It has been over two years now since the US Senate passed its bill to fight internet sex trafficking. The goal of the bill was to make websites responsible for the conduct that happens through the pages on their websites. This bill became known as the FASTA bill of 2018.
Once the FASTA bill passed, one of the largest sites known for casual encounter ads called Craigslist had all of a sudden removed their personals section so people were not able to post ads on Craigslist for hookups any more.
For over a decade, Craigslist had dominated the casual hookup/swinger ads of the internet. The Craigslist personals was simply a place for people to go and post as well as search for hookup ads with locals and boy was it busy, one employee of Craigslist said the personals section had over 100,000 new ads posted daily just in the US alone
People seeking sexual relationships as well as sex workers would use Craigslist to find their next random connections and all of that came to a stop on that one day back in 2018.
The FASTA bill did not close the Craigslist personals down, it was a business decision. See Craigslist had no way to monetize the casual encounter section as running banner ads is not in Craigslist business model and with all the ads for hookups being posted on Craigslist, it meant they would have to hire more people to moderate the ads, and that cost too much money so they just closed the casual encounter down.
FASTA Bill
President Donald. J. Trump displays H.R. 1865, the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017” after signing it into law at The White House on April 11, 2018 in Washington, DC.
Craigslist Casual Encounters
Did Craigslist get hurt by the closure of its casual encounter section? Well, it depends on how you view it. From a financial standpoint, it cost them nothing, but from a website traffic point of view, it did drop off a bit, but Craigslist makes their money from the gigs and jobs section. Craigslist never charged for the post as Backpage did.
A Craigslist Former Employee
Craigslist Employee
We were able to catch up to James who is a former Craigslist employee and got to ask him a few questions about their casual encounter section. See his responses below.
Q. Does Craigslist plan to bring back the personals section?
A. No, they have made it clear that it is done for good, the main reason for this is there is no way to monetize it based on the Craigslist business model.
Q. How many ads were posted for casual encounters?
A. On any given day we would see upwards of 100,000 ads posted and at times would reach 160,000
Q. What was the best time for posting hookup ads on Craigslist?
A. This would depend, for M4M ads, it was the weekdays as the men would be at work. For couples, it’s the weekend as they are at home from work. For M4W again, the weekday as they are away from home.
Q. Could Craigslist members flag any ads?
A. Yes, if there were a few flags on an ad, it would be automatically removed for review, but we never had time to review them so they would just stay flagged.
The New Craigslist Personals
When the leader of casual encounters closes its personals section, there is always someone else in the wings ready to take on the task of creating a new home for the kinky people of the world looking for their next random hookup.
Of course, over the past two years, there has been an over-saturation of new sites trying to be the next Craigslist casual encounters and there are also some companies who are selling Craigslist site clone scrips so all you have to do is purchase it, install it and your up and running. You are the next Craigslist hookup site.
Not so easy though. If you have not started by now, you are already too late. First, there were a ton of complaints by the old casual encounter community on Craigslist, so the last thing they want is a repeat of the old Craigslist. Today, people are seeking more than just ads, but some sites out there feel the best model is to do what the kink of hookups did and just make an ad site for posting and yes, that does work, but for others, they want a bit more.
Yes, you have sites on the other end of the spectrum such as Adult friend finder, but that site has been loaded with spam and bots. For example, if you create an account on AFF and don’t fill out your profile or upload a photo, within 2-3 hours you will start to get winks. How many sites can you create a blank profile on and get winks without filling anything in your profile? Not many so for that reason, yes they say they have over 100 million members, but if they allow the spam you have to wonder what % of the 100M is real.
At the end of the day, people want to be heard. Here are three major issues people had when using the casual encounter section of Craigslist was:
– 1. Flagging – People would flag your post for no apparent reason, for example, if you post an ad for a hookup on Craigslist and someone emailed you and you did not email them back, they would flag your post.
– 2. Bots – Craigslist did not protect much against this and allowed the bots or scammers to run wild. Men from poor countries would post as women to get money from men and that happened all the time where people would get scammed on CL.
– 3. No Customer Service – When people had issues, there was next to no customer service to speak of. You would just have to Google your question or try to ask others for help that went nowhere.
So the first thing that must be addressed when finding a site like craigslist personals is a way to verify people are real. The next thing is to fix the flagging issue and customer service. So this is how we ranked the following sites, not based on biases bit based on the top 3 items listed above and how they stack against other sites fighting to be the best replacement for craigslist and the hookups ads.
Our Top 5 Craigslist Replacements for 2021
kinkyads.com
Kinkyads by far is no only the closest thing to the Craigslist casual encounters but are also the most advanced. Not only did Kinkyads replace Craigslist, but went 10 steps past Craigslist. It’s a social network for kinksters not just an ad posting site.
Kinkyads also nailed the top 3 issues. Flagging is no an option, you can report an ad, but it stays up till review by a mod. All ads are reviewed when posted, but unlike other sites, the ads go up instantly and are reviewed shortly after.
Bots are few and far between thanks to the cell phone verification from limited countries. They also blocked landline and virtual phone numbers.
Customer Service is available by email or phone and they reply within hours.
Kinkyads has nailed every aspect that the Craigslist casual encounter community were crying for and now they have.
- Tinder
Everyone knows of Tinder and even though it’s a mobile app, it is seen as the personals of Craigslist on your cell phone. Yes, tinder is known as a hookup site and not as easy as Craigslist or Kinkyads but for what it is, it works for some.
The main reason they are on this list is that they verify people and it’s hard for fake profiles to show up even though they do, nowhere near other sites. The main issue with Tinder is there are women looking for love on there, so if you’re not seeking that, you will have to do some filtering and weeding out to find the hookups you’re seeking. If you find the right person you can find a fast hookup but some people will say the odds of finding a hookup were better on Craigslist.
Tinder also has couples who will post ads, even though they only have M and W to choose from, as you scan through the images you will see couples from time to time.
- POF
Plenty of Fish is another site that is known for random encounters but then again you have to filter through all the people who are seeking real love.
If you build your profile with swinging and things you’re into, POF might give you the boot so you have to watch what you type on there. Be discreet and in private chat, you can be much more open as to what you are seeking and from whom.
From time to time, you will also discover profiles from couples and even though they don’t say anything directly, you can understand what they are saying and reach out to them. POF does have their fair share of fake profiles, but if you can get past that, then you can be ok. You just have to go into it knowing the other people might want more, but with a little effort, you are sure to score on here.
- OKCupid
okcupid and just like POF but they allow for other genders such as transexuals, the nice thing about this site is they do allow for all the different classifications out there but not really know for a hookup site.
Still, there is plenty of women out there and who are open-minded so I would say if you’re looking for another option to the craigslist personals section then give this a try.
Again you are not going to see the ads you did on CL but you can find some freaky woman on this site who are into some interesting stuff but just don’t come out and say it in their profiles. Yet, they do hint at it, so keep your eyes open and see what you can find.
- Ashley Madison
By now you have heard of Ashley Madison, a hookup site for married people. Not to sure their level of kinky but if they are willing to step outside of their marriage, then I am sure there is something there.
This site does have some heavy fees to join but if there is a woman who is not happy in her marriage, this is only site she is sure to know about.
So again, not sure how kinky the woman are on here, but if she is in a stale marriage, the there is some room for kink for sure.
Some other sites did not make the like such as Adult Friend Finder, and Doublelist, yes they both are for swingers but Adult Friend Finder is full of bots with next to no customer service and Doublelist has no customer service and allows people to flag your post. Even when you post a normal post you have a 50/50 chance it will not even go live. So stop wasting your time and hope on to Kinkyadstoday.