Are we really doing this again, Facebook?

Remember back when it took a media shaming campaign to convince Facebook to remove a blatantly pro-human-trafficking page?

Well, it seems this time they're deliberately allowing a pro-rape image to remain on their site.

I'm not going to embed it, but it's a picture of a female doll being gang-raped by male dolls, with the caption "Bitches be like, I hang out with guys because they're less drama." It's pretty obvious, blatant, and terrible. If you want to see it, it's here, but that's your call.

And yet Facebook allows it to remain. It takes media shame to get a trafficking site removed, and now they're letting yet another rape-promoting post stay up.

The message is clear: the site doesn't care about women.

Facebook's Sex Trafficking Problem: A Follow-Up

So, the Sonagachi Facebook page has finally been removed. This is a good thing, and I'm proud to be part of the group of people who worked to have it done.

But I'm also incredibly disappointed in Facebook. Why did it take this much work to remove a page that was blatantly graphic and in promotion of human trafficking? Why was this example of violence against women not immediately recognized as a violation of their terms of service?

In light of WAM's successful campaign to get Facebook to agree to give gender-based hate speech the same treatment as homophobic, anti-Semitic, racist, Islamophobic, etc, hate speech, it seems especially appalling that it took as much effort as it did to have this removed.

Here is a brief overview of the process of reporting this page:

June 4
-My friend Liz discovered the page while doing research into the Sonagachi district for a blog post she is writing.
-She shared the page with a Facebook group that we are both members of, asking anyone who could stomach looking at the page to please report it.
-Many of us reported it as sexually graphic content.
-After a short period of time, those of us who reported it began receiving the emails saying it would not be removed (I included the language in my post last night). Many of us filled out the feedback form with some strongly-worded disagreement.
-Some of us reported it a second time, only to receive the same email, and fill out the feedback again.
-Liz wrote about the process on her own blog. Another friend, Slay Belle, wrote about it for the Powder Room section of Jezebel.
-We share these posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, sometimes tweeting at well-known feminist activists and groups who might also promote the issue.
-Emails were sent to WAM

June 5
-The Jezebel post was promoted to the first page of the site.
-More people tweeted at Nick Kristof, Anderson Cooper, and other individuals they thought might be interested in the story.
-Women's Media Center shared Liz's blog post
-Liz's post was also published on Persephone Magazine
-The Daily Dot picked up the story
-Another member of the same original Facebook group created a Change.org petition (which has been refocused to be a more general plea for the site to take trafficking pages more seriously)
-The Sonagachi fan page was removed

I repeat my question: why did it take almost a full day, dozens of reports, a social media barrage, and blog attention to get this page removed? Why was it not enough that it was full of graphic imagery and victimization of women, many of whom appear underage?

Why, despite their recent promises, does Facebook still not care about women?

Facebook: Breastfeeding Bad, Sex Trafficking Good

Earlier today, a friend made me aware of a Facebook page for Songachi, which is the red light district in Kolkata, India. She just returned from a trip there and was working on a post for her own blog when she came across the page -- which, by the way, has about 3,000 likes. She explained that many of the women who are sex workers in the district are minors, and most are there against their will. Essentially, this page and those who like it are supporting sex trafficking.

In addition to the trafficking element, the page contains many explicit photos, including women masturbating and performing oral sex. There is really nothing about the page that doesn't violate Facebook's TOS.

So I and many of my friends reported it. I believe most of us chose to call it sexually explicit. I would think that, in light of Facebook's recent announcement that it would take pages encouraging violence against women seriously, it would be a no-brainer and the page would be removed.

So imagine my rage when I got the following reply.

Hi,

Thanks for your recent report of a potential violation on Facebook. After reviewing your report, we were not able to confirm that the specific page you reported violates Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

Learn more about what we do and don't allow by reviewing the Facebook Community Standards: https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards.

Thanks,
Viki

Give us feedback to let us know how we are doing: https://www.facebook.com/survey/take.php?survey_id=242477152482072&cid=258497640937891

I don't know who Viki is, but she's not very good at her job. In fact, I've reported it twice and gotten the same reply. Maybe Viki is actually a robot.

Let's get this straight: Facebook takes down images of women breastfeeding, images of cancer survivors showing off their scars and tattoos, and body-positive images because there is a nipple distant in the background. However, Facebook leaves up pages that talk about raping women, calling them sluts, and this one, which promotes the sexual exploitation of minors AND blatantly displays graphic sexual images.

This is unacceptable and disgusting. Facebook's recent promise to take threats of violence against women seriously (which they should have been doing all along) indicates that this page has no business being on the site. Leaving it up, especially when positive non-explicit images are removed, just shows that in Facebook's eyes, women are unimportant. They are openly supporting hate, violence, and exploitation, and we need to stand against it.