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Study Calls Craigslist 'a Cesspool of Crime'

Posted by timothy on from the commit-craigslistcrime-do-hard-time dept.

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.

56 of 316 comments (clear)

  1. misunderstandings by poetmatt · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:misunderstandings by bunratty · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.
    2. Re:misunderstandings by einstein4pres · · Score: 4, Funny

      Don't drink and craigslist!

    3. Re:misunderstandings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    4. Re:misunderstandings by h4rr4r · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    5. Re:misunderstandings by nschubach · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The difference is:

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

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    6. Re:misunderstandings by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

      But they didn't. I'm starting to think that there's a semi-concerted effort going to put Craigslist out of business. First, there was the brouhaha over Craigslist's adult section, which came about because people complained that the personals section was basically a front for adult services. This resulted in much gnashing of teeth, big proclamations by various government and non-government entities that Craigslist was knowingly profiting from the sexual trafficking of minors. Now we get this hyperbolic hackjob of an article that essentially says that Craigslist is a front for criminal gangs.

      Really? I'm guessing that there are two groups of people who won't stop before Craigslist just shuts down: corporations whose business model has been completely shot to pieces by Craigslist (any classified ad network), and people who think that it's satanic when two people communicate with each other without either the government or a large corporation listening in.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    7. Re:misunderstandings by spun · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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?

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    8. Re:misunderstandings by thisnamestoolong · · Score: 4, Funny

      Dihydrogen monoxide? That stuff ought to be banned! It can cause death if it is inhaled, and is the chief component of acid rain!

      --
      To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
    9. Re:misunderstandings by bunratty · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.
    10. Re:misunderstandings by __aatirs3925 · · Score: 2

      But drinking is the only way to get passed the butt-ugly layout that they have...

      On a more serious note... Be careful of selling stuff there because they're climbing up your windows, they're snatching people up, tryin' to rape em so y'all need to hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your kids, hide your wife and hide your husband cuz they're rapin errbody out there.

    11. Re:misunderstandings by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    12. Re:misunderstandings by postbigbang · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is redundant, posted far downthread, but it's important here for scrollers: it's all BS--

      See http://blog.craigslist.org/2011/02/more-pay-to-play-research-from-aim/

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    13. Re:misunderstandings by postbigbang · · Score: 2

      I feel silly that ./ even posted this sucker.

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    14. Re:misunderstandings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I grew up on a farm, and we were constantly spraying that stuff on plants. It would radically change the way they grew, so you could clearly see a line in a field where it had been applied, and where it hadn't. We even had tanks of it in places, and animals like squirrels and mice would regularly get into it and die, and I'd have to clean out their little corpses as one of my chores. God knows if you tested my body today I'm probably still full of the stuff. Crazy what we used to do before organic farming came along.

    15. Re:misunderstandings by amiga3D · · Score: 2

      I always thought of Congress as a cesspool of crime.

    16. Re:misunderstandings by WorBlux · · Score: 2

      330 crimes out of the tens of thousands commited vs. the proportion of people who have ever used facebook. By this metric used your local convencience store is little more than an opium den..

  2. Streets by ivucica · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Streets by Nidi62 · · Score: 2

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

      If everyone wears giant neon signs with their names written on it while in the street, there will be no more crime, because there'd be no more anonymity!

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    2. Re:Streets by Nethemas+the+Great · · Score: 4, Funny

      We must rid ourselves of streets or at least require license to use them.

      --
      Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
    3. Re:Streets by roc97007 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yes, I wouldn't wear a giant neon sign with someone else's name, because that would be illegal...

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    4. Re:Streets by Black+Gold+Alchemist · · Score: 2, Funny

      I got an idea to prevent crime. Let's make it illegal to do something illegal. That would prevent most if not all types of crime!

      --
      Responsibility is an addiction
      Virtue is a temptation
      Community is a cartel
  3. Which is ridiculous..... by Antisyzygy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
    1. Re:Which is ridiculous..... by e9th · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Which is ridiculous..... by h4rr4r · · Score: 2

      The amount of gang violence has gone up as spirograph sales have gone down. Coincidence? I think not!

    3. Re:Which is ridiculous..... by Francofille · · Score: 2

      Our parents taught us to be wary of bad neighborhoods, parks at night, strangers with candy, men in vans offering rides, to look both ways before crossing the street, to use a condom (well, we learned that somewhere anyhow), to wear our seatbelts, etc, etc...

      They didn't teach us to be afraid of classifieds. Well some people seem to indicate that, but honestly that sounds like a bad movie to me. I may be naive and everyone who grew up around me may also be naive, but that's not really a sin or a personality flaw. It's just a little dangerous under the wrong circumstances. When you mix it with a crime-ridden forum that seems innocuous you turn innocent people into suckers really fast. Which is just sad and unfair.

      I think the real issue is that we run in circles where we're comfortable and understand how to keep ourselves safe. Craigslist helps us step out of those circles very fast without realizing it until it's too late.

    4. Re:Which is ridiculous..... by jc42 · · Score: 2

      ... the size of the classified section of the local paper and the amount of crime in an area is roughly proportional to the population of the area.

      Sounds like they learned something from the recent story about the connection between cell-phone towers and the local birth rate. That one was actually a spoof of such "studies", and some of the media reported it as a real cause-and-effect story, too.

      It's an old propaganda technique. As long as the general public and the media are abysmally ignorant of basic statistics, it'll continue to work.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  4. As they say in Kentucky, Satisticals! by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:As they say in Kentucky, Satisticals! by purpledinoz · · Score: 2

      Actually, I'm impressed by how LOW the crime numbers are... To me Craigslist seems safer after reading the article.

  5. so... by Lord+Dreamshaper · · Score: 2

    500 postings linked to crime out of how many? This just in: paper is also used to write ransom notes, stationery stores to be outlawed

    --
    When all of your wishes have been granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed - Marilyn Manson
    1. Re:so... by Yvan256 · · Score: 2

      - It can also be used as a weapon to give nasty paper cuts to someone!
      - Most crimes are about money and money is printed on paper.

      Outlaw paper!

      What's next, outlaw writing and reading?

    2. Re:so... by h4rr4r · · Score: 2

      I was not aware paper could suffer from jaundice.

  6. craigslist unfortunate facts: by smellsofbikes · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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.

    --
    Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
    1. Re:craigslist unfortunate facts: by Nadaka · · Score: 2

      The unfortunate fact is that Craigslist has become almost synonymous with people pretending to be interested attractive young women, but they really just want your credit card number.

  7. Ratio by MozeeToby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Ratio by Nethemas+the+Great · · Score: 2

      The authors of the study are just PO'd because can't afford all those roses.

      --
      Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
  8. Synonymous for crime is a stupid term. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  9. Good with the bad by travdaddy · · Score: 2

    Yes, but how many "Missed Connections" has it resolved?

    --
    Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
  10. So let see by geekoid · · Score: 3, Funny

    100's of million can access it, and there has been less then 400 crimes.

    Yeah, thats a regular hive of scum and villainy ~

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  11. AIM Group self interest? by tickticker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  12. Hyperbolic, much? by ceriphim · · Score: 2

    A "cesspool of crime"? Seriously? How many thousands or tens-of-thousands of successful interactions have their been? TFA doesn't say. Are the crimes linked to Craigslist unusual in that they are committed more frequently per capita (or however they measure crime statistics) than they would be without?

    Anecdotal, yes, but I have used Craigslist easily in excess of twenty times over the past few years to sell and buy various items. Of course, you have to be smart about it and use common sense. Even then, there's the outside chance you may get robbed. You may also get robbed walking down the street. I have taken what I thought were reasonable precautions and always met in open, public areas with many people around. Others may choose not to take those precautions, or choose to put themselves in an inherently dangerous environment (going to someone's house, etc) because greed overcomes common sense. YMMV.

    TL:DR - Bad things happen all the time, stack the deck in your favor but they may happen regardless. Don't be greedy.

  13. Anonymous Report Sponsor by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

    1. Re:Anonymous Report Sponsor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's not anonymous. It's Oodle, a Craigslist competitor.

  14. Just follow the links. by spun · · Score: 5, Informative

    The study was published by "The AIM Group," of which there are two. One is a placement agency for the petro industry, the other is (can you guess yet?) "Consulting Services for Interactive Media and Classified Advertising"

    Shorter version of TFA "Don't use the crime infested, but generally free Craigslist, pay our customers to place your classifieds safely, without the fear of VIOLENT RAPE!"

    I just love screwing with marketing numbskulls who try to manipulate people into giving them free publicity. Where's your free publicity now, AIM Group?

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    1. Re:Just follow the links. by PatHMV · · Score: 2

      Amen. First thing I thought of was, did anybody do a similar study of crime rates with anonymous classified ads posted in the newspapers and the PennySavers? People were inviting strangers into their homes to look at crappy old pieces of furniture to sell for $10 long before there was a Craigslist.

  15. Follow up, from their home page, they brag thusly: by spun · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    Yeah. Screw you assholes and your manufactured FUD.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  16. It's not as bad now... by ChangeOnInstall · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...since they removed the jobs/hired goons section. It's a shame too, as the local one had excellent goons.

    --
    What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
  17. So Craigslist is Mos Eisley then? by GPLDAN · · Score: 4, Funny

    Luke: You know, I think that R2 unit we bought may have been stolen.
    Uncle Owen: What makes you think that?
    Luke: Well, I stumbled across a recording while I was cleaning him. He says that he belongs to someone named Obi-Wan Kenobi. I thought he might have meant old Ben. Do you know what he's talking about?
    Uncle Owen: Just a fucking Craigslist thing, you know how it is.
    Luke: I wonder if he's related to Ben.
    Uncle Owen: That wizard is just a crazy old internet pervert. Now, tomorrow I want you to take that R2 unit to Anchorhead and have it's memory erased. That'll be the end of it. It belongs to us now.

  18. Re:So be smart about it. by stonewallred · · Score: 2

    Yeah, that way the robber can rob you and the emo/goth/idiots who frequent Starbucks. Ain't like them pussies are going to fight back.

  19. Re:Follow up, from their home page, they brag thus by Anachragnome · · Score: 2

    "Yeah. Screw you assholes and your manufactured FUD."

    You missed this little nugget...

    "On Oodle's Marketplace, people who post or respond use their real identity on Facebook, introducing appropriate social norms back into the conversation.""

    It is quite easy to make a Facebook account with a false identity--in short, there is NO real difference between the two, except you are required to be a Facebook user to participate Oodle's Marketplace. That rules me out.

    This is nothing more then a move to get even more people to use FaceFuck.

  20. Total Perspective Vortex by dazedNconfuzed · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Total Perspective Votex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses.
    To explain--since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation--every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition, and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake.

    The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife.

    Trin Tragula--for that was his name--was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.

    And she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he spent staring out into space, or mulling over the mechanics of safety pins, or doing spectrographic analyses of pieces of fairy cake.

    "Have some sense of proportion!" she would say, sometimes as often as thirty-eight times in a single day.

    And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex--just to show her.

    And into one end, he plugged the whole of reality as extrapolated from a piece of fairy cake, and into the other, he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it.

    To Trin Tragula's horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain, but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.

    -- The HitchHiker's Guide

    --
    Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
  21. Re:Craigslist == classifieds from all newspapers by Isaac-1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    It is worse than that, the free nature of CL means the less than reputable sells can post ads over a wide area and run them for a long time waiting for someone to take the bait. Try searching for larger ticket items in the CL listings (things like RV's, camping trailers, generators, or even riding lawn mowers) and see for yourself what a large fraction of ads are obviously scams. It helps to use a helper CL search tool like searchtempest where you can scan all adds within XXX miles, once you find a suspicious ad for a deal that is too good to be true on an item, search for keywords out of that ad on a wider area, and see it listed with the same photo all over the place, but always with a local location..

  22. Connecting the Dots by TheSpoom · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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".

    --
    It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
    - E. Debs
  23. Sounds like a Friday night out in Glasgow to me by Colin+Smith · · Score: 2

    I don't see what all the fuss is about.
     

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    Deleted
  24. Re:Yet, the same can't be said of meetup.com by outsider007 · · Score: 2

    Yes but they make up for it in suicides.

    --
    If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
  25. US homicide rate per 100000 by Required+Snark · · Score: 2
    In 2009 the US homicide rate was 5 per 100000 people. http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

    Twelve murders would be the average amount for a city of 240,000. St. Petersburg Fl, Jersey Ciy NJ and Chandler AZ are all around that size. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population. I haven't found the actual crime figures for these places, but I think that the residents would only be upset if the number was far above twelve per year.

    There are a lot more Craigslist users then in any of those places, even though they don't "live" there.

    Not a problem.

    --
    Why is Snark Required?