Summary:
A series of pro-rape pages, full of ugliness, aggression and pornographic language began multiplying on Facebook in 2012, drawing user traffic to the social networking site. This led to activists and victim support groups in Britain and America, where Facebook is based, urging the social network to take down these pages.
Allegations:
- Rape Is No Joke (RINJ), a group opposing the pages, argued that removing "pro-rape" pages from Facebook and other social media was not a violation of free speech in the context of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the concepts recognised in international human rights law in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
- The RINJ co-founder Micheal O'Brien accused Facebook of ignoring the online petition by 2,00,000 people worldwide to remove these pages. The campaign also claimed that these pages were maintained and supported by Australian college students and British teenage boys with links to the cyber-anarchists group 4chan.
- The campaign also forced Facebook to remove advertising from the after media pressure led to advertisers asking Facebook to take down their ads being displayed on these pages next to 'rape jokes'.
- Another campaign led by Women, Action and the Media, the Everyday Sexism Project and the activist Soraya Chemaly also added pressure on the social network giant to remove such "pro-rape" content.
Defence:
- Facebook's initial response was to rebuff the outcry over these pages and said that while these pages may express "outrageous or offensive" opinions, they do not violate its rules banning content that is hateful or incites violence.
- Later, the company agreed to update its policies on hate speech to increase accountability of content creators and train staff to be more responsive to complaints. "We need to do better – and we will," it said in a statement.