Does Craigslist promote prostitution?

That is the question being asked from Craig Newmark the founder of Craigslist. The spotlight fell on him following the alleged murder by a Boston University Medical student of a 25 year old masseuse who advertised on this website.

The website which as ABC news says "is the most visited site on the planet", has a section labeled as "Casual Encounters". It is clear from the word go that this is like the personals section of your daily newspaper except that no one is mincing words here. If they are looking for an unbidden sexual orgy, that is what they are asking for. There is frankly nothing new about this and no one is complaining about this- the hullabaloo is about the ads where money is being offered and sought for in exchange of these “casual encounters”. This, the police and the general community are saying is a clear promotion for prostitution. So is Craigslist really promoting prostitution by allowing these ads to continue?

Solicitation for sex using public media is nothing new. All of us know that the innocent escort services being offered in the newspapers are nothing more than a cover up for a prostitution racket. But where these ads differ from the listings on Craigslist is that they do technically abide by the law and do not mention money for sex. They are like the ads put out by makers of alcohol for music CDs, playing cards and golfing gear. Thinly veiled but compliant by the letter of the law. We may say that they do promote alcohol, after all everybody knows what the ads are for. But till the law extends to these ads, they are legal and valid. But in many of Craigslist’s ads there is no such disguise and the offer for money is clear. They meet the simplest definition of prostitution. “I will have sex with you and you pay me in return” or vice versa. The people there are making no effort to respect the law that governs public media. And we must not forget that Craigslist is public media.

But maybe that is where the problem lies. Those who use Craigslist do not quite think of it as “public media” like commercials on TV or ads in newspapers. It is an extension of a private community they are a part of. An alternative to the mainstream media. Therefore there maybe a tendency to say and do things that you would not do in public. But even if that were true- prostitution is illegal in many states in the US and of course in many countries around the world. So whether the solicitation is public or private it is illegal!

So it is clear that there are open ads for Prostitution on Craigslist and hence Craigslist is promoting or allowing prostitution to be promoted. The question now arises who is responsible for monitoring these and who should take responsibility for this? Craigslist is mostly a free of charge community. You can list your goods and services for free and can browse all sections for no charge and there are no irritating banner ads to make money from. But there are some services that you have to pay for. So it is a commercial organization and we know that there are people managing it. Tomorrow if Craigslist was to win an award or someone was to hijack the URL, Craig Newmark and some other people would have the legal right to take action in each case. So does it not make them “owners” as it were of the website and hence responsible for ensuring that illegal activities are not going on in this virtual world?

If they absolve themselves of this, it would be like Rupert Murdoch’s Star Corporation just absolving itself of any responsibility to prevent child pornography and sexual harassment on My Space. Most services there are free on My Space and yes they make money from ads but they also have a whole department dedicated to preventing such things as prostitution and child pornogrophy.

Craig Newmark says that he expects the community to weed out such menaces. It is a democratic set up, for the people, of the people by the people. But what he is forgetting is that even democracies have a police force and a set up for law enforcement. Human nature is selfish and people do not have the time to monitor what does not directly affect them. Yes it is possible to overlook a menace such as someone posting the same thing multiple times but what is illegal is illegal. When we put into motion something that can take on its own life and yet keep ownership of it, we must put in place a mechanism that takes care of such situations. So while I do not think Craig Newmark or Craigslist are deliberately allowing prostitution to occur, they are certainly not doing enough to prevent it. And maybe that is where the paradox lies- nothing can ever be completely "free" - monetarily or legally- because there will always be people to misuse it.

Why buy Satyam ?

It has been four months now since Ramalingam Raju brought down Satyam with his carefully worded letter. I would have given anything to be a fly on the wall in the room where he probably sat with his lawyers to decide which sin he was going to admit to and then put it down in a letter. Yes I do believe that he picked the lesser of the two evils- pretending that there was no money rather than admitting to having stolen money that was always there. But then I digress. Today I want to talk about the aftermath of the letter.

The government has appointed a Board, there have been several bids for the company, a back and forth with SEBI to decide what will be considered a fair date to determine a price for the open offer and amidst all of this thousands of the companies employees have left, taking some big clients with them. But is that so surprising? Do big companies expect employees to sit around like the orchestra of the Titanic as the ship sinks? They were certainly not consulted as the money was siphoned off to other projects.

And frankly in a services organization, the people and their knowledge is all that a company has. Unlike the SAPs and the Oracles and the Microsofts of the world there is no product that Satyam sells. It goes in with people to design custom solutions for clients. The solutions being ultimately owned by the client and the employee having gained knowledge in the bargain.

So that makes me think whether it is worth anyone’s money at any price to buy a Satyam? A company like that really has only two main assets- it’s brand equity and the intellectual power -house of its people. The first has been royally destroyed in a very public way and as for the second it is far easier to just hire people than to go out and buy a company, especially one that is straddled with several pending class-action lawsuits.

So I want to ask all the financial experts out there who are still working on valuations for this company- why are you letting more money get wasted? Just sell the hard physical assets of the company and let this thing pass into oblivion. Those people who have talent and experience will find the jobs if the projects they are working on are worth moving forward with. A bank, a defense company will hire them because they want the project done, Satyam or no Satyam.

So basically let us have the courage to admit that as much as as we would like to preserve Satyam as an icon of the great Indian IT revolution, this is a boat with one too many holes and whoever we sell it to will only be lugged with a loser.