Questions for Us

*MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING – graphic images in this post*

I’m not sure how to feel after yesterday’s events. Numb, I guess.

After publishing my last post about my love/hate relationship with Facebook – predominantly about the content they allow to infect – I started to receive comments on my QFW Facebook Page from women, protesting about the number of times they have reported hateful and violent images only to be told by Facebook, that they deem them appropriate.

In yesterday’s post, I discussed the graphic meme of a woman – appearing to have been stabbed over not doing the dishes – which caught the fury of Karen Pickering when she was told it was fine by Facebook.

A friend sent me the following image she had reported and was told did not breach Community Standards:

It says:

* know your place
* shut up when a man is talking
* proper fellatio technique

Facebook states in their ‘Community Standards’ in the section of Hate Speech:

Facebook does not permit hate speech, but distinguishes between serious and humorous speech. While we encourage you to challenge ideas, institutions, events, and practices, we do not permit individuals or groups to attack others based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or medical condition.

So they have distinguished this as humorous speech (hahahahahaha) and NOT an attack on gender. Interesting to know what they would deem an attack.

Under Graphic Content:

People use Facebook to share events through photos and videos. We understand that graphic imagery is a regular component of current events, but must balance the needs of a diverse community. Sharing any graphic content for sadistic pleasure is prohibited.

This image is not for sadistic pleasure then?
Sadistic means to derive pleasure from extreme cruelty and this image ticks that box. It’s funny right? Funny = pleasure.

When I saw the image above, I was filled with such indignation, that I started a FB page where people can post the images they’ve reported, but told it didn’t breech Facebook’s Community Standards.

After only a few hours, I shut it down. I couldn’t look at one more photo.
The most haunting one I received, of the young toddler below, came from a site called ‘Anti-slut Patrol‘. I immediately reported it to Facebook for Graphic Violence.

Facebook were quick to reply that it was fine:

What I just noticed, however, is that they have – since last night – changed their Standards. I reported this photo under Graphic Violence (as it says in the screen shot) and now it’s called Graphic Content. I wrote them a response to their ‘ruling’ asking them to explain how the image is not graphic violence and what, to their standards, is.

I guess they just answered; change the Standard to comply with letting people publish this toxic waste.

I asked Facebook what they wanted their legacy to be – obviously it’s ensuring that depravity prevail and keeping those masses happy.

I am now humbled by the massive, unfathomable enormity of this.

And again feel helpless.

Victims of violence not only have to live with the horror that is their life, they must also reconcile with the fact that companies with no soul, like Facebook, will never have their back – or anyone else’s for that matter – because they would rather make money off malice and pass it off as humour.

Question #146: How can we create change, if our pleas continue to be ignored?

I finally want to add that I know many of you may think – it’s OK, it’s just a joke – and that if every picture that was reported was taken down, we’d live in a Nanny State.

My response to that is – WE NEED BALANCE.

Noone is saying that we have to have a dictatorship run by ‘mummies’, but a respect for the unimaginably, abhorrent lives some people have to live, without making a ‘joke’ of it, would start us on the road toward OUR LEGACY – one that we can leave for our kids to continue with.

Deep Breath

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