Craigslist Founder Donates $1 Million to Fight 'Fake News'
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/12/13/fake-news-craig-newmark-poynter/
"AK said she knew of more than 20 girls who were trafficked on the site"
One of the women, who identified herself as MC, said she was forced into prostitution at the age of 11 by a man who trafficked "many girls my age".
"All day, me and other girls sat with our laptops, pasting pictures and answering ads on Craigslist, he made $1,500 a night selling my body, dragging me to Los Angeles, Houston, Little Rock – and on one trip to Las Vegas in the trunk of a car," the ad said. "Craig we write this letter so you will know from our personal experiences how Craigslist makes horrific acts like this so easy to carry out … and the men who arrange them very rich."
The second woman, identified as AK, said that last year she met a man twice her age who pretended to be her boyfriend. "He put my picture on Craigslist, and I was sold for sex by the hour at truck stops and cheap motels, 10 hours with 10 different men every night. This became my life," the ad said. "Men answered the Craigslist advertisements and paid to rape me. The $30,000 he pocketed each month was facilitated by Craigslist 300 times."
AK said she knew of more than 20 girls who were trafficked on the site: "Like me, they were taken from city to city, each time sold on a different Craigslist site."
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/aug/08/craigslist-underage-prostitution-allegations
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Infopractical ago
I would like to lend another perspective to this discussion. I'm one of the pizzagate researchers like most everyone else here, but I believe that prostitution should be legal, or at the very least be decriminalized. And I believe that the push to have craigslist shut down that aspect of its site hurt sex workers and trafficked victims. For this reason, I would like to be careful in formulating a view of Craig Newmark and his motivations. I honestly don't know enough to venture a reasonable guess about them.
But my view on the economic of consensual sex between adults is well summed up by George Carlin: "Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal?"
To me, this is much like the War on Drugs, which has allowed our CIA to run profitable drug operations and has driven shame and drug abuse underground to the point that it has destroyed people.
The more open and legal prostitution is, the easier it is for clients to find legal (adult) sex workers (making child sex workers less marketable!) and the easier it is to rescue trafficked children. Personally, I've always worried that the end of the craigslist sex market just drove the trade further underground making it harder to distinguish between consenting sex workers and sex slaves (where "slave" is the operate word).
Maybe Newmark's intentions are good, and maybe they aren't. I don't feel like I'm being presented with information that informs me in those regards.
FR33D0M ago
Infopractical, you are totally right in your assessment. When prostitution is legal and regulated, sex workers have more control over the services they provide and are safer as a result.
For instance, when prostitution is illegal, sex workers typically have brokers (pimps / madams /brothels) between them and their customer. This can create a coercive relationship if the sex worker doesn't want to perform an act, but the broker wants him/her to do it so they get their money. And there's no union to protect them.
Prostitution can be dangerous. Sex workers who are physically harmed, robbed, or forced into sex acts they do not wish to do cannot turn to law enforcement for help. The perpetrator ends up back on the street where they may hurt other sex workers and others.
Consenting adults should be allowed to do whatever what they wish so long as it doesn't cause harm to others. Government should not be regulating consensual sex acts. And we already know that prohibition does not work. Our police have much, much more important crimes to deal with.