Blayne Sucks

First, let me extend my condolances to the family of the woman who was killed after answering a Craigslist Ad in Minnesota. It’s never easy to lose a loved one, but it is much harder losing someone so young and so unexpectedly.

I heard about this story on CNN this morning. Unfortunately, murders happen every day and most are not covered on the national news media, so why was this one different? Well, the CNN coverage did everything it could to imply that this was somehow the fault of the Internet. Even the article that I linked earlier implied something to that effect. Here’s a quote:

They also say Katherine often found the internet, and Craig’s List, in particular to be a helpful tool to meet people and find opportunities.

This week, police say a man used the internet to lure Katherine to her death.

Let me be clear in refuting this: the Internet is no more a tool of murder than the plaster cast. The Internet is a tool. What it does do is foster communication amongst humans. It does this extremely well, but it does this for anyone who has access. You are reading this post because we both have access to the Internet. Craigslist is essentially a giant classified ads page for some geographic region.

This same sort of murder could have taken place decades before the Internet via another tool: the newspaper. People have used the classifieds for all sorts of illegal things including prostitution and murder. This is not a failure of technology; it is a failure of humanity. Some people do evil things and they use all the tools available. On net the tools that we have created have improved our quality of life. This hasn’t changed with the coming of the Internet. I just wish the news media would wake up to that.