
Craig Newmark: How Being a Geek Made it Hard to Respond to CNN's Ambush - dreambird
http://thefastertimes.com/techlife/2010/09/02/craig-newmark-what-i-should-have-said-to-cnns-amber-lyon-when-she-ambushed-me/
======
lotharbot
I remember watching the original interview on cnn.com [0] and thinking it
looked like the reporter wasn't really interested in getting good answers or
giving an accurate story to her viewers, but was just going for a "gotcha".

She seems to have the same strange misunderstanding of large-scale websites
that people sometimes voice regarding youtube or google. At one point he asks
if she reported an ad she's questioning him about. She says "why do I have the
responsibility to report this to you when it's your website? You're the one
hosting this online." It's as if she's completely unaware of the scale of the
system, and expecting Craig to hand-verify each and every ad.

[0]
[http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/crime/2010/08/03/cra...](http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/crime/2010/08/03/craigslist.sex.trade.cnn.html)
\- during the last half of the clip

~~~
credo
Two days ago, almost all HNers agreed with Rackspace's decision to shut down
PandaForm's website because of some user-generated content that seemed like
phishing.Almost everyone (including me) was critical of PandaForm

So I find it interesting that _all_ current comments on this thread are
critical of CNN. A journalist's job is to ask tough questions. I haven't seen
anyone refute the fact that a huge amount of sex trafficking (of minors and
adults) hapens through Craig's List.

In the post, Craig talks about his "support for our troops and veterans" and
his support for "Net neutrality". That support is great, but it is irrelevant
when it comes to the question of sex trafficking of minor girls.

So why should journalists not ask tough questions of the founder of Craig's
List ?

~~~
Kadin
There's a line between "tough questions" and "stupid questions." The reporter
was pretty clearly asking the latter.

Something like "wouldn't it be possible for you to filter ads based on
keywords that suggest illegal activities," or "couldn't you use the same
techniques that other companies use to block spam to block illegal content"
would have been tough questions. But she didn't ask any of them; instead, she
asked a facile 'gotcha' question about a particular post, in an obvious
attempt to get him to say something embarrassing.

It was a cheap, pandering bit of entertainment TV; if that's what 'journalism'
has been reduced to, we ought to wish it a speedy death.

~~~
jfager
Here's the list, can you tell me which question you thought was stupid, and
why?

1\. Can people trust that children are not being sex-trafficked on Craigslist?

2\. What are you guys doing to protect these girls?

3\. [Craigslist says its screen these ads manually, but] look at this ad. It
says young, sexy, sweet, and bubbly. Clearly here she writes $250 an hour. I
mean what do you think she's selling in her bra and underwear? A dinner date?
And she's in her bra and underwear?

4\. Why do I have the responsibility to report this to you when it's your Web
site?

~~~
Avenger42
(Disclaimer: I don't use craigslist, I've been to the site <10 times in my
life, so I'm making assumptions about what's available to the end user in
terms of reporting issues. If I'm wrong, I apologize in advance.)

In my opinion:

1 is unfair. You can't say with 100% certainty that any popular website is
immune from something like that, so he can't say "yes". He certainly can't say
"no" without making the site look bad. So how does he answer?

2 is unfair. If you ask about a specific ad, they can look in the system and
say "that ad was placed on X, it was reported as problematic by a user on Y,
we checked it on Z and reported it to the police." If you say in general "what
are you doing about 'these girls'" then you're making him look bad by saying
"I don't know 'which girls' you're referring to." Again, if you don't give him
a chance to make a proper answer, then you're not really being fair as a
reporter.

3 is similarly unfair unless he's at his computer and can give you the
information. Obviously the post in question is crossing the line, but what do
you expect him to do about it _right then_? If they manually screen the ads,
then someone's not doing their job right, but can you say with 100% certainty
that everyone at CNN is doing their job right 100% of the time?

Finally, 4 is unfair because if she'd actually reported the thing using the
proper channels, then the post would have been gone before she'd have time to
put together her story. But that would go against her interests, so it's much
better to ambush him in person with an ad he's never seen before.

On the other hand, if the question is the less-personal and less-exasperated
"why do you rely on your users to police your site?" then that's a fair
question.

The underlying question for this reporter is this: Is your goal to get
answers? Or is your goal to embarrass him for ratings?

(EDIT: replacing "stupid" with "unfair".)

~~~
mattmanser
I am totally acting as a devil's advocate here, I haven't dug into this enough
to have formed a proper opinion:

 _2 is unfair. If you ask about a specific ad, they can look in the system and
say "that ad was placed on X, it was reported as problematic by a user on Y,
we checked it on Z and reported it to the police._

The problem in this imaginary chain of events is "it was reported as
problematic by a user on Y". What the hell is the user doing reporting it? Why
aren't there dedicated staff?

These guys are reported to make $150 mill a year with just 32 staff. That
they're not picking up on this shit is just plain negligence.

Just because we as programmers are used to dealing with huge data sets doesn't
actually mean this problem isn't policable with a couple of people.

They could pay a couple of students minimum wage to vet _all_ their adult
adverts.

In the old days the vet would be in the phone call placing the order for an
advert. Just because it's now all handled by a computer in the form of a web
form so staff costs are reduced doesn't mean there's any less responsibility
on the company. It's a cost. You pass it on to the advertiser.

And they're not doing it.

~~~
kelnos
> What the hell is the user doing reporting it? Why aren't there dedicated
> staff?

Because that's how the site works. Period. It's a community-policed bulletin
board. Is there something inherently wrong with that?

> They could pay a couple of students minimum wage to vet all their adult
> adverts.

There may be liability issues here. If they declare, "we are policing the site
to get rid of all potentially illegal posts," and then they miss one, they
could get sued by the victim.

~~~
jfager
CL itself explicitly says that for adult services, they have a manual review
process for each ad that includes reading the ad, verifying a credit card, and
placing a phone call to the number used to place the ad. They are not trying
to get by on common carrier status.

The criticism is that these measures don't seem to be sufficient, that
coordination with law enforcement has been piecemeal at best, and that CL does
not invest more (or all) of the profit from these ads back into anti-
trafficking measures.

~~~
kelnos
Yeah, good point. That invalidates the second half of my argument.

I wonder though about the interview segment with the law enforcement guy.
Wouldn't they _prefer_ CL just post everything and not vet the posts for
possible illegal activities? I mean, think about it: it's a public forum where
people are willing to outright advertise the illegal activities they're
willing to provide. It sounds like a law-enforcement wet dream.

------
jfager
I know I'm going to get downvoted to oblivion by saying this, but the only
reason we're upset by this is because we "know and love" Craig Newmark. If CNN
did the exact same thing to a BP exec and got the same kind of answers, would
anyone be criticizing them? Or would we be too busy falling all over ourselves
pointing out what an asshole the executive was? (No, I'm not calling Newmark
an asshole)

This was hardly "gotcha" journalism. If Craigslist says they report these
kinds of ads but the relevant authorities say they never receive those
reports, that's an actual problem, and CNN has every right to report it, and
to question the folks in charge. Newmark's trying to say "Aww, shucks, I just
do customer service these days", but the reality is it _is_ his site, he _is_
on the board, and if women and minors _are_ getting hurt because CL fails to
adequately police the adult ads it charges money for, then Newmark deserves to
sweat over it as much as anyone.

I generally love Craigslist, and I generally hate CNN, but sorry, the shoes
are on the other feet for this one.

~~~
lionhearted
> This was hardly "gotcha" journalism.

They edited out how she introduced herself to him, and edited in him standing
there paused thinking about the difficult question that was just sprung on him
without warning. She was almost certainly very friendly and casual in the
beginning, and then she waylays him when he's not ready.

Does he have an obligation to know how his ship is running? Yes. But she took
advantage of the fact that he hasn't taken "public relations training" or
whatever and is basically a decent guy. What he'll do now is learn the
standard PR deflecting non-answer in case something like this happens, and
then give a prepared statement later. That's a shame, and that was absolutely
distasteful gotcha journalism.

~~~
jfager
I agree that the editing and production was typical of the CNN I know and
hate. But the questions strike me as fair, and it's been a contentious issue
long enough that anyone at the top of CL should be well-prepared to deal with
them. As much as I hate CNN (and I do, with a passion), it's not their
responsibility to coddle millionaires who charge money for sex ads, regardless
of how likable, well-intentioned, or geeky they are.

------
BobbyH
Craigslist has manually screened every adult services post since May 2009. In
a blog post last month, they noted: "before being posted each individual ad is
reviewed by an attorney licensed to practice law in the US, trained to enforce
craigslist’s posting guidelines, which are stricter than those typically used
by yellow pages, newspapers, or any other company that we are aware of. More
than 700,000 ads were rejected by those attorneys in the year following
implementation of manual screening, for falling short of our guidelines."

<http://blog.craigslist.org/2010/08/manual-screening-matters/>

Craigslist also does other stuff, including phone verification for every adult
services ad: [http://blog.craigslist.org/2010/05/an-open-invitation-to-
rac...](http://blog.craigslist.org/2010/05/an-open-invitation-to-rachel-
lloyd/)

As Craigslist notes, this is a lot more screening than any other services
does, including classifieds or the Yellow Pages.

~~~
rapind
I'd be interested to see a comparison of the due diligence CNN does for each
of their stories...

------
gauthr
The best advice for dealing with the possibility of being "ambushed", or
otherwise being made to answer awkward questions, comes from the British
television series "Yes, Prime Minister".

(Prime Minister Hacker speaking to Bernard Woolley, his hapless Principal
Private Secretary who has made unwise remarks to the press after being
ambushed):

"If you have nothing to say, say nothing. But better, have something to say
and say it, no matter what they ask. Pay no attention to the question, make
your own statement. If they ask you the same question again, you just say,
'That's not the question' or 'I think the more important question is this:'
Then you make another statement of your own."

~~~
TrevorJ
You will see this from a lot of politicians...drives me batty, but I see why
they do it.

------
MichaelApproved
So his thought out response after the fact was to say the reporter was playing
"gotcha"? What a cheap answer.

How about coming out and saying you weren't the right one to speak with BUT
you did the research and here are the answers to all of your questions. He
can't do that because the underlying report was right in many ways. Crying
foul because you're a geek does not resolve the issues in the report.

Im a geek and have trouble with questions in public sometimes too but if you
want to follow up because you were caught on the spot then do so with specific
answers to the questions answered. Instead we see him crying and giving the
same old canned answers.

~~~
MichaelApproved
A key point she made was that law enforcement never got a call regarding
underage girls. She asked if he ever contacted the police as they'd promised
to do. He gave no answer then and none in this whiney response. Whatever your
feeling is about prostitution aside, they promised to crack down underage
girls. Maybe we should give the geek a few more minutes to think it over...

------
dasht
I don't think it's right how, in his "defense", he crouches behind "borderline
Asperger's".

I'm about to briefly rant on it because I think a lot of less rich and less
notorious nerds and geeks in my industry make the same, lame, bullcurse excuse
whenever they can.

He remarks: "I don’t have a normal person’s ability to sense when someone
might be looking to take advantage of these shortcomings."

You know what? I cry BullCurse.

If you watch a tape of the interview, it's pretty clear (at least to me) that
he knows damn well - from the start - that he's in a "gotcha" interview. He
starts off highly defensive. Eventually she pins him on a question that as a
freaking board member of the corporation, and its founder -- he really ought
to be able to yet was not prepared to handle. If it were not a privately held
firm, the stock would have justifiably fell on his performance. If he depended
on being elected to the board - he might be in trouble.

It may very well be the case (and personally, I believe it is) that Craigslist
is taking a fairly sane albeit difficult to explain approach to the issues
here. I don't think they are an evil hub in that regard.

To cower behind "Oh, it's my borderline Asperger's and the mean lady tricked
me...." _that_ gives me some doubt about Craigslist's concern and competence
in this area.

Pardon me, but: that was dumb, Craig. Dumb arrogant, not dumb Asperger's.

~~~
andreyf
Listen carefully, she's even more clueless than you think. She says "posting",
not "hosting". Personally, I am surprised how terribly Craig handled this -
the appropriate response was simply "Just as the phone company can't police
the calls used for illegal acts, there is no way we can police a service of
millions of users, but we try. Stopping crime is the role of the police
department (that's what taxes are for)".

~~~
dasht
Uh.. Yeah, I did catch that.

Here's the thing: You pay CL a fee. CL has a review policy. CL reviews and
then posts your ad. Posting. That ain't hosting: CL has explicitly taken some
deeper editorial responsibility there.

Does a newspaper "host" or "publish" classified ads? Can classified ads in
papers still be used to advertise illegal activity? Sure, they can. IMO, CL's
best defense would have been to go grab a copy of a typical independent news
weekly -- one that has all the personal and prostitute ads in the back.

~~~
andreyf
What are you talking about? So if I pay someone to broadcast something, they
are responsible if I use it to break the law? If I photocopy a book, is Xerox
responsible? How is this any different from the reasons for common carrier
regulation?

~~~
andreyf
That's cool, yeah... downvote away in leu of an argument. Thanks guys, for
keeping it classy.

------
CapitalistCartr
I'm also not good at spot-on answering questions I haven't considered
previously. Luckily, I have thought about most things people want to ask me
about. But I've learned stock answers when I get ambushed, even when it's
unintentional. "When do you need the answer by?" is one of my favorites. It
causes them to prioritize. But the only lesson I had to learn was to have a
snap cover answer at hand.

More often than one might expect, the ambush is intentional. They want to
appear smart, or to improve their position at the expense of others. To be
prepared for anything is impossible. That's why most public figures practice
being ambushed, and not freezing. It took me a few times to get the hang of
it, but it's well worth it in the politics of corporate life.

~~~
krschultz
"I'm also not good at spot-on answering questions I haven't considered
previously. "

How could he not have considered these questions previously? This is a major
issue for Craigslist and they must have had a lot of discussions about it.
Being unable to answer questions about about this topic is inexecusable. Maybe
his answer would be along the lines of "I don't know about that specific ad
but these are our procedures in general ...." would be fine.

------
johngalt
Proper response:

Ok reporter lets take a look at your backyard. CNN will blatantly
sensationalize and falsify stories just to get ratings. Then turn around and
blame the sources when they are caught.

Your the one reporting the story Ms. Reporter, why aren't you verifying? Who
here is really profiteering from base human impulses?

~~~
marcinw
Sure, it's easy to come up with a "proper response" after the fact, but how
about when you've been blindsided by a reporter with a microphone and camera
in your face?

~~~
johngalt
You're correct, and that only makes it worse.

On one hand the reporter is blaming Craig for providing the canvas for people
to write bad things; on the other the reporter is actually doing the lying and
manipulating to get paid.

This is like blaming the business owner for the comments graffiti artists put
on his walls. Even if he does his best to wash them off whenever he finds
them.

------
zavulon
To be honest, I have a hard time feeling bad for Craig.

Craigslist made him millions (yes, yes, we all know the story about how he
wants to keep CL intentionally small, spurning potential hundreds of millions
in profits - but still, he's a millionaire). Part of his money-making strategy
is charging prostitutes to post sex ads.

So he can use "I'm a socially inept geek" excuse as long as he wants, I think
it's only fair that he is asked some tough questions about it.

~~~
jrockway
To be honest, I have a hard time feeling bad for Internet Service Providers.

ISPs have made millions. Part of their money-making strategy is charging child
pornographers to upload child pornography.

So they can use the "I'm a common carrier" excuse as long as they want, but I
think it's only fair that they are asked some tough questions about it. Why
can't a team of lawyers review every packet flowing over the public Internet
to make sure that nothing "bad" is going on? It sounds simple to me, someone
who loves children but has no idea how the Internet or computers work.

Sounds pretty dumb, doesn't it? Why is Craigslist not held to the same (non-)
standard as the ISPs? Why don't we just censor the entire Internet For The
Children!?

~~~
krschultz
Becuase Craigslist supposedly filters these ads. I'm not saying Craigslist
_should_ filter these ads. I'm saying they _already do_ filter these ads. So
if there are still problems the question becomes, why does your filtering not
work?

Your ISP is doing no such thing (well, unless it's Comcast)

~~~
jrockway
Filtering the Internet is hard, even if you don't want it to be.

------
rfrey
Newmark shouldn't beat himself up over failing the trial-by-media-fire. Lyon
probably had the story written before she even approached him. Most of us
(including former reporters like me) would be no match for a media pro with a
particular slant in mind.

~~~
xcombinator
And they control the medium too. If Craig gets the answers right they just can
cut this part of the film. They could manufacture whatever they want just
editing and putting answers out of context.

The modern version of Cardinal Richelieu: "If you give me six lines written by
the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will
hang him."

------
Estragon

      If Amber had done her homework, she would have known 
      ambushing me with questions I am not qualified to answer, 
      or even the right person to ask, would not get CNN’s 
      viewers the accurate information they deserve.
    

This proves his naivety more than whatever happened in the interview could
have. Believing CNN gives a damn about conveying accurate information to its
viewers is like believing in Santa Claus.

------
ck2
Journalism is journalism, it's part of democracy. You can't be upset with her
for fiercely going after a story that seems plausible.

I don't think Craig/CL are profiteers, but I also don't think they should have
that section. It's clearly being abused regardless any original intent.

Their defense that plenty of other sites and magazines/newspapers have the
same content doesn't fly with me. Take the higher ground.

~~~
kelnos
> You can't be upset with her for fiercely going after a story that seems
> plausible.

Maybe not, but I can be upset with her methods. Going after a plausible story
is not an excuse for being an asshole.

------
kenjackson
I'm not really sure how Craigslist is supposed to stop these ads. I believe
they require a credit card, which should only be available to people over 18.

As someone noted, you can't just look at the ad and determine age. And while
prostitution is illegal, escorting is not, nor is a massage from a naked lady.

To me it would seem there are two main cases where Craig could report an
incident:

1) An ad openly states that the person providing service is under 18.

2) The person in the ad is known to be under 18, e.g., previously arrested.

But short of that, it's not clear to me what Craig could do here. Although, if
I were Craig, I'd probably remove the sections altogether. It frankly just
doesn't seem to be worth the hassle. I can't believe they make much money from
it, and it does cast a slightly dirty tint on the site.

~~~
eru
Couldn't Craigslist just change jurisdiction? Prostitution of adults isn't a
crime everywhere.

------
adammichaelc
While the reporter's methods were questionable and she was going for a gotcha
instead of real dialogue, it does seem that Craigslist's public-messaging
about controlling underage prostitution and their real response are 2
different things. They're saying they're on it, but they're not really doing
much.

It's difficult to pin the blame on Craigslist since they are simply a medium
of communication; prostitution is something that will happen regardless of the
communication media available. Before Craigslist, it was newspaper classified
ads or Yellow Pages. Before that, it was a certain neighborhood or brothel. Is
underage prostitution more common now with digital communication channels
available? I don't think so. Look to India or Thailand or the underage
trafficking in other parts of the world. It has gone on since well-before
anybody heard of Craigslist, the web, or the internet.

The difference is how easy it is to (a) communicate that you are a prostitute
and (b) find prostitutes. In other words, as technology has improved, so have
the means to quickly find information that you're looking for, whether that
information happens to be what the weather is in Cupertino, or which
prostitutes are available in your city.

All that being said, it seems that with Craigslist being the source of more
and more of the "where are adult services in my neighborhood?" queries in the
21st century, they have responsibility to make sure that underage girls aren't
being taken advantage of. How they do that? I'm not sure. Off the top of my
head, I can't think of a good solution if your goal (as it seems Craiglist's
is) is to facilitate consensual adult sexual connections. If that's your goal,
you don't want to turn away prostitutes by actually verifying their age,
because that would require ID-based verification of some kind, which I'm
guessing most prostitutes wouldn't want to volunteer (fear of law enforcement,
etc.) So short of that, what do you do? Image-verification to verify age?
That's next to impossible with so much variation among people.

Prostitution is an ugly world. If I were suddenly given the reigns of control
at Craigslist, I think I would turn off adult services, even knowing that
within very-short-order another site or sites would pop up to fill the gap. I
personally wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing that even a few people
were being exploited because of a communication medium that I created. I guess
that's sort of a philosophical debate that needs to be had. Because if you
take that to its logical conclusion you shouldn't be able to sleep at night if
you created the foundations of the Internet, or the foundations of the Web, or
even a communication medium like the telephone. Heck, even going back further,
wouldn't that also mean that even creating something like a piece of real
estate -- say, a hotel -- is bad because somebody might at some point be
exploited at the place you created.

I'll have to give this all some more thought, as I've found myself trapped in
a strange place where my logical mind tells me I should have a laissez faire
attitude about what I create because people will do bad things with technology
and I can't control that, while my "heart" ,for lack of a better word, tells
me that if I were in charge of Craigslist I should try to do something. But
then I'm back to the, "what should I do?" question. Oh, life.

~~~
enjo
Why does Craigslist bear the responsibility for making sure underage girls
aren't exploited? Doesn't that responsibility ultimately lie with law
enforcement and the folks actually committing crimes?

Then there is the whole argument about whether the criminalization of
prostitution (as opposed to regulation) makes it that much easier for young
girls to be victimized in the first place.

The point being. This is complicated stuff. What about the consenting adults
who have used the adult sections of Craigslist to great effect?

I would have no issues with conscience if I ran Craigslist.

~~~
pyre
This.

Why doesn't local law enforcement just use Craigslist as an easy way to find
these people and put them behind bars? It's not like these things are being
broadcast to a select group of people in a back{room,alley}. They are being
broadcast to the world on a public forum. Law enforcement can just search the
ads, arrange meetups with the people and bust them. It's not like these people
will stop doing what they are doing because Craigslist prevented them from
posting an ad.

~~~
harshpotatoes
Law enforcement frequently does. There was a big bust near Orlando (Lakeland
maybe?) recently where many prostitutes from craigslist were arrested.

~~~
seunosewa
So what's the problem? Let them continue to do it.

------
sdh
CNN and WWF share the same building. They deliver about the same amount of
truth.

~~~
andreyf
test4

------
dantheman
This is why the news industry is dying. Too much bullshit.

The story is: Craigslist says they do X - explain what X is. We verified with
Y & Z and they say that have not received any reports/information inline with
X. So then they contact craigslist and ask them questions:

1\. When did you implement X

2\. How is it going?

3\. Do you have any metrics/success stories.

4\. Who do you contact? (Follow up with them to verify)

5\. When we talked to Y & Z they said that they weren't contacted by you can
you explain why that is. Since by your own policy X that is what should have
been done.

Then I may have learned something. Hell you could even through in some stats
so I know how big the problem is -- is it 1 out of 100, 1 out million etc.

Instead you get people posting on the internet interviewing in cars, and
ambushing someone who doesn't have time to research anything at all. Perhaps
if they ambushed the head of program X they would know the relevant details,
but that person might not even exist.

------
hyperbovine
Craig should take some of that $100 million he's made and pay ten guys to
follow this lady around doing the same thing.

~~~
russell
Doesnt EVER win. They will just ambush your ambushers. The best you can do is
just let it pass.

~~~
pyre
You could always convince the Scientologists that she's critical them...

------
VladRussian
it is a very disturbing trend - the carriers, be it for example Craigslist or
Rackspace are more and more expected (and they actually [self/forced to] obey
the expectation to the ever increasing degree) to perform censorship of their
users' information flows. Once you cross that line, for all the good
intentions, say fighting prostitution or internet phishing/scam, the
difference between for example adult services posts, doubtfully looking
surveys or political speech is just a mere technicality.

------
araneae
Man, I'm so glad I'm not the Craig of Craigslist, because I when she asked,

"What are you doing to protect these young girls?" I would have probably
answered along the lines of,

"Protect her from what, getting $500?"

~~~
MichaelApproved
She was talking about underage girls being sold on his site. Even if they were
paid $500 the pimp wouldn't allow them to keep it.

