A survey of sex workers in New York City finds that 83% of prostitutes have a Facebook page. Earlier on it wasn’t FB but Craigslist (another website) that was favored by them. Even before the crackdown on the site, prostitutes were turning to FB.
Prostitutes also say that having a Blackberry is significant in this business. In fact, digital technology has helped professionalize such transactions. These sex workers can very easily avoid pimps & madams & keep 100 % of their profits.
“Between 2003 and 2008, the share of regular clients coming from Craigslist fell from 9% to 3%, while the share from Facebook jumped from zero to 25%...by the end of 2011, Facebook will be the leading on-line recruitment space," Venkatesh declares in Wired.
At the same time The New York Daily News reports that "Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said the site comes down hard on anyone who uses it for illegal ends." However, that won’t stop people from using it for their business of any kind I guess. And it won’t be fair either to stop them from advertising online.
