subscribe: Posts | Comments

Victory: Facebook rape page is – finally – taken down

13 comments

Jane Osmond
WVoN co-editor

As a result of global protests – and campaigns in the UK, US, Canada and New Zealand – against a Facebook page that contained posts advocating rape of women the page that sparked the campaign – You know she’s playing hard to get when your chasing her down an alleyway – has been taken down.

Finally.

As regular WVoN readers will know, the UK fight started at the beginning of August as a result of Facebook’s refusal to take the page down despite many people reporting it to Facebook (see WVoN coverage).

Not only that, Facebook likened the rape jokes on the page to pub jokes, thereby insulting every woman who has been raped or who has been threatened with rape.

The consequent campaign forced Facebook to defend its position – namely that rape jokes, although violent and threatening, did not contravene its policies – again and again.

Meanwhile advertisers who were alerted to the fact their ads were being placed next to vile posts such as ‘Q: Which is better to rape four month old boys or four month old girls ??? A: it dosent matter as long as their dead!!!’ reacted with horror and demanded that Facebook whitelist the page, which stripped it of advertisements.

Then two weeks ago I was contacted by the on-line petition site change.org who are hosting the US petition against other Facebook pages that also promote violence against women.

Alex DiBranco, who wrote a guest post for WVoN this week, myself, representatives of National Council of Women of New Zealand and the organiser of RINJ (the Rape is No Joke Facebook page) spoke for over an hour about how we could join forces to increase the numbers on the global petitions and also increase the pressure on Facebook to acknowledge that the pages contravene its own policies.

The result of this conversation was – and is – a Twitter campaign which has attracted support from all over the globe.

However, as much as we may rejoice that Facebook has finally taken the original page down, Facebook has still has not acknowledged that posts which advocate violence against women contravene its policies, and so there are many many more pages on Facebook that also should be taken down.

And so, the fight goes on. Watch this space.

Note: thank you so much to all the WVoN readers who posted, tweeted and shared the details of our campaign – you have been an integral part of the fight and we couldn’t have done it without your support. Pats on the back all round!

  1. Jane Da Vall says:

    That’s brilliant, Jane, well done!

  2. Excellent news. Have FB issued a statement about it? Or are they keeping it quiet to save face, after publically refusing to take the page down?

    Still, I’m not sure if I’ll return to FB just yet. I may wait until they change their attitude, and acknowledge that this BS is against their own rules.

  3. Hi both, the page just disappeared quietly, so we will fight on to get Facebook to adhere to its own policies – there are hundreds of other horrible pages out there. But today is a victory!

    • Fiona McOwan says:

      Well done to all, and you are rightly celebrating this victory but in the spirit of ‘battle but not war’ I am still sharing your page with all the groups I am involved with so they can take their own decisions about deactivating/boycotting site/advertising companies etc etc

  4. Very well done. This shows what feminist campaigning can do. I am boycotting Facebook but will join in the lobbying against similar pages.

  5. At last !!

  6. This FB page is back up and running.

  7. Tracy Ellis says:

    This website and campaign to get Facebook to remove a jokes page does more damage to women’s rights than good. Whilst websites and views like this exist in society, where women are playing the hard done to card, we will always remain the weaker sex. If you want equality stop bitching and be prepared to play the men on their own playing field.

    • ‘The hard done to card’?

      By which I presume you mean,

      ‘oh poor us, getting raped and having people laugh about it.’

      Yeah, perhaps we should just get over it and accept that rape is going to carry on happening, and learn that yes, perhaps it is funny if people tell us that it is. It is what we knew we were getting ourselves into, when we were born female, so there is no need to make such a fuss about it.

      Seriously, this is the best trolling you can come up with?

    • OK, I’ll bite – how exactly is it harming women’s rights? Your entire comment sounds like a parroted response, something said to pretty much every group of women who have ever got something done or changed. What playing field would you prefer? Why should we play by the existing rules, they’re obviously weighted in favour of maintaining the status quo.

  8. This is fantastic news!! Now what are we doing about this: https://www.facebook.com/shesvideobuzz

    and this:

    https://www.facebook.com/pages/You-know-shes-playing-hard-to-get-when-she-breaks-out-of-the-rope/206568269397384

    And this page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/You-know-she-is-playing-hard-to-get-when-she-wont-get-in-your-van/231458186906502?sk=wall&filter=1

    On which there is a comment which reads: “you know you’re a shit rapist when the girl you are raping comes before you do” !!!!!

Leave a Reply to Fiona McOwan Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *