[Wamvan] With pressure from WAM! members, Facebook Removes Pro-Rape Pages

[Joanna Chiu]

WAM! members in the US, including members of the Change.org team, Ms.
Magazine, Women'sENews, and others, were instrumental in successfully
pressuring Facebook to remove Pro-Rape pages:


http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/facebook-finally-removes-its-pro-rape-pages/788
Facebook Finally Removes Its Pro-Rape PagesIt only took two long months,
over 186,000 signatures on a petition to Mark Zuckerberg, and finally a
furious Twitter campaign to get Facebook to remove Pages that graphically
celebrated and encouraged rape and sexual violence.

This time, anyway.

*Warning: some readers might find the rest of this article and its links
disturbing.*

Unfortunately this was not the first time Facebook had to be externally
pressured to enforce its own Terms around the flashpoint topic of sexual
violence. And no, we’re not talking about consensual spanky-spanky between
adults. (I’m sure Facebook would have taken *that* Page down much sooner.)

The first round was in August, when people demanded that Facebook take down
a so-called “rape humor” page called “You know she’s playing hard to get
when your [SIC] chasing her down an alleyway.”

Facebook defended keeping the rape page as a sort-of everyday, harmless
thing, and *in a statement to the BBC likened the pro-rape page to “pub
jokes.”<http://geekfeminism.org/2011/09/26/by-request-facebook-treats-rape-page-as-%E2%80%98pub-joke%E2%80%99/>
*(Remind me to never go drinking with Facebook.)

Social justice website *GoPetition had to cull over 6,000
signatures<http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/petition-facebook-to-remove-material-that-promotes-rape.html?fb_ref=right_top&fb_source=group>
* before the page was deep-sixed.

In September, more “rape humor” Pages and Pages celebrating sexual violence
against women and girls were up and running (and no doubt earning that
sweet Facebook ad revenue). Once again, Facebook seemed to have turned a
deaf ear to its users’ complaints.

*Change.org then started a
petition<http://www.change.org/petitions/demand-facebook-remove-pages-that-promote-sexual-violence>
* to try and get the pages promoting sexual violence removed.

But Facebook ignored it. Until a few days ago.

Facebook Pages that lasted despite user outrage from at least September 8th
- November 2nd (a sampling):

   - Riding You [SIC] Girlfriend Soflty [SIC] So She Doesn’t Wake Up
   - Abducting, raping and violently murdering your friend, as a joke
   - Don’t You Hate it When You Punch a Sl*t in the Mouth and They Suck It

Sadly, Change.org had to get creative in order to get Facebook to enforce
its own Terms of Service. In short, they used Twitter.

Yes. They had to resort to a competing social site to wake Facebook the
hell up - at the very least to its own Terms.

After two months and 186,000 signatures with no response - not even an
insulting one about bar banter - *Change.org began a new campaign Monday on
top of its massive
petition*<http://www.allfacebook.com/change-org-attacks-pro-rape-facebook-pages-2011-11>
.

Change.org urged the 186K people that had already signed the petition
to Tweet the URLs of Facebook pages promoting sexual assault with the tag
#notfunnyfacebook.

With *support publicity from Ms.
Magazine*<http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/11/02/notfunnyfacebook-day-of-action-against-facebooks-rape-joke-pages/>the
#notfunnyfacebook campaign supporters were tweeting the hashtag at a
peak rate of 200 tweets per hour.

*Show Me On The Doll Where Facebook Touched You*

After removing the pages, Facebook’s rep *told
AllFacebook*<http://www.allfacebook.com/change-org-attacks-pro-rape-facebook-pages-2011-11>that
they take things seriously (
*really!*), and reminded everyone that reporting a Page is how to get
offending content reviewed (using a different definition of the word
“promptly” than the rest of us) and also said that they’ve made the social
reporting tool totally much more awesome because they care and stuff.

It’s great that the pages joking about girls having sex at knifepoint are
finally gone after months of traumatizing sexual assault victims in its
community that accidentally landed on the page. Yay, Facebook.

What I mean is to congratulate Change.org for not giving up. But how many
of us have had Facebook rip the rug our from under us, or our friends, for
far far less?

I think most people are so fed up with Facebook by now that they’re tired
of the endless stream of injustices to them as Facebook consumers, content
makers, responsible social media citizens, businesses - and let’s not
forget the developers.

So it bends the brain beyond reason to think that at a breaking point of
everyone being ready to accuse Facebook of just about anything, their
negligent behavior toward sexual violence victims could
become reprehensibly, cartoonishly extreme.

The social media behemoth has a massive problem with sex. This is exactly
what happens when a social network refuses to roll up its sleeves and
define sexual expression in its Terms. Specifically, I mean Facebook’s
urgent need to define different types of sexual speech or expression *as
healthy or harmful to its community*.

Sex is the Achilles’ Heel of all social businesses. And to that end,
transparency can be a cruel mistress.

With zero tolerance for porn and a refusal to define it, Facebook has
deleted breast cancer survivor communities (*labeling one breast
cancer survivor page as
“pornography”<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2054737/Breast-cancer-survivors-outraged-photos-painted-breasts-called-pornography-Facebook-taken-down.html>
*), retail business pages, individual profiles of human sexuality teachers,
pages for authors and actors, photos of LGBT couples kissing (for which
Facebook just apologized), and even the occasional hapless user’s profile
who has the misfortune of having *someone else* post porn on their Wall.

With no comprehensible or clear methodology around sexual speech, we see *pages
deleted that discuss female
sexuality<http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/women-who-stray/201007/cutting-your-vagina-spite-your-facebook>
*, while pages that joke about and encourage raping women and girls rack up
the likes.

Not to mention - a petition, and two months, and a whole lotta common sense
about doing the right thing with over-the-top troll pages? Just how
incompetently *can* you run your product, Facebook? *Very*, apparently.

Unless they can make clear rules and follow them, with the potential to
impact and harm the culture it pretends to serve, I think Facebook is going
to have to be forced into being a responsible internet citizen.

I don’t know what that looks like, but it can’t happen soon enough. Until
then, get me a whip.
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