court. These rogue flaggers, comic book freaks, and black hatters who are terrorizing the advertisers are also going to be brought to justice and prosecuted. Anyone who has been illegally flagged is a victim of terrorism and eligible to participate in the lawsuit and receive a monetary compensation for economic loss and suffering.
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Re: Craigslist is a Sponsor of Corporate Terrorism in the World
"They criminally stalk the ads daily and illegally remove ones they have a personal issue with"
Erm, wait... you're saying that a company moderating their own service is evidence of criminal activity? Wow.
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Re: Re: Craigslist is a Sponsor of Corporate Terrorism in the World
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Re: Re: Re: Craigslist is a Sponsor of Corporate Terrorism in the World
"THEY ARE not moderating anything"
You know, your paranoid ramblings would have more effect if they contained any internal consistency. For the moment, you just look like a total loon who can't even keep track of what he's ranting about.
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