Sunday, June 2, 2013

Facebook Oops

     Facebook is in the headlines again, and it isn’t pretty.  In a recent open letter to Facebook, two activist groups – with the support of over one-hundred organizations – criticized the social network for its lack of judgement in adhering to its own community content policies and procedures.  The two groups, Women, Action, & the Media and The Everyday Sexism Project, accused Facebook of not recognizing gender-based hate speech as an act of violence against women.  Thousands of users reported gender-based material to Facebook review teams that should have been removed due to violent content, but Facebook declined these requests, sparking this Open Letter campaign.  In seven days, the campaign convinced thousands of users, including major advertisers, to boycott the social media site.  Facebook now acknowledges that there is a lack of process in terms of its review policies and they intend to implement stricter enforcement in the future. 

          It is truly disturbing; the reports that some users describe is a form of despicable behavior and is really misogynistic.  I believe that there are some major deficiencies in the enforcement of Facebook’s violent content policies.  But what truly make me wonder is what were they thinking???  FB would remove educational pictures of female anatomy (somebody reported that???!?) but would leave videos and pictures of women being raped or assaulted, or even worse, raped and beheaded.  If that is not gender-based hatred against women, I don’t know what is.  

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