We provide direct rescue and services to not only sex workerse who want to quit sex work, but also to sex trafficking victims.

I’m sad people want to blame your site for prostitution - that makes as much sense as saying if we get rid of street lights we get rid of street walkers.

I’ve found actually your site has helped us a great deal in finding runaways and trafficking victims - as well as helping us find them back home again. It’s why I know we’d reach that much more if we could have a permanent post of our contact info.

I read that you’ve been court ordered to provide some of the profits back to non-profits which help prostitutes. We’ve been helping rescue prostitutes since 1987 and sure could use not only the ad placement - but any donations you’d like to offer.

We wouldn’t tear up your check like I read one group did. We also don’t take donations and then don’t provide direct services like how some of these groups that do are and then come out and bash your site.

Anyway, your site helps us help them a lot and any more help you want to offer is fine with us.

http://www.sexworkersanoymous.com
http://www.traffickingandprostitutionservices.com

Thanks

Jody

I read through a couple of articles, and I see a lot of really bad PR statements coming from the CL camp. For example, “Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster claimed that sex trafficking “rarely” occurs on the website.” Or, a few weeks ago, while in Houston, my father had the TV on and a report happened to come up about prostitution on CL. A reporter managed to get Craig Newmark to agree to an interview, but when she asked him about a specific case of prostitution, he didn’t say anything. She asked another question. He remained silent. While he might have been listening to an attorney, that is HORRIBLE public relations. Going back further, to last year, I was listening to Craig being interview on a public radio podcast, and whenever the correspondent asked him about a specific topic (might have had to do with the CL killer–unsure), Craig would say “read the blog”, “read the blog”, “read the blog”. WHAT A DUMBASS. He has a chance for good PR, and he totally blows it.

Craig Newmark is obviously intelligent for having come up with this idea, but he has been bad at responding to these allegations, and the responses are obvious.

What him and thus Buckmaster (CEO) guy should be saying is that the adult services section hosts ads for many PERFECTLY LEGAL services. Offering to strip naked for a client is not illegal. Offering a lap dance is not illegal. Offering a nude massage (or rubdown, where the use of the word massage is prohibited unless licensed) is NOT ILLEGAL. There are plenty of adult activities that are perfectly legal, I don’t heard these guys stressing this.

Also, that it is not craigslist’s job to be the police, and that furthermore Americans have a right to freedom of expression, and craigslist faciliates that.

Finally, and this is more tricky, craigslist should go on the OFFENSIVE and argue that the problem, with regards with traffickign, is the outlawing of prostitution itself. If prostitution were legalized, then victims of trafficking would not have to be afraid of going to the police, at least not for fear of prosecution. They might have different fears, like deportation or harm to their families back home, but that is way beyond the scope of craigslist.

Legal age should be raised so these predators know that they can not continue ruining lives of htese young men and women. I know that many will think that everyhtng starts at home and parents should control it, but I can tell you that trying to stop th einternet form invading your home is like trying to cover teh sun with a finger - Therefore we need for the social networks, the websites to ally tehmeselves to cleaning up the internet, so that our kids are protected from filth. T.

Washington Post would do better to concentrate on reporting instead of urging free speech oppression.

The Washington Post would do well to inform itself, to catch up to what the rest of us already know; that online classifieds like Craigslist have taken a huge chunk of revenue out of news papers like theirs and the SF Chronicle. It’s clear to see that in reporting or in this case, repeating on Craigslist, your paper has motivation to not report facts.

Craigslist has taken the profit out of the print presses’ classified sections and that threatens their sustainability. Then media repeaters like CNN, who have traditionally relied print publications to come up with all the facts, have no ability to fill these kinds gaps since they’ve never had to do so before. The best they can do is create media sensation out of themselves and then report on it http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20012671-501465.html and get you to repeat it.

The fact is that the press must have a whipping post and the adult industry has always been that, so now it’s Craigslist by extension. The photos of women the obituary in high heels…short skirts. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/08/AR2010080801654.html Sex sells, for every publication.

This leads me to question the credibility of two girls’ stories featured in the paid ad San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/20/MN2K1DHDV9.DTL Upon pain of death they violated Craigslist’s terms of use http://www.craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use by saying they were of age and then again by posting for illegal services. Then allowed their stories being cooped by the poverty pimps who’ve paid themselves how much to blame Craigslist, in a ½ page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle? A phone call got a quote of $16,000 for that ad.

And then the repeating that manufactured piece of media is supposed to be an excuse upon which to oppress the rest of our free speech and force adult advertisers out of work? The adults who are supporting families-children?

Media outlets like the Washington Post, as well as politicians already know that adult advertisers don’t cause child abuse, sexual assault or forced child labor.

Craigslist has come a long way in educating themselves and reaching out to community members, like no other classified ever has before, why not follow the new industry’s standard.

Repeating paid ads in the WP to urge politicians to violate everyone’s free speech must be like signing their own death warrant. I want to see reporting on how these groups are funding their free speech. Many of these groups get their funding through various US government agencies http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/fs/2009/121358.htm who have over estimated the actual http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-825
victims to justify over funding these anti trafficking groups. I call on Mr. Eric Holder investigate that and media outlets like the WP should too.

I urge all media outlets to stop sensationalizing sex by any means necessary and stop trying to hold the wrong person(s) responsible because in the mean time, somebody is getting away with a very violent crime.

Maxine Doogan
Erotic Service Providers Union
San Francisco California
8/11/10

Before Craigslist, women were forced to work on the streets by their traffickers so if anything, Craigslist makes things a little bit safer for them but it certainly isn’t necessary for the crime.

The real crime that Craigslist is guilty of, is putting the print newspapers out of business.
Have you seen the classifieds in the newspaper lately ?

NEITHER HAVE I