Companies pull adverts from Facebook as networking site refuses to remove 'anti-women' content: #FBRape campaign gets 50,000 tweets of support in just one week



Londoner Laura Bates, 26, founded the Everyday Sexism Project last year



Website catalogues instances of sexism experienced by women day to day

Joined forces with Soraya Chemaly and Jaclyn Friedman to launch #FBRape

Group say that Facebook 'allows content endorsing violence against women'

#FBRape calls on companies to pull adverts until Facebook bans material

More than 50,000 tweets and 4,500 emails in support sent in one week



Nissan, Nationwide UK and more have pulled ads until Facebook complies

#FBRape also urging Sky, Dove, American Express and others to pull ads

Facebook tells MailOnline 'removing all offensive content or controversial humour from site is not solution to combatting ignorance'

Laura Bates, founder of The Everyday Sexism Project and one of the women behind the #FBRape Twitter campaign

A social media campaign calling on Facebook to crack down on content endorsing violence against women is already seeing companies pull their ads from the networking site.



Facebook has refused to censor offensive content of the type identified by the group #FBRape, that includes insulting pictures and slogans, as well as entire pages and Facebook groups created to promote violence against women.

Examples of anti-women content on the site include 'Violently Raping Your Friend Just for Laughs' and 'Fly Kicking Sluts in the Uterus' groups as well as images of sleeping young women with their trousers pulled down alongside text suggesting they have ingested and enjoyed 'roofie' date rape drugs.



Facebook cites its 'free speech' or humour policies in defence and is so far refusing to remove some of the content according to the #FBRape group.



They confirm they are in communication with Facebook and hope for a positive solution.



The campaign is calling on advertisers like Dove, American Express, Sure and Sky to pull their adverts until Facebook bans such material, and brings its policies on content endorsing violence against women in line with racism and homophobia policies.

Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, writer and activist Soraya Chemaly and Jaclyn Friedman from Women, Action & the Media (WAM!) joined forces to launch the hashtag Twitter campaign #FBRape last Tuesday.



'Specifically, we call on you, Facebook, to take three actions,' they wrote in an open letter.

'Recognize speech that trivializes or glorifies violence against girls and women as hate speech and make a commitment that you will not tolerate this content.

'Effectively train moderators to recognize and remove gender-based hate speech.

'Effectively train moderators to understand how online harassment differently affects women and men, in part due to the real-world pandemic of violence against women.'

The group said more than 50,000 tweets and more than 4,500 emails had been sent through its site since the hashtag was launched last Tuesday.



A petition on Change.org has also attracted more than 222,000 signatures.

'When raped teenage girls won't report it because they think they won't be taken seriously, I can't help but think that Facebook has to stand up to the normalisation of such violence'

Laura, 26, who lives in London, founded the Everyday Sexism Project which has collected over 30,000 women's experiences of gender imbalance over the last year alone.

'I see and hear stories every single day from women whose lives are directly impacted by sexism, misogyny and sexual abuse,' she tells the MailOnline.

'So these pictures and pages hit very close to home for me. And when I receive emails from teenage girls who have been raped, but won't report it because they think they must be to blame, or they won't be taken seriously, I can't help but think that Facebook has a responsibility to stand up to the normalisation of rape and domestic violence that is created by these pages condoning and depicting it.

#FBRape posted this image on their website, drawing attention to advertisements next to the image

'Of course it's not as simple as saying that one directly leads to another, but it certainly creates a culture in which the message is sent out, loud and clear, that rape and domestic violence are something to laugh and boast about, not something to take seriously.



'Meanwhile, remember, Facebook censors images of women breastfeeding or artistic representations of female bodies... this isn't a case of 'free speech', because it already chooses so much material to ban as 'offensive', yet these images of women battered, bloodied and bruised are considered acceptable... you have to question the double standard.'

#FBRape report that Nationwide UK, Nissan, WestHost, House of Burlesque and many others have already joined and backed the campaign by removing their ads until Facebook pulls such offensive content.

Impressively, nearly 100 international women’s and human rights organizations, from Eve Ensler’s V Day to Annie Lennox’s Equals Coalition, have signed and supported their open letter .

A spokesman for Facebook told the MailOnline that the pages referenced in the open letter have been removed from Facebook as they broke their terms.

They added: 'You have to seek out this content on Facebook.



'It is viewed and interacted with by a tiny group of people on Facebook who choose to do so.



'Offensive content exists all over the web - but generally there is no mechanism to report content that goes beyond offensive and becomes hate speech. On Facebook every group, page or photo can be reported.

Nissan and Nationwide UK have pulled ads until Facebook bans material endorsing violence against women

'Facebook's policy is that removing all offensive content or controversial humour from its site is not the solution to combatting ignorance. Having the freedom to debate serious issues like this is how we fight prejudice. Facebook looks to give people the freedom to describe, depict and comment on the world in which we live.'

They added: 'When evaluating speech on Facebook, we analyse the nature of the speech itself, as well as its perceived intent as indicated by any additional context we may have.



'We believe this additional information is important, since identical words may be hateful in one context, or off-colour attempts at humour in another (such as with stand-up comedy).



'If content satisfies our definition of harm, we will remove it immediately.



'However, we allow people to use language and images, even when extremely offensive or inaccurate, to make jokes or express political beliefs that fall short of harm.'

'We allow people to use language and images, even when extremely offensive or inaccurate, to make jokes or express political beliefs that fall short of harm,' say Facebook

In an official statement in response to #FBRape, a spokesperson for Facebook said: 'There is no place on Facebook for hate speech or content that is threatening, or incites violence, and we will not tolerate material deemed to be genuinely or directly harmful. We try to react quickly to remove reported language or images that violate our terms and we try to make it very easy for people to report questionable content using links located throughout the site.



'However, as you may expect in any diverse community of more than a billion people, we occasionally see people post distasteful or disturbing content, or make crude attempts at humour. While it may be vulgar and offensive, distasteful content on its own does not violate our policies. We do require that any such page be clearly marked - so users are aware that the content may be in poor taste. In many instances, we may also require a page administrator to display their real name on the page, or the page will be removed.'

In response to Facebook's comments, Laura Bates has said:

'While Facebook may be removing some individual pages, a great deal of this content still remains, as evidenced by the fresh content we have been posting to our campaign site over the past few days.



'What is needed is for Facebook to change its policy on representations of rape and domestic violence not sporadically take down pages in response to media pressure while their policies mean such content could be reposted in the future.'

To sign the #FBRape petition, click here .