4 ms·

(Disclaimer: I don't use craigslist, I've been to the site <10 times in my life, so I'm making assumptions about what's available to the end user in terms of re

(Disclaimer: I don't use craigslist, I've been to the site <10 times in my life, so I'm making assumptions about what's available to the end user in terms of reporting issues. If I'm wrong, I apologize in advance.) In my opinion: 1 is unfair. You can't say with 100% certainty that any popular website is immune from something like that, so he can't say "yes". He certainly can't say "no" without making the site look bad. So how does he answer? 2 is unfair. If you ask about a specific ad, they can look in the system and say "that ad was placed on X, it was reported as problematic by a user on Y, we checked it on Z and reported it to the police." If you say in general "what are you doing about 'these girls'" then you're making him look bad by saying "I don't know 'which girls' you're referring to." Again, if you don't give him a chance to make a proper answer, then you're not really being fair as a reporter. 3 is similarly unfair unless he's at his computer and can give you the information. Obviously the post in question is crossing the line, but what do you expect him to do about it right then? If they manually screen the ads, then someone's not doing their job right, but can you say with 100% certainty that everyone at CNN is doing their job right 100% of the time? Finally, 4 is unfair because if she'd actually reported the thing using the proper channels, then the post would have been gone before she'd have time to put together her story. But that would go against her interests, so it's much better to ambush him in person with an ad he's never seen before. On the other hand, if the question is the less-personal and less-exasperated "why do you rely on your users to police your site?" then that's a fair question. The underlying question for this reporter is this: Is your goal to get answers? Or is your goal to embarrass him for ratings? (EDIT: replacing "stupid" with "unfair".)

mattmanser 16y ago
I am totally acting as a devil's advocate here, I haven't dug into this enough to have formed a proper opinion: 2 is unfair. If you ask about a specific ad, they can look in the system and say "that ad was placed on X, it was reported as problematic by a user on Y, we checked it on Z and reported it to the police. The problem in this imaginary chain of events is "it was reported as problematic by a user on Y". What the hell is the user doing reporting it? Why aren't there dedicated staff? These guys are reported to make $150 mill a year with just 32 staff. That they're not picking up on this shit is just plain negligence. Just because we as programmers are used to dealing with huge data sets doesn't actually mean this problem isn't policable with a couple of people. They could pay a couple of students minimum wage to vet all their adult adverts. In the old days the vet would be in the phone call placing the order for an advert. Just because it's now all handled by a computer in the form of a web form so staff costs are reduced doesn't mean there's any less responsibility on the company. It's a cost. You pass it on to the advertiser. And they're not doing it.
- kelnos 16y ago
  > What the hell is the user doing reporting it? Why aren't there dedicated staff? Because that's how the site works. Period. It's a community-policed bulletin board. Is there something inherently wrong with that? > They could pay a couple of students minimum wage to vet all their adult adverts. There may be liability issues here. If they declare, "we are policing the site to get rid of all potentially illegal posts," and then they miss one, they could get sued by the victim.
  - jfager 16y ago
    CL itself explicitly says that for adult services, they have a manual review process for each ad that includes reading the ad, verifying a credit card, and placing a phone call to the number used to place the ad. They are not trying to get by on common carrier status. The criticism is that these measures don't seem to be sufficient, that coordination with law enforcement has been piecemeal at best, and that CL does not invest more (or all) of the profit from these ads back into anti-trafficking measures.
    - kelnos 16y ago
      Yeah, good point. That invalidates the second half of my argument. I wonder though about the interview segment with the law enforcement guy. Wouldn't they prefer CL just post everything and not vet the posts for possible illegal activities? I mean, think about it: it's a public forum where people are willing to outright advertise the illegal activities they're willing to provide. It sounds like a law-enforcement wet dream.

mattmanser 16y ago

I am totally acting as a devil's advocate here, I haven't dug into this enough to have formed a proper opinion: 2 is unfair. If you ask about a specific ad, they can look in the system and say "that ad was placed on X, it was reported as problematic by a user on Y, we checked it on Z and reported it to the police. The problem in this imaginary chain of events is "it was reported as problematic by a user on Y". What the hell is the user doing reporting it? Why aren't there dedicated staff? These guys are reported to make $150 mill a year with just 32 staff. That they're not picking up on this shit is just plain negligence. Just because we as programmers are used to dealing with huge data sets doesn't actually mean this problem isn't policable with a couple of people. They could pay a couple of students minimum wage to vet all their adult adverts. In the old days the vet would be in the phone call placing the order for an advert. Just because it's now all handled by a computer in the form of a web form so staff costs are reduced doesn't mean there's any less responsibility on the company. It's a cost. You pass it on to the advertiser. And they're not doing it.

kelnos 16y ago
> What the hell is the user doing reporting it? Why aren't there dedicated staff? Because that's how the site works. Period. It's a community-policed bulletin board. Is there something inherently wrong with that? > They could pay a couple of students minimum wage to vet all their adult adverts. There may be liability issues here. If they declare, "we are policing the site to get rid of all potentially illegal posts," and then they miss one, they could get sued by the victim.
- jfager 16y ago
  CL itself explicitly says that for adult services, they have a manual review process for each ad that includes reading the ad, verifying a credit card, and placing a phone call to the number used to place the ad. They are not trying to get by on common carrier status. The criticism is that these measures don't seem to be sufficient, that coordination with law enforcement has been piecemeal at best, and that CL does not invest more (or all) of the profit from these ads back into anti-trafficking measures.
  - kelnos 16y ago
    Yeah, good point. That invalidates the second half of my argument. I wonder though about the interview segment with the law enforcement guy. Wouldn't they prefer CL just post everything and not vet the posts for possible illegal activities? I mean, think about it: it's a public forum where people are willing to outright advertise the illegal activities they're willing to provide. It sounds like a law-enforcement wet dream.