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Petition facebook to remove material that promotes rape culture
Petition published by Orlagh on Aug 19, 2011
8064 Signatures 
|
Target: Facebook
Region: GLOBAL
Petition Background (Preamble):
Facebook has no option to report material regarding sexual violence and does not seem to include comments in this category as qualifying under 'hate speech'. As a result, groups containing this material can flourish. (http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/You-know-shes-playing-hard-to-get-when-your-chasing-her-down-an-alleyway/227051983998683?sk=wall).
Instances of rape are rising worldwide. Available data suggests that nearly one in four women worldwide may experience sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime (WHO, 2002). It is estimated that 1 in 6 American women are raped and 500,000 rapes are committed annually in S.Africa, where 37% of men admit to raping a woman. Conviction rates remain despicably low; eg. in Scotland the rape conviction rate is at 3%.
This is not a joke and it is not acceptable for facebook to liken these comments to ‘pub jokes’ or refer to them as legitimate entertainment, as they did in a recent statement. Facebook has previously removed images of women breastfeeding and from this we can only assume that they consider breasts to be more offensive than rape.
Facebook has user Terms and Conditions which are clearly being breached-but this has triggered no consequences for the perpetrators.
*Please sign and pass on*
Some screenshots can be seen here:
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BwgQes74oLuUMTNkMzM5ZTctODI3OS00NTFmLWExNTMtYzUxZjcyZTdjMGZj&hl=en_US
Instances of rape are rising worldwide. Available data suggests that nearly one in four women worldwide may experience sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime (WHO, 2002). It is estimated that 1 in 6 American women are raped and 500,000 rapes are committed annually in S.Africa, where 37% of men admit to raping a woman. Conviction rates remain despicably low; eg. in Scotland the rape conviction rate is at 3%.
This is not a joke and it is not acceptable for facebook to liken these comments to ‘pub jokes’ or refer to them as legitimate entertainment, as they did in a recent statement. Facebook has previously removed images of women breastfeeding and from this we can only assume that they consider breasts to be more offensive than rape.
Facebook has user Terms and Conditions which are clearly being breached-but this has triggered no consequences for the perpetrators.
*Please sign and pass on*
Some screenshots can be seen here:
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BwgQes74oLuUMTNkMzM5ZTctODI3OS00NTFmLWExNTMtYzUxZjcyZTdjMGZj&hl=en_US
Petition:
We the undersigned strongly believe that facebook should include an option to report pages and comments condoning sexual violence and remove such groups for being in breach of the user Terms and Conditions (Section 3: Safety, point 7), which specify that no hateful or threatening comments should be made.
Allowing such groups to congregate serves only to further normalise rape culture and the high instance of sexual violence that exists in society.
***Update august 2012***It would seem that instead of banning pages making light of sexual violence facebook now simply requires them to identify themselves as 'humour pages':
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Humor-You-know-shes-playing-hard-to-get-when-you-use-another-roll-of-tape/199697260086202
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Humor-You-know-shes-playing-hard-to-get-when-she-breaks-out-of-the-rope/206568269397384
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Humor-You-know-shes-playing-hard-to-get-when-you-have-run-out-of-rope/184689934932076
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Humor-You-know-shes-playing-hard-to-get-when-she-takes-out-a-restraining-order/208974482489441
Given that making light of sexual violence was the problem in the first place this is simply unacceptable. It is clear that pages for racist jokes are not tolerated in the same way-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19191595
Please continue to sign and share. I am aware that this petition has been running for a while and that there are other similar petitions. I intend to contact the authors and hopefully synchronise delivery to facebook.
Many thanks.
Allowing such groups to congregate serves only to further normalise rape culture and the high instance of sexual violence that exists in society.
***Update august 2012***It would seem that instead of banning pages making light of sexual violence facebook now simply requires them to identify themselves as 'humour pages':
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Humor-You-know-shes-playing-hard-to-get-when-you-use-another-roll-of-tape/199697260086202
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Humor-You-know-shes-playing-hard-to-get-when-she-breaks-out-of-the-rope/206568269397384
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Humor-You-know-shes-playing-hard-to-get-when-you-have-run-out-of-rope/184689934932076
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Humor-You-know-shes-playing-hard-to-get-when-she-takes-out-a-restraining-order/208974482489441
Given that making light of sexual violence was the problem in the first place this is simply unacceptable. It is clear that pages for racist jokes are not tolerated in the same way-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19191595
Please continue to sign and share. I am aware that this petition has been running for a while and that there are other similar petitions. I intend to contact the authors and hopefully synchronise delivery to facebook.
Many thanks.
The Petition facebook to remove material that promotes rape culture petition to Facebook was written by Orlagh and is in the category Media Issues at GoPetition. Contact author here. Petition tags: facebook, rape, rape culture
