Study Calls Craigslist 'a Cesspool of Crime'

Bala4361 writes "Classifieds site Craigslist has been linked with 330 crimes, 12 murders and 105 robberies or assaults in the United States last year due to anonymous interactions on the site, says a new study. The report calls Craigslist 'a cesspool of crime,' citing murders, rapes, robberies, assault and rental rip-offs as some of the examples." Among the many Reefer Madness-style quotable stretchers from the originating consultancy: "The unfortunate fact is that Craigslist has become almost synonymous with crime." Update: 02/25 17:05 GMT by S : Craigslist has posted a response.

Comments

misunderstandings

[poetmatt]

Is this another idiotic moment where people don't realize that it's easier for police to find crime when you know it's on craigslist? Or is this another AG grandstanding moment?

Re:misunderstandings

[bunratty]

What they're missing is that all of these criminals ingested significant quantities dihydrogen monoxide in the 48 hours before each of these crimes was committed. When will people learn?

Re:misunderstandings

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much. They might as well have declared that the internet is a cesspool of crime, or that populated areas are cesspools of crime.

Re:misunderstandings

[h4rr4r]

If you have craigslist, the the AG knows where to look and it is a GREAT tool to find and arrest criminals before they commit the crime.

If they have not committed a crime yet, they are not criminals.

Re:misunderstandings

[nschubach]

The difference is:

Speed traps make you money.
Criminal traps usually cost you money.

Re:misunderstandings

[spun]

No, this is a report, funded by a Craigslist competitor, who specifically asked the AIM group to find a link between Craigslist and crime. It is a publicity piece, a smear job, it is not a scientific study. They started from the conclusion they wanted to reach, and worked backwards to find evidence to support that conclusion. They did not put the data into a larger context and compare the incidence of crime on Craigslist with incidence of crime against traditional classified users or other classified websites.

Note that I have no financial interest in any of the companies involved, and no particular love for Craigslist. If they tried the same sneaky, underhanded marketing tactics, I would call them out on it as well. I wonder how many people posting here attacking Craigslist like you are doing are employees of Oodle or the AIMgroup? I mean, if they would pay for a "study" like this, obviously they also would pay for astroturfers, right?

Re:misunderstandings

[bunratty]

Bingo. The study was done by AIM Group, "Consulting services for interactive media and classified advertising". It's probably in their best interest to shut down craigslist, because craigslist doesn't employ their services. One way is to start spreading FUD about craigslist with fancy-sounding studies that aren't based on any kind of sound reasoning at all.

Re:misunderstandings

[ColdWetDog]

I think it would be useful for somebody to figure out who commissioned the AIM Group for this "study."

Took all of 30 seconds.

The AIM Group has just completed a research project for Oodle, a Craigslist competitor, cataloging crimes that have been linked to Craigslist. And the results surprised even us.

Amazing. A competitor gets a 'research' project funded that says nasty things. The mind boggles.

Streets

[ivucica]

A lot of crime happens on the streets. What conclusion does that draw?

Which is ridiculous.....

[Antisyzygy]

The same thing could be said about public places. "Since we have built this new park three years ago, there have been 83 people mugged, 8 murders, 125 cases of lewd conduct, 20 cases of prostitution.... etc. etc.". Really, craigslist is just a public forum for commerce and other needs, although it exists on the web.

Re:Which is ridiculous.....

[e9th]

Forget public places. Before the web, we had newspapers. Thieves would scan the classifieds looking for things to steal and the obituaries for the best time to burgle the homes of mourners Con men read the personals looking for the gullible and the lonely. And the ads in the sports section of most big city papers included some really dubious looking massage parlors and escort services. If it weren't for that pesky 1st Amendment, you can bet that every charge that's been laid against Craigslist would have been made against the newspapers.

As they say in Kentucky, Satisticals!

[Quiet_Desperation]

Out of how many millions of ads?

This is why many of us lament the death of math and science in this country. No sense of proportions or priorities.

craigslist unfortunate facts:

[smellsofbikes]

"The unfortunate fact is that Craigslist has become almost synonymous with really great deals."
"The unfortunate fact is that Craigslist has become almost synonymous with bargains that don't get taxed."
"The unfortunate fact is that Craigslist has become almost synonymous with purchases that don't get tracked by advertisers."
Those are the first things that leap to MY mind.

Ratio

[MozeeToby]

So, what's the ratio of criminals to honest ads? Craigslist claims 80 million classifieds are placed each month, that means that the odds of any one ad being linked to a crime is an amazing 1:2900000. Won't someone close down this cesspool of crime!? Granted, there's plenty of illegal stuff going on in craigslist ads; prostitution, drug selling, etc. I would imagine that is the odds of accidentally becoming the victim crime rather than participating in it.

Synonymous for crime is a stupid term.

[Anonymous Coward]

If craigslist really was synonymous for crime, this statement would make me not want to move somewhere: The area has a high rate of craigslist.

AIM Group self interest?

[tickticker]

We are the world’s premiere research and consulting firm for the classifieds industry. We’re widely quoted in the press, including Forbes, Fortune, Financial Times, Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere.

We are experts in developing successful revenue strategies around automotive, real estate, recruitment and merchandise advertising, encompassing print, online, mobile, video and social media.

Which I'll bet includes all types of classifieds and advertising EXCEPT Craigslist.

Anonymous Report Sponsor

[Doc Ruby]

AIM Group doesn't do reports for free, for the public benefit, or for nobody. Some corporation or organization is either paying for this report, or targeted by AIM marketing to buy such research (or just the hypercritical reports). Yet they are as anonymous as the buyers and sellers AIM's report finds to be the root of all Craigslist evil.

I suppose since such anonymous attack marketing is old-fashioned that it's "OK" in some way that Craigslist is not.

Connecting the Dots

[TheSpoom]

Report was done by a company called "AIM Group". Go ahead and click through to the site. Check the sponsors box on the right. Notice anything? (In case you didn't click through or have ad-blocking software, I'm referring to the eBay and Kijiji ads.)

Not to mention that they say right in the study that it was commissioned by a Craigslist competitor, Oodle. So they're being paid both directly and indirectly by competitors to Craigslist. Is any of this mentioned in the coverage of the study? Not a chance.

It's a smear paper in its finest and nothing else, especially not a "study".