Author Topic: Facebook Complicity and Harassment  (Read 225 times)

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Offline Michael Hardner

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Facebook Complicity and Harassment
« on: August 03, 2017, 05:37:00 am »
https://medium.com/@IjeomaOluo/facebooks-complicity-in-the-silencing-of-black-women-e60c34434181

I want to see a response to this.  Being moderated here is one thing but facebook is central to a lot of people's lives.

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Offline kimmy

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Re: Facebook Complicity and Harassment
« Reply #1 on: August 03, 2017, 09:53:02 am »
This became a big deal on Twitter last year Milo Yiannopoulos and his followers harassed actress Leslie Jones to the point that she quit Twitter entirely.   After a lot of criticism for what happened, Twitter banned Milo and promised to take a stronger stand in response to harassment.   But Twitter is trying to be the platform where famous people speak to their fans, and if they want to be that, they have to do something to protect their famous users. Facebook isn't trying to do that... that's not their model. That's not how they got 1.5 billion users. (is it 1.5 billion now? I think it's something like that.)


So first off, the comments sent to that woman are obviously horrible. I don't see why Facebook wouldn't take some kind of action when she reported these posts. On the other hand, she does seem to be trying to create a reaction... I am guessing that the kind of posts she got were exactly what she was hoping for.

I don't use Facebook or Twitter. I personally don't understand people whose reaction to being bullied on Facebook is to log back in and get more bullying.  I believe that Facebook does have privacy settings that let you restrict strangers from seeing your content or sending you messages. If harassment is a problem, maybe those tools are sufficient to deal with the issue.


Maryam Namazie is an ex-Muslim and secular activist who recently wrote about reporting violent threats-- **** and murder-- directed at her on Facebook.  Facebook didn't respond to her reports either.  It may be that whether a report receives any action depends on which low-level staffer receives each report.


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Re: Facebook Complicity and Harassment
« Reply #2 on: August 06, 2017, 04:15:50 pm »
It's weird that they blocked the victim for reposting the messages but not the people who posted them. 

Offline BC_cheque

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Re: Facebook Complicity and Harassment
« Reply #3 on: August 06, 2017, 09:00:12 pm »
Recently I read a news article on Facebook and in the comments section, a man had made a very derogatory statement about Muslims.  There was a slew of rebuttals to his comment and although I didn't personally comment, I did 'like' one of the rebuttals.  I wasn't the only person who liked the post, it was already at about 30 when I clicked.

My phone alerted me that someone I don't know has commented on one of my public posts.  Everything on my profile is set to private but that one post was public because I was sharing it and told friends to share it.

It was the man who had made the derogatory Muslim comment on the news article.  He called a Dirty Muslim **** and 20 minutes later commented a bunch more ignorant things.  He'd also sent a half a dozen instant messages calling me many different things.

Keep in mind, I didn't even respond to him, I was only one of 30 people who liked a post which questioned his stupid comment.  If he's doing that to me, I wonder what he's doing to the people who really **** him off. 

I blocked him and end of story.  It's easy for me to do given my less than provocative existence on Facebook but I got a little taste of the level of crazy that's out there. 

Facebook users should not have to monitor their page 24/7 blocking abusers.  In my opinion, Facebook should've suspended the abusers and then she wouldn't have had to resort to taking screen shots.  Now they're blaming her for taking actions into her own hands when they failed to do their job (reminds me on another forum, ahem).

Asking people being bullied to just ignore things and block everyone and be vigilante 24/7 is not a feasible solution.  If they don't help, people have no choice but to leave Facebook and the bullies' tactics work.

Facebook should absolutely be helping in preventing online abuse.
« Last Edit: August 06, 2017, 09:03:15 pm by BC_cheque »

Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Facebook Complicity and Harassment
« Reply #4 on: August 16, 2017, 08:50:12 pm »
I believe that Facebook does have privacy settings that let you restrict strangers from seeing your content or sending you messages. If harassment is a problem, maybe those tools are sufficient to deal with the issue.

This.

On public groups or public posts from other people/celebrities etc. I think you'd be more vulnerable, in which case I would think anything illegal should be removed, which would include harassment or violent threats etc.  Better yet, report the death threats etc to police & make people learn they can't hide from committing crimes online.

And yeah I agree she may have been looking for this reaction, hard to say for sure.  Doesn't make it any less horrible though.
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Facebook Complicity and Harassment
« Reply #5 on: August 20, 2017, 06:59:17 am »
I haven't seen a response yet.

Offline Hal 9000

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Re: Facebook Complicity and Harassment
« Reply #6 on: August 28, 2017, 12:44:15 am »
That woman got in the ring, took her shots and when hit back cried "victim"  - sorry, she is a big part of the race problem in the USA.

Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Facebook Complicity and Harassment
« Reply #7 on: August 28, 2017, 06:15:30 am »
That woman got in the ring, took her shots and when hit back cried "victim"  - sorry, she is a big part of the race problem in the USA.

I think the response was worse - calling her a n*** and a c*** isn't acceptable.

Offline Hal 9000

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Re: Facebook Complicity and Harassment
« Reply #8 on: August 28, 2017, 08:51:06 am »
I think the response was worse - calling her a n*** and a c*** isn't acceptable.

I saw she was called the "c" word, didn't see the "N" word.  She has generally been called out as being racist in most of those posts.  Regardless, she is calling people "racist and cracker".  And everybody on the right is now getting the Nazi/racist tag - especially since the Virginia incident. 

Why is she so special that she shouldn't be called out for what she is - a racist?  Are you offended that the insults don't seem proportional?  Forget it, she is a racist and a race baiter...and got what she wanted and what she deserved.  The fact that you don't realize that she is just as big of problem as any single KKK or Neo-Nazi is stunning.   

Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Facebook Complicity and Harassment
« Reply #9 on: August 28, 2017, 05:58:18 pm »
Why is she so special that she shouldn't be called out for what she is - a racist?  Are you offended that the insults don't seem proportional?  Forget it, she is a racist and a race baiter...and got what she wanted and what she deserved.  The fact that you don't realize that she is just as big of problem as any single KKK or Neo-Nazi is stunning.   

You're making up a strawman here.  If somebody had replied "you, madam, are a racist" then I wouldn't have a problem.  But as it said in her post she was called c*** and n***** and I SAID THAT IN MY POST.  I'm sorry we're not having the discussion you want to have, but for us to have that discussion the facts would have to change.
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Offline Hal 9000

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Re: Facebook Complicity and Harassment
« Reply #10 on: August 28, 2017, 06:07:48 pm »
You're making up a strawman here.  If somebody had replied "you, madam, are a racist" then I wouldn't have a problem.  But as it said in her post she was called c*** and n***** and I SAID THAT IN MY POST.  I'm sorry we're not having the discussion you want to have, but for us to have that discussion the facts would have to change.

What strawman?  So what if she was called a c***.  She did everything she could to call people racist crackers and you feel bad for her that people called her a racist c***? 

Your defence of her is exactly why in a past life, I told you that you had no idea what a troll was.

Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Facebook Complicity and Harassment
« Reply #11 on: August 28, 2017, 06:15:20 pm »
What strawman?  So what if she was called a c***.  She did everything she could to call people racist crackers and you feel bad for her that people called her a racist c***? 

Your defence of her is exactly why in a past life, I told you that you had no idea what a troll was.

My point: calling people racist is ok.  calling them a c*** and a n***** or a cracker for that matter is not.

Offline Hal 9000

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Re: Facebook Complicity and Harassment
« Reply #12 on: August 28, 2017, 07:10:35 pm »
My point: calling people racist is ok.  calling them a c*** and a n***** or a cracker for that matter is not.

I didn't see any screen shots of people calling her n****r.  One person called her c**t, you wanna know why?  Because she is a racist and race baiter, surely you see that - please, at least fess up to that obvious point.  Her whole post was about trolling for racism/hate, posting about racism/hate and those people that responded, responded because they realize exactly what she was doing.  Instead of reading the one bad word that was used, try seeing the entire response - they are essentially telling her that she is a racist and to go away - that's fair to me.  Then to top it off, she claims that;              People are mad because my tweet rang true. Plenty of people of color are nervous entering an entirely white room — and with good reason. Even this simple expression of discomfort was too much, and hundreds of angry white people flooded my twitter, facebook and email to try to silence me. Any time people of color, especially women of color, speak the truth — we are silenced.  This isn’t okay. I shouldn’t have to leave facebook in order to escape racist hate. I shouldn’t have to be silent in the face of racist hate in order to be able to stay on the platform.
Facebook is failing people of color, just as they are failing many feminists and transgender people, in punishing them for speaking out about abuse. And they need to be held accountable.

I guess the equivalent would be this; White guy goes into black neighbourhood (lets say Compton), gets on Twitter talking about how scared he was that these "ghetto n*****s" were gonna shoot him - with absolutely zero evidence that they even spoke to him let alone caused him any reason to fear them, gets feedback from black community calling him a racist Nazi and then cries to Twitter about how abusive all those "n*****s are to him and how right he was to fear them.  Would you side with that guy?  I doubt it!   

Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Facebook Complicity and Harassment
« Reply #13 on: August 28, 2017, 07:37:38 pm »
I didn't see any screen shots of people calling her n****r.  One person called her c**t, you wanna know why?  Because she is a racist and race baiter, surely you see that - please, at least fess up to that obvious point. 

Yes, but calling her that was unreasonable and should have been dealt with.

Offline Hal 9000

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Re: Facebook Complicity and Harassment
« Reply #14 on: August 28, 2017, 07:52:51 pm »
Yes, but calling her that was unreasonable and should have been dealt with.

So, all this just because some racist got called a c***?  I'm in all sorts of Facebook groups where people are saying way worse than that.  Go to any "trending" article that features racism, gayism or politics - you can't scroll more that 5 or 10 posts before running into a "c*** or a m*****f****r or c********r. Social media can be brutal.