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  • Geebo 10:21 am on August 9, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: craig newmark, , ,   

    The house where craigslist was born is up for sale 

    The house where craigslist was born is up for sale

    The San Francisco condo where Craig Newmark founded his eponymous list has gone up for sale. For a cool $1.4 million you could own the three-bed, one-bath, 1,250 square-foot, condo with a backyard. It sounds like the perfect place for some up and coming startup CEO who just got their first round of funding. I mean it’s not like an actual working family could afford it or anything.

    Mr. Newmark himself hasn’t lived in the condo since 2005. Since then he’s bought a $6 million home in New York City that takes up two floors of a four-story building in addition to his primary residence in the San Francisco Bay Area that I’m sure must have cost him a pretty penny. Yet over the years, Craig Newmark has said that craigslist’s profits are so small that the company can’t hire additional employees such as moderators or customer service agents. The profits must at least be enough that he can afford multi-million dollar homes in the most expensive real estate markets on both coasts.

    Not surprisingly, the realtor who is handling the condo’s sale has not listed the property on craigslist. How ironic would it be if someone posted a phony ad on craigslist purporting to rent the condo out below market value? You know, like all the homes that claim to be up for rent on craigslist where scammers steal money from people looking for homes. The same phony real estate ads that craigslist does nothing to prevent from being posted in the first place.

     
  • Geebo 9:14 am on June 12, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: craig newmark, , CUNY,   

    Journalism school to be named after journalism’s arch-nemesis 

    Journalism school to be named after journalism's arch-nemesis

    It’s not unusual for a university to name one of its major programs or buildings after a generous donor. However, this is not a practice that isn’t without controversy as a name given today can end up being an embarrassment for a university years later. That’s why I was a little bit more than surprised when the City University of New York (CUNY) announced that it would be naming its graduate journalism school after craigslist founder Craig Newmark.

    The university announced the name change after Newmark made a $20 million donation to the school. However. many of CUNY’s journalism school alumnus have a problem with the school being named after Newmark. Many blame Newmark for the decline in print media since craigslist is said to have taken away the majority of classified ad revenue away from the newspapers. While I’m no fan of Mr. Newmark, I would allege that was more of a failure on the part of print media for not adapting to an emerging digital market. However, other detractors of the name change also point out craigslist’s sordid history of once being the leading online marketplace for human trafficking and because of that Newmark’s name should not be associated with the journalism school. In my opinion, this is a more apt argument as Craig Newmark and craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster would avidly avoid the press when they were embroiled in that very controversy. It took the so-called ‘ambushing’ of Craig Newmark by CNN’s Amber Lyon to get a somewhat genuine answer out of Craig Newmark.

    While craigslist may have removed the adult ads section and closed its personals that doesn’t mean that craigslist won’t be involved in some other scandal in the future. As we have pointed out craigslist is still full of scams and hate speech, and they still refuse to moderate any of their ads. Who’s to say this donation made by Mr. Newmark isn’t just a way of him trying to buy his way into the good graces of journalists?

     
  • Geebo 10:07 am on February 6, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: craig newmark, , Factmata, , ,   

    Does craigslist’s founder really want to stop hate speech? 

    Does craigslist's founder really want to stop hate speech?

    (Disclaimer: This post will be discussing frank topics that may be disturbing to some readers)

    It was announced recently that a number of tech luminaries would be investing in a start-up called Factmata. Factmata’s purpose is to use artificial intelligence (A.I.) in order to “help social media companies, publishers and advertising networks weed out fake news, propaganda, clickbait, online bullying and hate speech.” Factmata’s founders were so confident in their product that they e-mailed billionaire investor Mark Cuban out of the blue and he liked it so much he was an initial investor in the start-up.

    One of the supposed tech heavyweights investing in the latest round of Factmata’s funding is craigslist founder Craig Newmark. We find this more than ironic as Newmark’s record on stopping hate speech and online harassment is laughable at best. If it’s hate speech you’re looking for, you can look no further than the rants & raves section from craigslist’s own beloved San Francisco Bay Area. On the off-chance that racist diatribe is flagged we’ve provided a screen shot below.

    Click to enlarge

    As far as online harassment goes, craigslist has long been wielded as a weapon by petty individuals looking to get revenge on unsuspecting victims including ads soliciting the rape of former romantic partners. Sadly, that’s not the only case of rape by proxy attempted on craigslist.

    That’s not even taking into account the number of child predators that roam throughout craigslist with ads so blatant you might wonder how they were allowed on craigslist to begin with. Here’s just a sample.

    Virgin? Would you like to lose it (M4W)” and “Hello HS and Virgin Girls.”

    “mothers who were looking for a guy to teach their daughter about the joys of sex.”

    “a little girl to play with for the night”

    Craigslist still relies on their so-called ‘community policing’ to flag such ads, but when your ads are being posted and read by sexual predators, then no one is going to flag any ad. This is the textbook definition of letting the inmates run the asylum. So you’ll have to excuse us if we’re just a little more than skeptical about Craig Newmark’s commitment to fighting hate speech and harassment.

    Factmata could in fact end up being a great tool to curb the rising tide of hate speech and online harassment, but when one of your major investors cares little about fighting those problems on his own website it severely hurts Factmata’s credibility.

     
  • Geebo 10:58 am on February 3, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: craig newmark, , ,   

    Craigslist founder spends half a million to combat harassment, just not at craigslist 

    Craigslist founder spends half a million to combat harassment, just not at craigslist

    Craigslist founder and namesake, Craig Newmark, has recently donated $500,000 of his own money in order to combat the “trolling, harassment and cyber-bullying” of users of a certain website. Of course that website is craigslist right? Um not exactly.

    Newmark recently spent the half million to fight the trolling on the oft-vandlaized Wikipedia.

    Wikimedia says the money will be used to launch a program to help editors “more quickly identify potentially harassing behavior.”

    While Wikipedia is a highly resourceful and valuable website, it can’t possibly contain the amount of trolling, harassment and cyber-bullying that craigslist does. In the past, ads on craigslist have been flagged and pulled because the business posting the ad said that they spoke Spanish. Go to any of the rants and raves sections and it won’t take you long to find some racist hate-filled diatribe. Convicted mass murderer Dylann Roof even placed a craigslist ad looking for a travel buddy that said “No Jews, queers, or (racial slurs)” prior to his killing spree. That’s not even counting the number of revenge or prank ads on craigslist that end up sending potentially dangerous people to the houses of unsuspecting victims.

    When you’re own home is in a state of extreme disrepair, you normally don’t spend money to help fix the nicer house down the street.

     
  • Geebo 6:44 am on May 20, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: craig newmark, ,   

    Off Topic Friday: Craig’s new modest $6M NYC digs 

    Off Topic Friday: Craig's new modest $6M NYC digs

    Not an accurate depiction. Or is it?

    Craig Newmark, founder of the list that bears his name, likes to portray himself as a man of the people. Mr. Newmark likes to say that he’s not about the money. If you were to see craigslist’s home office you may think that was true. The building in San Francisco is so unassuming that if you were passing by you might miss it if you blink. Craig has often bemoaned that craigslist’s profit margins are so razor-thin that they can not hire additional staff such as moderators or customer service reps.

    Now it seems that craigslist’s profits may be more lucrative than Mr. Newmark was possibly leading us to believe. Recently Craig bought a $6 Million home in New York City. According to the New York Post the modest home takes up two floors of a four-story building and has three bedrooms and 3 and a half baths in the West Village. This won’t be Mr. Newmark’s primary residence either. This will be his New York crash pad for when he’s conducting business in New York. His primary residence will remain in the Bay Area where real estate prices are some of the most expensive in the country.

    Now we would never begrudge someone for their success, except when it comes at the cost of their honesty, ethics and the safety of their customers.

     
  • Greg Collier 10:38 am on December 15, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Adult Services, craig newmark, , , , Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, PGA, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, The Salahi’s, Tiger Woods, Virginia socialites, White House Secretary Desiree Rogers   

    Does life happen in 3’s? 

    big-phony

    The most masterfully crafted images are only that, an image, and nothing more. In recent weeks three public images have broken down, proving that they are mere facades, and capable of hurting many when they fall apart. 

    It turns out that Tiger Woods is not a saint, but rather a mere mortal. With an image backed by multiple million dollar endorsement deals, Tiger can no longer hold up his end of the bargain. I am confident, however, that there are golfers and other athletes out there that could use those now available endorsement dollars by providing a genuine image brand that the public demands.   

    Tareq and Michaele Salahi, Virginia socialites, who crashed the recent White House dinner, have also portrayed themselves to be people they are not. The Salahi’s were able to convince many people that there was substance behind their image—how else do you get White House Secretary Desiree Rogers to consider adding your names to “the list”. Is this a victimless crime that is being transformed into a bigger issue than it should be? I don’t think so. How much of our tax dollars will be spent investigating this breach of White House security? How much time will be wasted on news networks dissecting every move that was made that night instead of covering issues and events that genuinely impact our world? How about those who lost their jobs for letting the masquerading couple make it through the gates? Or, most importantly, how did the dinner honoree-Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh-feel about an uninvited couple stealing the night’s spotlight?  Unfortunately, a night both Indian’s and American’s will never forget hinges upon the false images portrayed by their fellow citizens. 

    To top the list, though less public and less glitzy, is Craig Newmark, the founder and president of Craigslist.  Last week, a trial between eBay and Craigslist shined new light on Newmark’s ‘aw-shucks, power to the people, do-gooder’ image.  It turns out that he may be in it for the money after all – shocking!  Who is hurt by Newmark’s faulty façade? Those loyal followers who fiercely defend Craig Newmark’s image, while he is the backroom counting his $9.5 million!  Perhaps the anarchy of the “Adult Services” section is not about autonomy and non-governance after all, but rather about the insane amounts of user traffic that area attracts. Once free, this morally bankrupt section even charges users a listing fee! What a brilliant business model he has created…Newmark is no different than the rest of corporate America that care more about their personal bottom line than the personalities who make their business possible.  

    We have been given 3 masterfully crafted images… and 3 facades that crumbled in the midst of their self-serving objectives. They say life comes in 3’s…I wonder who will be next?

     
  • Greg Collier 2:08 pm on October 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: craig newmark, , gary wolf, , , jim buckmaster, wired   

    Craigslist Is Such a Mess 

    Craig NewmarkAfter reading The Tragedy of Craigslist in the September issue of Wired magazine I felt compelled to share some thoughts on CL and the people behind it.

    I applaud Gary Wolf and Wired for the well-researched article on the anomalous characters and odd decisions going on behind the scenes at Craigslist. For a business with this much traffic and this much income, the problems its users encounter day after day, post after post, are really beyond comprehension. They make enough money to fix this stuff, folks – and they refuse to do it!

    And that’s not all they refuse to fix. Over the last few years, newspapers and television news stories across the country have been reporting stories about victims – from theft to rape to murder – whose only mistake was responding to a Craigslist ad. Note to Craig: telling us that “most people are good,” is not a sufficient answer! For years, law enforcement agencies have been fighting with Craigslist to clean up the obvious illegal activities on the site – and Craigslist has repeatedly balked or stalled.

    The word is spreading that Craigslist is a dangerous place to buy, sell, or look for a date. This is sad state of affairs in an era when technologies exist to ferret out much of the illegal activity, and good old fashioned monitoring can clean up much of the rest – and yet Craigslist resorts to a flag system that, as your article points out, benefits troublemakers as readily as legitimate users. Yes, the criminals are in the minority; I’ll give Craig and Buckmaster that. But the problem is this: more than on any other site I’ve ever seen (and I work in this industry), criminals flock to Craigslist.

    Buckmaster’s analogy to GM seems an effort to confuse the issue. Autos come with safety ratings, and manufacturers go to great lengths to ensure their cars’ safety ratings – because people’s lives are at stake. And that’s just the point. Craigslist users have every right to expect that their safety come before some abstract concept of “democracy.”

    This is probably the most important difference between Craigslist and the community classifieds site I operate. At Geebo.com, we monitor our community classifieds to make every experience as safe and enjoyable as possible.

    We pay attention to our users, and we are constantly improving our technologies and systems. Given how hard we work at this, it’s hard to watch the arrogance and nonsense that go on at Craigslist. When users run into problems there, they get a haiku? Give me a break! Why would anyone intentionally create a system where users’ concerns are mocked rather than addressed?

    People aren’t fools: as long as Craigslist refuses to evolve, the site will increasingly be defined by bugs, scams and illegal activities – risks and frustrations that fewer and fewer users will be willing to put up with. Please let your readers know that there are alternatives to Craigslist – including ours. I welcome every Craigslist user to surf on over to Geebo where we work hard to make yours a safe, easy, enjoyable and successful community classifieds experience.

     
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