Facebook Sexism Campaign Attracts Thousands Online

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**Dreadclaw69**

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22689522

Thousands of protesters are demanding tougher action from Facebook over posts that they say degrade women.

More than 50,000 have tweeted in support of the FBrape campaign and around 5,000 have emailed brands whose advertising appears around the content.

The campaign focuses on content that portrays rape and violence against women positively. Facebook has removed many examples already.

A separate petition online has gathered more than 220,000 signatures.

The new campaign has been organised by 40 women's groups and individuals, including US-based Women, Action and the Media (WAM) and the Everyday Sexism project, a UK-based Twitter feed that encourages women to share incidences of perceived sexism.

In an open letter to the social media giant, the groups demand "swift, comprehensive and effective action addressing the representation of rape and domestic violence on Facebook" and say they are also asking Facebook users to contact companies whose adverts appear around the offending content.

Sky, American Express and Dove beauty products are among the brands affected.

The letter also lists examples of material that the group feels is unacceptable.

They include Facebook groups with titles such as "This is why Indian girls get raped" and individual uploads of graphic photographs showing abused women.

One image of a woman lying at the foot of a flight of stairs is captioned "Next time, don't get pregnant".

'Target people's interests'

Dove, a brand owned by Unilever, said it was "most upset" by the images, but both the brand and Facebook said the examples given had since been removed from the site.

"Dove takes this issue very seriously and does not condone any activity that intentionally insults any audience," said global communications director Stacie Bright.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
I don't think you can use the smokescreen of free speech when you take down other images which are often of women's bodies”
End Quote
Laura Bates

Founder, Everyday Sexism
"We are working to refine our targeting terms in case any further pages like these are created. Facebook advertising targets people's interests, not pages, and we do not select the pages our adverts appear on."

Both Ms Bright and a spokesperson for Facebook told the BBC that the examples mentioned in the letter had now been removed from the site.

"There is no place on Facebook for hate speech or content that is threatening, or incites violence, and we will not tolerate material deemed to be genuinely or directly harmful," said Facebook in a statement.

"We try to react quickly to remove reported language or images that violate our terms and we try to make it very easy for people to report questionable content using links located throughout the site."

The company added, however, that not all material that some users might consider to be "vulgar and distasteful" actually violated its policies.

Sheer frustration

Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism project, told the BBC the campaign had been born out of "sheer frustration" from a large number women who had tried to complain about the material and had then contacted her.

"Obviously it's difficult to moderate a platform with one billion users but it is disproportionately affecting women," she said.

"Facebook does crack down on issues like anti-Semitism and has been praised for it but when they see images of women being raped they don't consider that to be a form of hate speech.

"A lot of women are saying it's preventing them from using Facebook."

The social network has previously been taken to task for removing pictures of women breastfeeding infants and displaying their chests after mastectomy operations, she added.

"I don't think you can use the smokescreen of free speech when you take down other images which are often of women's bodies," said Ms Bates.

She also said that the groups and Facebook were "in communication" and both were hoping for a resolution as soon as possible.

**Ahtman**

They include Facebook groups with titles such as "This is why Indian girls get raped" and individual uploads of graphic photographs showing abused women.

One image of a woman lying at the foot of a flight of stairs is captioned "Next time, don't get pregnant".

What
The
feth

**notprop**

I'm not sure why this requires a campaign?

It seems like a massive failure by Facebook to monitor its content. Granted there will be a lag between posting, moderation and removal but to allow it to get to levels were group albeit small (5000 in a global context) is piss poor.

Is there not some sort of US department that regulates (probably the wrong word) media corporations?

**LuciusAR**

A collection of professional grievance mongers who go out of their way to find things to take offense at. Groups like 'everyday sexism' are basically the 21st century Mary Whitehouse's, except they dress up their censorious and illiberal agenda in flowery progressive language to make it seem palatable.

These people are best ignored imho.

**Some_Call_Me_Tim?**

notprop wrote:
I'm not sure why this requires a campaign?

It seems like a massive failure by Facebook to monitor its content. Granted there will be a lag between posting, moderation and removal but to allow it to get to levels were group albeit small (5000 in a global context) is piss poor.

Is there not some sort of US department that regulates (probably the wrong word) media corporations?

Not like there is in England. Buncha' Socialists, can't leave your media alone...

~Tim?

**Sigvatr**

So instead of just reporting posts, they decide to go super-drama on it.

Cool, how unexpected.

Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism project:

"Obviously it's difficult to moderate a platform with one billion users but it is disproportionately affecting women," she said.

"Facebook does crack down on issues like anti-Semitism and has been praised for it but when they see images of women being raped they don't consider that to be a form of hate speech.

"A lot of women are saying it's preventing them from using Facebook."

To sum it up, she refers to data she doesn't have, implies things she doesn't know about and makes claims she can't back up either. I sure take her seriously!

**LuciusAR**

"Facebook does crack down on issues like anti-Semitism and has been praised for it but when they see images of women being raped they don't consider that to be a form of hate speech.

My hyperbolic bs detector is going off. What, actual images of rape? I doubt the likes of Sickipedia are posting extreme porn on their pages. If they are then I've not seen it.

**notprop**

Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:
notprop wrote:
I'm not sure why this requires a campaign?

It seems like a massive failure by Facebook to monitor its content. Granted there will be a lag between posting, moderation and removal but to allow it to get to levels were group albeit small (5000 in a global context) is piss poor.

Is there not some sort of US department that regulates (probably the wrong word) media corporations?

Not like there is in England. Buncha' Socialists, can't leave your media alone...

~Tim?

Whaaaa?

There'll never be an irradiated Mega City One if you fellers don't start ramping up the police state stuff.

C'mon get those Jackboots on. For Feminism!!

**Steve steveson**

Seems to me like they are complaining that stuff gets on to facebook and takes a little while to be removed. I'm not sure what they expect but it seems like they have a politicians understanding of the Internet and are attacking a symptom rather than the cause.

Also, all this offending content people claim to see, I have never seen any of it. I have also never looked, but I can't help thinking that some people need to start looking at there own friends rather than expecting someone else to do it. Its probably because I only have about 30 FB "friends" all of whom I know personally and see often. If you invite 300 people to show you every little think they find funny expect some of them to be dicks.

**Sigvatr**

Steve steveson wrote:

Also, all this offending content people claim to see, I have never seen any of it.

You obviously aren't a woman then!

**Steve steveson**

I'm not just talking about sexist content but also the claims of other nastiness that go around in the papers and on line from time to time.

I'm not saying its not there, I'm sure it is. I just think the biggest problem is that people want facebook to protect them rather than having to explain to someone you hardly know that you find what they are posting offensive if you ever meet them, and they realize you are missing from there 500 "friends"

**Sigvatr**

I was just kidding, referring to the broad and downright bs over-generalization in the article

The women doing this (and, really 50 women? FIFTY? Now that's a huge movement! Woah! Call the police!) simply have no idea how the internet works. They expect immediate erasure of anything offensive - which is just impossible to do. Period. The report function works very well, it just takes some time. What their "movement" tries to do is stopping leg hair to grow by shaving every now and then. The uploader will ALWAYS be faster than the one deleting offensive images, yet the only useful thing you can do is report the posts and wait for action to take place.

Plus: in...uh...6-ish years of using Facebook, I didn't see ONE offensive image. NOT ONE. Yes, you occasionally get idiots sending pictures of their dick to female profiles; it happens. Report, even sue them if you want to and delete the image, problem's done.

And really, if you claim that some women "cannot use the internet" because of such issues...really? -_- ''

**LuciusAR**

The thing is that you have to be a member of these groups to have this stuff posted on your timeline, so I can only assume they went out their way to seek these pages out and then ‘liked’ them.

The pages are basically private domains within Facebook. This is the equivalent of Feminists complaining about the contents of nudie mag, when the only way they could possibly even see the magazine is to pick it up and open it. They didn’t have to read it in the first place doesn’t even occur to them.

In fact there was a stort about a feminist group trying to get men’s magazines pulled from the shelves of Newsagents in the UK recently on the grounds they think that it may amount to sex discrimination and sexual harassment contrary to the Equality Act 2010.

Honestly what goes through these busybodies heads? A more utterly petty misinterpretation of legislation I don't think I've ever seen.

**Steve steveson**

LuciusAR wrote:

In fact there was a stort about a feminist group trying to get men’s magazines pulled from the shelves of Newsagents in the UK recently on the grounds they think that it may amount to sex discrimination and sexual harassment contrary to the Equality Act 2010.

Honestly what goes through these busybodies heads? A more utterly petty misinterpretation of legislation I don't think I've ever seen.

Ye. My wifes reaction to that was "WTF? Have they not seen the men in womens magazines?"

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sigvatr wrote:
I was just kidding, referring to the broad and downright bs over-generalization in the article

I know

I was just adding as I realized with your comment some people might read something in to what I was saying that was not there.

**Fezman**

Call me draconian, but I have the read the letter linked to in the BBC article and all the groups named in it sound like they deserve the banhammer. Facebook need to look at these complaints on a case-by-case basis and apply a little common sense, which seems to me to be the gist of the demands in the letter.

Recently someone on my friends list shared someone's picture showing a flayed human foot that was used as an excuse to get on their high horse about why motorcyclists should wear leathers. That should have been taken off IMO, because it too was sickening. Facebook previously dragged its feet over over taking down videos of people having their heads cut off. That stuff deserved to be taken down too. If these examples make me sound harsh, so be it. Don't go thinking I'm some opponent of free speech, because I'm clearly talking about content that is obviously grotesque. Posting a picture like the "don't get pregnant" one in the OP then acting wounded when someone calls you out on it is just disingenuous.

**Steve steveson**

I don't think anyone is saying they shouldn't be banned and stuff shouldn't be pulled down, just that it seems this group seems to be expecting facebook to do something to stop this stuff getting up or to take it down instantly.

They just don't understand how facebook or the internet works.

To quote the letter as proof:

"These pages and images are approved by your moderators"... They think FB moderates and pre-approves images and groups. They are confusing group mods with facebook employees.

**Mr Hyena**

Will this remove all sexism? or just sexism directed towards woman? Probably the latter most likely...

**Melissia**

This is utterly disgusting. Not just facebook's failure to keep rape proponents from advocating hate, but the posts in this thread, too.

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

As long as there's a report button and pictures found to be inappropriate are removed, I don't see the problem.

Do they want Facebook to hire a huge collection of staff to approve every single picture and post?

**Sigvatr**

Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
As long as there's a report button and pictures found to be inappropriate are removed, I don't see the problem.

Do they want Facebook to hire a huge collection of staff to approve every single picture and post?

It's just short-sighted wishlisting. I guess that all of us can agree that such content has no place and doesn't belong on facebook - the difference is that we know how the system and its counter-measures work whereas those people don't.

**MetalOxide**

I have been offended by something on the internet... now I must go on a righteous crusade because the world is clearly against me - idiot logic

Well, there are a handful of lonely trolls and idiots trying to stir things up with controversial comments... I'll just report/block them and move on with my life - logic

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

I just want to try and feel the kind of offense these people do, as I have never really been offended at anything

**Melissia**

Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
I just want to try and feel the kind of offense these people do, as I have never really been offended at anything

So you don't find people advocating gangrape to be offensive?

**MetalOxide**

Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
I just want to try and feel the kind of offense these people do, as I have never really been offended at anything

I have not really been offended by anything either.

**Super Ready**

Talk about idiocy in reporting. Sure, there's an issue here, and one that is well worth Facebook looking closer at. But it has *NOTHING* to do with advertisements.

Let me provide an analogy. McDonald's put up an advert using a billboard on top of a particular building in a city. Later it's discovered that that building was used as a staging ground for gang-rapes. As a result, McDonald's takes down the advert.

1) is McDonald's at fault?
2) is it fair for McDonald's to be associated with the crimes committed inside that building?
3) how stupid would you have to be to create a news story on the building... and centre the story around the advert?!

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

Melissia wrote:
Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
I just want to try and feel the kind of offense these people do, as I have never really been offended at anything
So you don't find people advocating gangrape to be offensive?

Not personally. Do I think it's wrong? Yep. Do I get mad or hurt? Nope

**Melissia**

MetalOxide wrote:
Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
I just want to try and feel the kind of offense these people do, as I have never really been offended at anything
I have not really been offended by anything either.

Both of you are lying to yourselves to try to make yourselves feel better.

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

Melissia wrote:
MetalOxide wrote:
Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
I just want to try and feel the kind of offense these people do, as I have never really been offended at anything
I have not really been offended by anything either.
Both of you are lying to yourselves to try to make yourselves feel better.

Okay, I'd like to see you prove myself wrong?

**Melissia**

Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Not personally. Do I think it's wrong? Yep.

Then you're offended by it.

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

Interesting. Maybe in my head offended implies a more passionate reaction