While Facebook (News - Alert) serves as a social networking website in which we can pretty much virtually “stalk” whomever we choose (as long as their profile is public), some users have taken a much darker approach to the platform, creating pages to advertise to the masses all over the world that the brutal treatment of women ranging from being beaten, raped and even killed is acceptable. Activists are now taking the steps needed to put an end to the countless pages that are still live highlighting these horrific incidents once and for all.
The Everyday Sexism Project is the organization currently spearheading the much needed process of forever deleting these pages within the mega site. Not only has the group already sent an open letter to Facebook that highlights three key objectives Zuckerberg’s not so itty bitty baby should adhere to, including:
It has also informed those who pay big bucks to advertise on the website that they should boycott it until the hateful pages are removed.
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While the task may be seem easy to do upon first glance to some, company officials of the social network have revealed that in certain cases this obscene content isn’t being removed as quickly as it should. Hence, it will be launching a five-point plan that will rectify this situation immediately and prevent it from ever happening in the future.
A recent report stated that the plan of action “will review its terms of service for potential changes, change moderation teams' training to help them identify harmful content, and reach out to anti-discrimination groups for input.”
An interesting notion brought up by Facebook employees however is that they are also thinking long and hard about developing a way to highlight the people who are behind writing this content rather than deleting it from the Web completely. After all, this platform was meant for people to share whatever is on their mind at the moment, yet putting a face to the ideologies based on hate could, in turn, hold the author fully accountable for these types of illicit remarks.
While no one should have the right to potentially endanger the life of another, what this scenario brings to light is the issue of where the line should be drawn in the sand in terms of freedom of speech. What if the user says they were simply joking when making the derogatory comment about women, should they still be punished for their actions? That is something that ultimately Facebook will have to make the call on, and no matter what way the cookie crumbles, you can guarantee that there will be controversy surrounding it.