HOWTO protect yourself from "The Craigslist Experiment"

A few weeks ago, an exceedingly cruel prank hit dozens of users of the Craigslist personals.

In The Craigslist Experiment [NSFW LINK], Seattle web developer Jason Fortuny posted a phony, sexually explicit listing in which he took on the identity of a female submissive seeking rough sex. When replies came in, he posted the personally identifying information of each respondent (including photos, real names, and real-world contact info) to a wiki.

Similarly malicious internet creeps followed Fortuny's lead, including copycat Michael Crook, who "pretexted" additional personal info from would-be respondents. Fortuny and his griefer kin have since received harsh criticism from many corners of the online world, and IMHO, rightly so.

Violet Blue writes:

Meanwhile, the New York Times seems to have dropped [their reportedly planned] story. Why? I think it's because it's unclear where the 'good vs. bad' or 'guilty vs. innocent' lines can be drawn here -- though while that's a head-scratching conundrum for most media to interpret, for me that's what makes this whole situation really interesting. Plus, the entire thing is centered on a very extreme sexual fantasy, and we can never, ever expect any media to discuss something like this in a mature, nonjudgemental or accurate context in our lifetimes. And to me, that's a big reason why jerks like Fortuny and the aptly-named Crook can exploit a poorly informed, and sexually shamed public.

Think of it like this: when you upload a porn photo to Flickr, you are in violation of their Terms of Use rules and they take it down. When you use your work email address to answer an explicit sex ad, you are essentially in violation of your employer's TOU. If you cheat on your wife, you're in violation of your marriage's TOU. In his "experiment", Jason Fortuny violated several ethical and social TOUs that many of us accept as basic privacy and communication rules of conduct.

But not everyone outed in The Craigslist Experiment was violating one of life's TOUs -- I'll even argue that the majority of the people who had their personal info revealed didn't care, or notice. So if you're not doing something you shouldn't, and you want to answer a personal ad on Craiglslist (even a sexually explicit or edgy one) and protect your privacy, how do you avoid getting exploited for entertainment and sport by creeps like Fortuny? And if you want to place an ad, no matter how explicit, how can you do so safely?

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:09:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments