Craigslist finally responds to public pressure…
To all our supporters,
Here at the CHW and at Love146, we want to thank all of you for your efforts in voicing your concern about the misuse of Craigslist to traffic women and children!
On March 27, a press release from the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office stated that Attorney General Richard Blumenthal today demanded that Craigslist purge apparent, often graphic solicitations for prostitution rampant on certain sections of its website.
Shortly after, Craigslist announced that they have implemented a phone verification system which has drastically lowered the volume of erotic services ads—by 80%! This is specified in their official blog: http://blog.craigslist.org/#phone
Though, we haven’t noticed any dramatic difference in the quantity and presentation of the advertisements in the Erotic Services Section so far, nevertheless we are enthused at Craigslist’s initiative towards reforming it’s (in)famous section.
We applaud Mr. Buckmaster’s gesture towards rectification. Therefore, Love146 will officially call off the boycott that we initiated at the onset of this year. However, we want to encourage you to continue supporting our campaign to eradicate child sex trafficking and exploitation completely on Craigslist site. Visit our Take Action page on more ways you can engage Craigslist.
We have achieved yet another milestone in regards to our Craigslist campaign:
The formation of the End Internet Trafficking Coalition (EITC, www.eitcoalition.org). Coalition members include Students & Artists Fighting to End Human Slavery, The Barnaba Institute, and FAIR Fund.
EITC is a national coalition whose mission is to prevent sexual violence and human trafficking via the internet. The EITC achieves this by providing a platform to link nonprofit, governmental, law enforcement, faith-based, and student grassroots agencies and individuals to advocate an accessible worldwide web where children, youth, and adults are better protected from human trafficking in all its forms.
EITC will build on our existing Craigslist Campaign to address the use of the internet for human trafficking. The EITC will also subsume all Craigslist campaign related activity.
To join our coalition or share your ideas, please email info@eitcoalition.org
Upcoming events for End Internet Trafficking Coalition:
A web conference in May 2008 with the U.S. Health and Human Services Rescue and Restore Campaign Description: An interactive discussion on the use of the internet to proliferate human trafficking, with an emphasis on the use of the Erotic Services section on Craigslist. To participate in either of these conferences, please email info@eitcoalition.org.
Public Forum in September 2008– San Francisco, CA
Description: A discussion forum involving social activists, media and press representatives, and Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist
For more information on our campaign, please visit: http://www.eitcoalition.org/
For press releases related to sex trafficking and exploitation on Craigslist,
please visit the Love146 News Room.
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May 16th, 2008 at 9:41 am
[…] Making A list, Will it be Checking it Twice? Do you think the new Craigslist feature of verifying your phone number under certian conditions is needed? It seems that if you look on Google to search about the new […]
May 21st, 2008 at 2:38 pm
This is nuts. So instead of just removing the section of CL that was causing problems, they use it as an excuse to data mine all of the law-abiding users?
June 21st, 2008 at 12:12 am
Phone verification is a good thing and has greatly reduced the amount of unrelated ads posted on Craigslist. I think they will also carry it over into the jobs section in the near future.
http://www.CraigslistProxy.com
June 30th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
The phone verification never worked for me or anybody I talked to. They will just looses a lot of listings.
BOYKOTT CRAIGSLIST!
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:10 am
Phone verification will help cut out a lot of the spam. There are only so many phone numbers for people to verify accounts on.