George Weber
Our hearts go out to the family, friends, coworkers and many fans of George Weber. We are horrified and deeply saddened that craigslist may have been associated with a violent crime. We will of course provide law enforcement investigators with any assistance they require in pursuing their investigation.
We take many steps to prevent criminal misuse of craigslist and, in particular, to protect the safety of users. These measures include encouraging users, when meeting someone for the first time, to insist on meeting in a public place, to tell a friend or family member where they’ll be, to take along a cell phone, and to consider taking a friend with them.
While violent crime is exceedingly rare on craigslist, with only a handful of cases known out of billions of face-to-face human interactions facilitated through the site, sadly, there is a risk whenever meeting a stranger for the first time.
April 2nd, 2009 at 12:29 pm
There is, indeed, a risk — in life, much less meeting strangers via the web.
While there will likely be a major fracas about this, I hope Craigslist’s staff and management realize, and are strong enough to stand up for, the fact that they’re not at fault here, any more than the City Of New York is merely for the fact that this crime took place in Brooklyn.
As tough as it is to look at, the two people who have some blame for this are the criminal, and the victim, just like it always is. The victim is, sadly, not with us to tell us what happened, and the criminal is, well, a criminal.
So we may never know who’s fault it *is*.
But we know who’s fault it’s *not*: Craigslist.
You are, as near as probably makes no difference, a common carrier: unless the crime actually takes place in a posting, there’s no way you could have forseen it, or stopped it.
So don’t overreact. k?