Craigslist's terrible, horrible, very bad week

Talk about a roller-coaster of a week.

The same day that South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster backed off his attack on Craigslist, the site was catapulted back into the spotlight. This time, the battleground is New York, where seven alleged members of a prostitution ring, which operated exclusively through online classified advertisements, have been arrested.

Joining the ranks of other attorney generals who have publicly criticized Craigslist, New York state's crusading A.G., Andrew Cuomo, called on the site to more rigorously police its content. "Until Craigslist gets serious about putting real protections in place, it will continue to be an environment where criminal operations thrive with impunity," Cuomo said on Wednesday.

The witch hunt continues?

But as many pundits have pointed out, is it really fair to target the actions of one site? After all, dozens of print publications regularly host adult classified advertisements; none of them have been exposed to as much scrutiny, in recent months, as Craigslist.

Today, a Silicon Valley and San Jose Business Journal survey found that a majority of respondents believe "Craigslist needs no further monitoring or constraints — whether internal or external. It’s a self-regulated open forum, no more culpable for illegal activity than the individuals committing those acts." The study continues:

That’s the sentiment of most respondents in the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal’s latest Business Pulse Survey; 55 percent of those who responded said Craigslist need not do more to prevent use of its ads for illegal activity such as prostitution, while 44 percent said otherwise. The poll was conducted May 12 through May 19.