People will just list in other sections, under code words, just as they do with drug sales. That just makes it more likely that some naive person will end up in contact with a prostitute when they didn’t want to be, and do nothing to stop the use of the site by those who want to buy and sell prostitution services. I really don’t think the Craigslist CEO should feel responsible for this. These were adult women, advertising their availability as prostitutes to total strangers on the internet, and then telling those strangers where to come and meet them. Anybody with a high enough IQ to figure out how to post an ad on Craigslist is smart enough to know this is extremely dangerous.
craigslist is a portal for creeps, peeps and perverts.
For a “de facto” rebuttal, consult “The Craigslist Crime List”.
It lists a couple of (usually “adult ads”-related) crimes virtually every day.
http://crimene.ws/category/craigscrimelist/
The media have been using the words “craigslist killer” a lot. That’s like saying “telephone book killer” for someone who looks up his victims in the phone book. It’s just about the media hyping things that should not be hyped.
Nevertheless, Craig should charge a nominal amount for ads and not have pick up or sex ads.
We prefer that Craigslist be connected only with nonviolent crimes of a prurient nature.
If they close “erotic services” the hookers will just move to the “dating” section, which is already hurt badly by all the press given to these isolated incidents. The real solution is to close down craigslist entirely, since one person, out of the hundreds of millions of times the site has been used, was killed.