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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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.