Facebook Rape Pages

A new (or perhaps not-so-new) Facebook phenomenon came to my attention when I read an essay recently published by the marvelous Eve Ensler in the Huffington Post: Facebook rape pages. I, as you perhaps are, was baffled by what this could possibly be and needed to learn more.

As seen in The Telegraph on Oct. 16, 2011

It turns out that there exists on Facebook a shockingly large collection of pages that Facebook members can “like” that glorify horrific acts of violence against women. While this is not the only issue that has elicited pages on Facebook that promote hateful messages, this is the one that I would like to explore right now, an issue that is particularly poignant for me and in my line of work. (Feel free to bring up others if you wish.)

For example, until recently, one was able to “Like” the Facebook page What’s 10 inches and gets girls to have sex with me? My knife. Or perhaps one might “Like” the page You know she's playing hard to get when your chasing her down an alleyway (as shown here). One more to more fully paint the picture… Wiping makeup off your shoe after a long day of kicking sluts in the face.

After weeks of protest and petitioning, Change.org was able to convince Facebook authorities that this cannot be considered “just a joke” as they had been claiming and that removing these pages is imperative in order to adhere to their own Safety Rule #7 that states “Your will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence” and to maintain a safe Facebook environment. Only some of the pages were removed as a result.

Let's count the ways that this rule is violated by the three page titles listed above, and the many others that are STILL ACTIVE on Facebook. (An interesting activity: for every violation you find, recruit another person to sign the petition to eradicate this content from Facebook.)

And what of free speech, one might ask? Good question, with a simple answer—on Facebook, we don’t have it. Facebook is a private domain with set Terms of Use that we all agreed to upon initiation of our beloved Facebook accounts. Facebook upholds the right to edit content that it deems inappropriate or harmful. And we say, Facebook, this is your moment to take a stand.

These pages have collectively accumulated hundreds of thousands of “Likes” on Facebook, an abhorrent display of socially destructive and oppressive “humor”. For many weeks, Facebook executives defended their decision to let these pages remain live on Facebook claiming that an offensive statement to one person may be just a joke to another and equated it to telling a dirty joke in a pub.

Well, Facebook, and the rest of the world, this is simply not funny. Heedlessly publicizing, joking, and “liking” acts of violence against women, and diminutive and sexually repressive language is promulgating the culture of violence that we live in. Unfortunately, many of us have learned to tolerate these types of “jokes” for the sake of not causing a ruckus or drawing attention to our own offense, and this has come at no small cost.

Friends, the way that we “joke” about an issue is a reflection of the way that society at large views that issue; and subtle as a joke may be (or perhaps not), it reinforces and in a way condones an action or a viewpoint.

After all, you never know for whom these “jokes” are a reality.