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

[Sharon Haywood]

FINALLY! Thanks for sharing, Joanna!

On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 8:25 PM, Joanna Chiu <chiu.joanna5 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wamvan mailing list
> Wamvan at lists.resist.ca
> https://lists.resist.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/wamvan
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/wamvan/attachments/20111107/6d12f6cc/attachment.html>