Most of us use Craigslist to offload used cars or find other household goods in the neighborhood. But for a growing number of people, the service is also used as a seedy online bar area where strangers hook up for casual sex and secure the services of prostitutes. You can claim all you want that this is legal expression of our freedom of speech but for a concerned parent, learning that a virtual want ads section includes such adult material has been disappointing. It's not like your child would have found sexual content and photos of half naked women in the ol' Yellow Pages (although there have long been ads for "massage parlors".)
And then the Craigslist killer struck. A Boston University medical student has been charged with killing a masseuse he met via the Craigslist service and is accused of assaulting several other sex workers contacted through the site. This has raised national awareness of the seedy section of "erotic services" to be found on Craigslist. Attorneys General in the states of Connecticut, Illinois and Missouri took the lead in working with the site owners and have reached an agreement announced today.
The site will remove the "erotic services" section, moving adult content to special area that will be closely reviewed by Craigslist employees. Existing ads will expire within the week. It remains to be seen how serious a change this will be since the volume of new ads in each site is enormous . Nevertheless, it's a sign that Craigslist is cooperating with law enforcement and seeking to remain a good corporate citizen.
If you are a parent and use new OnlineFamily.Norton to monitor your children's online activities, you will still be able to see what pages in Craigslist are visited and what terms are used to search on the site. That way if you want your family to be able to continue using Craiglist, you can have confidence that the site is being used according to your House Rules, as configured in the OnlineFamily.Norton service. To get started with the new free family safety service, visit the OnlneFamily.Norton site.