MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Today Craigslist is one of the most popular sites to go to when searching for something in your area. The site, first created in 1995 is a website of classified advertisements dedicated to posting jobs, items for sale, wanted ads, services, and discussion forums. However, in today’s day and age numerous media stories have reported Craigslist as being a forum for users to become vulnerable to heinous crimes. Case studies of the rising numbers of murders as a result of interactions on Craigslist illustrate the endless possibilities the Web has for sharing goods and services, while addressing how little we know about the people with whom we are communicating with via the Internet. This analysis seeks to outline numerous case studies of heinous crimes committed as a result of Craigslist interactions to show the dangers and responsibilities sharing on websites come with. It also seeks to illustrate possible solutions to implicate stronger background scans of the sites users to ensure the people accessing the site are safe to be interacting with. Finally this analysis seeks to further investigate possible suggestions for practicing Internet safety, as well as the importance of safe “meeting protocol” when using Craigslist to avoid serious life threatening incidents.