Being Feminist Warned by Facebook

Being Feminist received a warning yesterday for a post that was posted on their page.  The screenshot is below.

Interesting Response to last FB article

I beg to differ: "Written words, memes, and photos advocating violence against disabled people: Hate speech, harmful and will deleted."

WRONG. My daughter was tormented and abused terribly on facebook for having autism by her father's livein lover. Facebook's solution?

Leave the abuse up on facebook, ban my daughter's account and tell me not to let her use mine to view it. AFTER being told that the disgusting perpetrator is blocked by me so my daughter can't see the abuse even if she used my account - that it was her FATHER allowing her to view the abuse, as well as members of his family were not only showing my daughter the horrible things being said about her disability, but were joining in mocking my poor girl.

Facebook does not protect the disabled. They leave up terribly foul abusive and threatening things said to disabled people.

Facebook also encourages abuse of certain religious groups. The problem is facebook has a culture of attack the victim and defend the perpetrator on a LOT of issues. Not just rape.

I totally agree with you facebook has a disgusting view on rape, but they aren't any better with disability and religion.

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/12/is-rape-essentially-legal-trigger-warning/

A Man Speaks up about Trolls!!

http://www.upworthy.com/nailed-it-if-youre-a-dude-on-the-internet-you-need-to-see-this-video?g=2&c=ufb1

Is Rape, Essentially, Legal? {Trigger Warning}

Something is intrinsically wrong with our world when the value of women is so low.

Not only do women have to worry about the never-ending potential for being raped. They also have to endure this potential threat as humorous.

Susie Orbach, psychotherapist, psychoanalyst and writer, stated: “The threat of sexual violence is a violence itself, it’s a complete violation and it’s meant to shut the people up…Rape is different to the threat of rape but nevertheless it’s a very, very serious and threatening experience.”

The fact that these types of pages, pictures and comments are allowed to exist in large quantity on mainstream social media is telling. If we do not prosecute or penalize rape itself, how can we ever hope to remove social media that propagates rape?


http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/12/is-rape-essentially-legal-trigger-warning/

Sexist Humor No Laughing Matter, Psychologist Says

"The research indicates that people should be aware of the prevalence of disparaging humor in popular culture, and that the guise of benign amusement or “it’s just a joke” gives it the potential to be a powerful and widespread force that can legitimize prejudice in our society, he said."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071106083038.htm

The actual study can be found here:

http://mensantiviolencecouncil.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/sexist-humor.pdf

"A thousand bawdy, or even blasphemous, jokes do not help towards a man’s damnation so much as his discovery that almost anything he wants to do can be done, not only without disapproval but with the admiration of his fellows, if only it can get itself treated as a joke." —C. S. Lewis (1942)

"Sexist humor—the denigration of women through humor—for instance, trivializes sex discrimination under the veil of benign amusement, thus precluding challenges or opposition that nonhumorous sexist communication would likely incur."

"...sexist humor is not simply benign amusement, that it can affect men’s perception of the immediate social context and thus promote behavioral expressions of sexism without fears of disapproval of their “fellows.” Specifically, we propose that sexist humor acts as a “releaser” of prejudice, that is, for men who have antagonistic attitudes toward women, sexist humor allows them to express their sexism by replacing the usual nonsexist norms in a situation with a norm of tolerance of sex discrimination. Sexist humor essentially justifies a wider range of negative responses toward women. In this climate tolerant of derision, sexist behavior can be more easily justified as falling within the bounds of social acceptability."

SPECIAL REPORT: Evidence Against Facebook is Growing

"Dear Mr. Zuckerberg:

The time has come for you to take a stand and do the right thing.

We, the people of nations all over the world, demand the immediate end of all child pornography on Facebook. At this very moment there are thousands of profiles exhibiting and sharing explicit photographs and videos of children on the website you created. This must never be allowed to happen ever again.

We know you are aware of these crimes taking place on Facebook and that you do not want this to continue. We insist that you take whatever steps necessary to prevent these criminals from using your website as their dark playground.

Our resolve is growing. We will not cease in our efforts to rid your website of the kind of child abuse. Our singular goal is to see you personally oversee the effort to prevent this exploitation from appearing on Facebook. Be assured we are dedicated to this cause and will see it through until all children and families are safe.

Respectfully,
United Facebook Citizens of the World"

http://www.causes.com/causes/580526-force-facebook-to-block-all-child-pornography/actions/1711784

Facebook's Rape Pages

Dear Fred,

My honest reaction to your belief that a page like “It’s NOT rape, simply free sex” deserves freedom of speech is: horrified.

This is magnified by the fact that many feminist pages and breast feeding images are being censored, taken down and/or suspended while these pro-rape pages are allowed to stay up despite hundreds of reports. This is quite hypocritical and seems to be coming from a place of deep denial about what is actually going on here: Facebook’ penchant for favoring rape culture over women's empowerment.

Apparently, Facebook's policies can be summarized as the following:

Written words, memes and photos advocating violence against minorities:  Hate speech, harmful and will be deleted.

Written words, memes, and photos advocating violence against disabled people:  Hate speech, harmful and will deleted.

Written words, memes, and photos advocating violence against immigrants:  Hate speech, harmful and will be deleted. 

Written words, memes, and photos advocating violence against animals:  Hate speech, harmful and will be deleted.

Written words, memes and photos advocating violence against people of different religions:  Hate speech, harmful and will be deleted.

Written words, memes and photos advocating violence against people who are gay and transgender:  Hate speech, harmful and will be deleted.

Written words, memes and photos advocating violence against women:  Free speech, not harmful and will be enabled, supported and defended in every way possible while hiding behind the First Amendment. 

Facebook's "rape pages" violate their own terms of agreement because they organize or lead to real world violence by contributing to rape culture.  Facebook's rape pages are propaganda, which desensitize people to sexual violence and diminish its impact in the real world. 

Propaganda does have an impact on attitudes and behavior. 

It's hypocritical to delete pages that pertain to sexual violence towards children, but support and defend pages that pertain to sexual violence towards women. 

By your own admission, women are a protected category of people because of the inclusion of "gender" in the following statement:  "We interpret hateful content to mean direct attacks on any protected category of people (based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or disease)."  Facebook's rape pages attack a protected group—women.

It's true that rape can happen to both men and women. However, Facebook's rape pages aren't about the rape of men; they predominantly focus their attention on the rape of women.  Moreover, only 3% of rape victims are men, so rape disproportionately affects women.

Why are pages about sexual violence towards children deleted, but pages about sexual violence towards women supported and defended? Isn't sexual violence towards women just as wrong as sexual violence towards children? 

I assume that you are deleting pages that advocate sexual violence against children because they represent a direct threat of harm to children.  Why is sexual violence towards children not considered protected speech and considered to be a direct threat of harm, but sexual violence towards women is “humor “and protected speech and not a direct threat of harm?  Isn't sexual violence of any kind a crime,  no matter who the victim is? 

Why is one less of a "direct threat to harm" than the other?   Facebook is not applying its policies consistently. If you came across a Facebook page that advocated  slipping roofies into the drinks of toddlers to make it easier to rape them, and made a bunch of jokes about raping children, you would not ask them to insert a (Controversial Humor) disclaimer in their title.  You would delete the page.  But when you come across a page that advocates doing the same exact things to women, you will enable, support and defend that page while proudly proclaiming that everyone has the right to free speech, as long as they are advocating violence against women and not anyone else. 

You cited the fact that comedians have had rape jokes in the past, using that precedent as a justification for maintaining and enabling rape pages on Facebook.  However, there is also a precedent for rape jokes being removed from the internet, also.  Here's a good example of an online organization self-censoring "rape jokes" in response to public protest.  http://www.theweek.co.uk/uk-news/44930/twitter-fury-over-surprise-rape-article-gets-unilad-suspended

You might check out RAINN-  the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network.  None of the organizations you mentioned focus on helping rape victims.  RAINN is one of the largest organizations providing support to rape victims.   http://www.rainn.org

Marne Levine writes, "We strive to provide a platform where people can share, connect, and express themselves freely, while still respecting the rights of others."  Do you really believe that Facebook's rape pages are respecting the rights of others? 

If you do, then I strongly urge you take some time to reconsider and re-evaluate what it really means to respect the rights of others.  Take all the time you need, because women deserve better than this. We all deserve better than this.  

This response was written collaboratively by a group of women, representing hundreds and thousands of Facebook users from around the world who feel the same way about misogyny on Facebook.

Our Fight with Facebook is not New, It's Old, It just Has not CHANGED

This is an older piece but this issue with Facebook certainly is not new....

"Eve Ensler, over at the Huffington Post, includes the Facebook rape page campaign as part of a piece entitled ‘Over it’:

Eve Ensler, over at the Huffington Post, includes the Facebook rape page campaign as part of a piece entitled ‘Over it’:

I am over rape.

I am over rape culture, rape mentality, rape pages on Facebook.

I am over the thousands of people who signed those pages with their real names without shame.

I am over people demanding their right to rape pages, and calling it freedom of speech or justifying it as a joke.

I am over people not understanding that rape is not a joke and I am over being told I don’t have a sense of humor, and women don’t have a sense of humor, when most women I know (and I know a lot) are really fucking funny. We just don’t think that uninvited penises up our anus, or our vagina is a laugh riot.

I am over how long it seems to take anyone to ever respond to rape.

I am over Facebook taking weeks to take down rape pages.

Ensler goes on to cite the plight of thousands of women in Congo, Bosnia, Burma, Pakistan, South Africa, Guatemala, Sierra Leone, Haiti, Afghanistan, Libya, ‘still waiting for their rapists to be held accountable’; the torture of lesbians in Ecuador, the women in the US military getting raped by their colleagues and many other instances, and states:

We need to OCCUPYRAPE in every school, park, radio, TV station, household, office, factory, refugee camp, military base, back room, night club, alleyway, courtroom, UN office.

We need people to truly try and imagine — once and for all — what it feels like to have your body invaded, your mind splintered, your soul shattered. We need to let our rage and our compassion connect us so we can change the paradigm of global rape.”

  http://www.womensviewsonnews.org/2011/11/facebook-rape-page-campaign-pages-can-stay-if-they-have-humorous’-tag/