This isn’t a post about either removal of extremism in general, or censorship. It’s about a particular case where, I hope, facebook will very quickly see sense and remove the offending material. Warning: This post discusses an unpleasant post on facebook regarding martial rape. ——————# The post Today, I twice reported this post (WARNING this image is very unpleasant https://www.facebook.com/MasculinistIndia/photos/a.1387066991536538.1073741827.1386626011580636/1450882385154998 ) using the facebook ‘report’ button, and on both occasions very quickly I received notification that the image had not been removed, and I should contact the group owner to ask them to remove it. To describe the material: The text underneath reads “If a wife fails to emotionally and sexual satisfy her husband,she is an utter failure as she does not serve the purpose of living in this world” and then gives a news story from India (which can be seen here – I note the grossly inappropriate cartoon image used here too) The text of the image reads: “Forced intercourse in marriage not rape” with a clip from a newspaper “A Delhi court has acquitted a man accused of raping his wife, stating that forced intercourse with a woman does not amount to rape if she is married to the accused. The parties being husband and wife, the sexual intercourse between the two does not come within the ambit of the offence of rape, even if the same was against the will and consent of the victim” additional sessions judge Virender Bhat said while acquitting Vikash who was charged with raping his wife. Underneath this, in large text it reads “Win for the masculinists”, underneath which appear the bloody fingers in a V sign. The footer of the image reads “If a wife can’t emotionally and sexually satisfy her husband, what is she good for? Would you ever marry a women like her?”. The Facebook logo appears embedded in the image with a ‘share’ on it (likely a breach of trademark agreements which you’d think would be an easy ‘out’ for facebook to just take it down). No doubt there are bigger issues here (equality in India and issues of sexual violence specifically). However, giving space for this sort of content on Facebook legitimises those views. The specific format of this content in particular glorifies and promotes violence, and denigrates women. The view itself is abhorrent enough, but the image and text given here is without a doubt beyond the standards of acceptability.# Reporting to facebook Facebook has community standards here Facebook makes this pretty difficult to find this, but it is possible to report issues without an account, and this gives you reign for free-text (obviously I had to say I didn’t have an account to do this). See:# Reporting this case I started writing the below, and hit a word limit, so I had to cut it down (and in fact, I had to make it even shorter to copy it over to facebook – not reassuring given I wanted to refer to their own specific standards). With regard to the community guidelines, the post: 1) Violence and Threats – actively promotes violence against women. 2) Hate speech – is hate speech, attacking a group (and promoting violence against them) based on their gender or sex 3) Graphic Content – “graphic images shared for sadistic effect or to celebrate or glorify violence have no place on our site.”, the image depicts someone with bloody fingers in the context of rape. This is a sadistic image, glorifying violence in the context of marriage. The view itself is abhorrent enough, but the image and text given here is without a doubt beyond the standards of acceptability. As above, there are certainly bigger issues here (equality in India and issues of sexual violence specifically). However, giving space for this sort of content on Facebook legitimises those views. The specific format of this content in particular glorifies and promotes violence, and denigrates women.# Facebook – how are you responding? I’m also surprised at just how hard it is to report things to facebook. 1. Most organisations I’d go via twitter, but facebook doesn’t really do that. I can’t see any official groups, etc. (and in any case, many people would want to report privately), and it took me (and I’m fairly savvy about finding such things) quite a long time to find the ‘contact form’ route, rather than just the ‘report click button’ route. 2. I’m also baffled at the speed of reply on those click buttons, if someone is looking at them, it must have been a cursory glance. 3. The fact that there’s no space to give a text-description, to draw attention to the offending features is also a big problem, it isn’t that I think it needs big explanation here (where I can imagine some people saying ‘well, if it’s not obvious then it’s not a violation’ – although this is obviously problematic), but at first glance it isn’t necessarily as actively violent, sadistic, and hateful (and I say that to mean “if an admin was viewing things for a second at a time to decide, they might not realise it immediately” – it IS pretty obvious). 4. The labels for many of the complaints also require far too much knowledge on the part of the end user (particularly given they clearly aren’t following their own community guidance). For example ‘something on facebook violates my rights’ might be an obvious choice of complaint here, but actually I think this refers to intellectual property rights, not to my human rights. 5. There’s no indication of why material isn’t seen to be against the community policy, nor a way to follow up on refusals to take material down. This is the sort of thing organisations who use facebook for customer relations must do, it is deeply disturbing that facebook doesn’t appear to engage at all. I note [this quote]1 > “People are sharing this video on Facebook to condemn it. If the video were being celebrated, or the actions in it encouraged, our approach would be different.” regarding the posting of beheading videos. Well, Facebook, this is definitely the celebration, and encouraging of violence – show your different approach. I can also see [this]2 comment from facebook regarding hate speech, and this [change.org petition re: sexual violence on facebook]3, I’m sure there are various other issues at stake here, but eurgh. # Update: 06/06/2014
History
-
You reported Masculinist India’s photo for harassment.
Status This photo was removed Details - Thank you for taking the time to report something that you feel may violate our Community Standards. Reports like yours are an important part of making Facebook a safe and welcoming environment. The account that posted this is no longer on Facebook, and so we can’t review it for violation of our Community Standards. If the account is restored, this post might reappear. If this happens, please report it again.
Report Date Today Owner Masculinist India Reason Harassment -
You reported Masculinist India’s photo for containing graphic violence.
Status This photo was removed Details - Thank you for taking the time to report something that you feel may violate our Community Standards. Reports like yours are an important part of making Facebook a safe and welcoming environment. The account that posted this is no longer on Facebook, and so we can’t review it for violation of our Community Standards. If the account is restored, this post might reappear. If this happens, please report it again.
Report Date Today Owner Masculinist India Reason Graphic Violence -
You reported Masculinist India for harassment.
Status This page wasn’t removed Details - Thank you for taking the time to report something that you feel may
violate our Community Standards. Reports like yours are an important
part of making Facebook a safe and welcoming environment. We reviewed
the page you reported for harassment and found it doesn’t violate our Community Standards.
Note: If you have an issue with something on the Page, make sure you report the content (e.g. a photo), not the entire Page. That way, your report will be more accurately reviewed.
Report Date 13 May Owner Masculinist India Reason Harassment - Thank you for taking the time to report something that you feel may
violate our Community Standards. Reports like yours are an important
part of making Facebook a safe and welcoming environment. We reviewed
the page you reported for harassment and found it doesn’t violate our Community Standards.
