Craig Blogs: Amber’s Ambush

August 29, 2010

2–3 minutes

adult services, Amber Lyon, Craig Newmark, human trafficking

In his latest blog post , Craigslist founder Craig Newmark finally gets around to making excuses as to why he had no real answer when CNN’s Amber Lyon confronted him about human trafficking on craigslist.

He blames it on the notion that he has borderline Asperger’s Syndrome which is also called borderline Autism in some circles. so basically he’s saying that he’s a borderline-borderline Autistic. That’s a bunch of crap. While he may be socially inept he is far from stupid. Anyone who would have seen the ad that Ms. Lyon presented would have known that it was for prostitution which is still an illegal activity. Any normal person that was running a classifieds site who really didn’t want prostitution on their site would have said something realistic like “My God that’s horrible. I’ll look into it right away”. Instead, Craig just asks if the ad has been reported. Um, last time I checked adult services ads could not be flagged. Just checked again, nope, you can’t flag them.

He then goes and claims that he is no longer in charge of craigslist which is true. He mentions that Jim Buckmaster has been in charge for the last 10 years. Which ironically is roughly about the same time that the original erotic services section first appeared on craigslist.

Then he goes on about how he is allegedly sensitive to the plight of those being trafficked but then mentions how socially conscious he is by supporting veterans, net neutrality and transparency in government. Yet he still does not lift a finger to do anything real about human trafficking like shutting down the adult services section.

Following his blog post are some comments from the cult of craig that basically kiss his ass. I wondered why there were no opposing comments and then I noticed the following…

Comments are moderated, and will not appear until the author has approved them.

That’s kind of ironic for a number of reasons. The first is that he and Jim won’t moderate craigslist yet they both moderate the comments on their blogs. The second is that for someone who supports net neutrality and transparency in government he’s not very neutral nor transparent on his blog.

However, you can comment on this cross-post at the SF Gate.

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3 responses to “Craig Blogs: Amber’s Ambush”

Danniel &amp HeatherL

September 12, 2010 at 6:07 pm

As a Mom of an Autistic son, I am offended at something you said. The following snipit is from the above article:
“so basically he’s saying that he’s a borderline borderline Autistic. That’s a bunch of crap. While he may be socially inept he is far from stupid.”
Most Autistics are actually very smart and have above average IQ’s. They are socially behind, but not stupid. I hope you can understand, I am not attacking the validity of the story at all, I quite enjoy reading almost all of your stories and also read Badbreeders.net. I does sadden me however that you believe Autistics are stupid. It is hard enough for them without people thinking they are dumb or have low IQ’s.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.

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1. Trench Reynolds
  
  September 12, 2010 at 6:21 pm
  
  I do apologize. It was not my intent to imply that people with autism are stupid. My intent was to say that while Mr. Newmark was blaming his responses on being borderline autistic he is smart enough to realize that explanation is a cop out.
  
  My defense of people who truly have autism or Asperger’s is well documented at realcrime.net. I hate it when people try to claim that they have it just to get out of a crime such as using Asperger’s as a defense for murder.
  
  Reply
Guest

July 27, 2011 at 3:09 am

I did not read him insulting those people with autism or Aspergers (which, btw, they are called “people with autism/Aspergers,” as that is a disorder they happen to have by saying “I have an autistic son,” you are basically defining your son’s entire soul and being as only having autism, and nothing else. Small difference in words makes a huge difference to self-esteems)…he was actually complimenting “them,” saying how smart “they” are. It was not an insult.

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