Following a report that sex ads could generate $36 million in revenue for Craigslist this year, company CEO Jim Buckmaster on Thursday posted a blog defending advertisements that lead to "casual sex."
Buckmaster said he was responding to a "campaign" on Twitter demanding that Craigslist remove "all personals ads."
Sex ads, he said, had naturally migrated to personals after the company a year ago discontinued its "erotic" services category of ads and replaced it with an "adult" services category, which requires that users state they are over the age of 17.
Craigslist made the change after a public outcry, particularly from various state attorney generals, over the reported prostitution ads on its site.
Buckmaster disputed the notion that Craigslist abets human trafficking, which he said the company will continue to help law enforcement combat.
The New York Times, which reported the estimate of Craigslist's sex ad revenue made by an outside company, noted that the FBI last week charged 14 members of the Gambino crime family with selling sexual services of girls 15 to 19 on Craigslist. The story has gained significant internet traffic and fueled at least one petition.
"Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and we embrace all criticism as useful in improving our approach," Buckmaster wrote. "But cynical misuse of a cause as important as human trafficking as a pretense for imposing one’s own flavor of religious morality ('casual sex is evil') strikes me as wrong on so many levels."
Craigslist personals are hugely popular and help users "to find friendship, love, romance, companionship, entertainment, and yes, 'casual encounters,' Buckmaster said.
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