Prostitutes migrate to Facebook after Craigslist crackdown

A study of prostitutes in New York has found that an overwhelming majority are tuing to social networking site Facebook to advertise their services.

Sudhir Venkatesh, a professor of sociology at Columbia University, spent a year interviewing 290 street workers about their financial and work habits to gather the data.

In an article for Wired Magazine, Professor Venkatesh found that 83 per cent of the sex workers he spoke to had a Facebook page which they used to post pictures, advertise their services and set prices.  

Over the same period, prof. Venkatesh found that the share of clients derived from inteet classifieds site Craigslist had fallen from nine percent to just three.

The fall came despite the infamous 2008 crackdown by Craigslist on web based escort agencies using the site.

According to prof. Venkatesh, the rise in social networking and smart-phones has transformed the idea of the 'old world prostitute' and her pimp, with working girls now more able to run their own business - cutting out the middle man.

'Of the women I talked to, 61 percent said they’ve used Craigslist, mostly for advertising,' Venkatesh wrote in the Wired article.

'83 percent have a Facebook page, and I estimate that by the end of 2011, Facebook will be the leading on-line recruitment space.

'No self-respecting cosmopolitan man looking for an evening of companionship is going to lean out his car window and call out to a woman at a traffic light.

'Today they can control their image, set their prices, and sidestep some of the pimps, madams, and other intermediaries who once took a share of the revenue.

The professor also found that as the sex trade grew less risky and more lucrative, it increasingly appealed to middle-class women seeking quick tax-free income.

Along with the rise in inteet use, the professor also found that 70 percent of the women surveyed carried a Blackberry or iphone as they said it boosted their eaing potential.