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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.
A lot of crime happens on the streets. What conclusion does that draw?
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.
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?
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
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.
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.
Pretty much. They might as well have declared that the internet is a cesspool of crime, or that populated areas are cesspools of crime.
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.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.