"On Facebook, hating a religious or ethnic minority gets you banned, but hating half of humanity

[redqueen]

gets you Likes."

An Open Letter to Facebook

We, the undersigned, are writing to demand swift, comprehensive and effective action addressing the representation of rape and domestic violence on Facebook. Specifically, we call on you, Facebook, to take three actions:

1. Recognize speech that trivializes or glorifies violence against girls and women as hate speech and make a commitment that you will not tolerate this content.
2. Effectively train moderators to recognize and remove gender-based hate speech.
3. Effectively train moderators to understand how online harassment differently affects women and men, in part due to the real-world pandemic of violence against women.

To this end, we are calling on Facebook users to contact advertisers whose ads on Facebook appear next to content that targets women for violence, to ask these companies to withdraw from advertising on Facebook until you take the above actions to ban gender-based hate speech on your site.

Specifically, we are referring to groups, pages and images that explicitly condone or encourage rape or domestic violence or suggest that they are something to laugh or boast about. Pages currently appearing on Facebook include Fly Kicking Sluts in the Uterus, Kicking your Girlfriend in the Fanny because she won't make you a Sandwich, Violently Raping Your Friend Just for Laughs, Raping your Girlfriend and many, many more. Images appearing on Facebook include photographs of women beaten, bruised, tied up, drugged, and bleeding, with captions such as "This bitch didn't know when to shut up" and "Next time don't get pregnant."

These pages and images are approved by your moderators, while you regularly remove content such as pictures of women breastfeeding, women post-mastectomy and artistic representations of women's bodies. In addition, women's political speech, involving the use of their bodies in non-sexualized ways for protest, is regularly banned as pornographic, while pornographic content - prohibited by your own guidelines - remains. It appears that Facebook considers violence against women to be less offensive than non-violent images of women's bodies, and that the only acceptable representation of women's nudity are those in which women appear as sex objects or the victims of abuse. Your common practice of allowing this content by appending a (humor) disclaimer to said content literally treats violence targeting women as a joke.

...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/an-open-letter-to-faceboo_1_b_3307394.html

Facebook has long allowed content endorsing violence against women. They claim that these pages fall under the “humor” part of their guidelines, or are expressions of “free speech.” But Facebook has proven willing to crack down on other forms of hate speech, including anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and homophobic speech, without claiming such exemptions.

That’s why we’re calling on Facebook to make the only responsible decision and ban gender-based hate speech. Can you help?

Below are five prominent companies whose Facebook ads have appeared alongside violent, hateful content. Will you join us in asking them to stop advertising on Facebook until Facebook takes real action to end gender-based hate speech on its site?

...

Feel free to also contact other companies whose ads you’ve seen on pages that promote violence against women! Use the hashtag #FBrape if you’re on Twitter. Please also send examples of offending pages, along with the actions you’ve taken to hold Facebook and its advertisers accountable, to [e-mail].

Take action to end gender-based hate speech on Facebook: http://www.womenactionmedia.org/facebookaction/

[niyad]

1. k and r

[secondwind]

2. HUGE K & R

[Scuba]

3. One of many good reasons to hate facebook.

[MadrasT]

4. I just recalled

Last edited Wed May 22, 2013, 07:22 AM - Edit history (1)

that Faceook started as Facemash - the sole purpose of which was to rate girls on campus as "hot or not"

From that seed grew this mighty mess

[JTFrog]

6. "But one thing is certain, and it’s that I’m a jerk for making this site. Oh well...

"But one thing is certain, and it’s that I’m a jerk for making this site. Oh well. Someone had to do it eventually..." Mark Zuckerberg

"Oh well." That's the only reaction I expect fb to have to the petition, but I just made a donation to WAM. I don't do twitter, but I plan on contacting some advertisers as well.

[ismnotwasm]

5. Facebook doesn't give a shit

Women hating is big profit, still, no reason not sign the petition.

[MadrasT]

7. Campaign Wins & Updates

American Express



FinnAir



ZipCar



More at link: http://www.womenactionmedia.org/facebookaction/campaign-wins-updates/

[redqueen]

8. Thanks.

Hopefully the successes that Miss Representation has had with their #notbuyingit campaign, and Powered By Girls had with the anti-sexified Merida campaign have made more women more likely to speak up.

[cprise]

9. K&R