Facebook gives way to campaign against hate speech on its pages

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

Facebook has bowed to an outcry over content promoting violence against women after advertisers pulled ads in protest.

The company said on Tuesday it would update its policies on hate speech, increase accountability of content creators and train staff to be more responsive to complaints, marking a victory for women's rights activists. "We need to do better – and we will," it said in a statement.

The climbdown followed a week-long campaign by Women, Action and the Media, the Everyday Sexism Project and the activist Soraya Chemaly to remove supposedly humorous content endorsing rape and domestic violence.

Examples included a photograph of the singer Rihanna's bloodied and beaten face, captioned with "Chris Brown's Greatest Hits", a reference to the assault by her ex-boyfriend.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/may/29/facebook-campaign-violence-against-women

[geek tragedy]

1. Money talks, so activists need to speak in a language FB chooses to hear. nt

[madrchsod]

2. it`s about time....

facebook moves as slow as molasses....

[BlueToTheBone]

3. Good. In order for the planet to survive

we must consider women to be sacred.

[backscatter712]

4. Force is the only language a psychopath like Zuckerburg understands.

Fuck with his money and he'll behave.

You have to be absolutely harsh and unforgiving with these kinds of bastards.

Appeal to their empathy and you're guaranteed to get fucked. They have no empathy.

[marble falls]

5. I'm shocked. Facebook thinks itself as a power unto itself.

[dipsydoodle]

6. Facebook ads pulled amid campaign

Facebook has lost more than a dozen advertisers after a campaign drew attention to pages on the social media site that promoted violence against women.

Women, Action and the Media launched the campaign last week to get Facebook to end hate speech on its site and urged advertisers to pull their support.

The content included pages and images that had photos of abuse, and words that encouraged rape, abuse and other violence against women.

The campaign led to more than 5,000 emails to Facebook advertisers and more than 60,000 posts on Twitter. Nissan and a number of other smaller advertisers responded by pulling ads.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/facebook-ads-pulled-amid-campaign-025525437.html

As the source is referred to as being the Press Association this may refer to just the UK.