Facebook Brand Left to Mercy of Hate Groups
September 3rd, 2007 | by jeff | | Post to NewsCloud »Update: Facebook has reactivated the “Fuck Islam” group and Microsoft is continuing to place ads from major corporations such as Sprint, T-Mobile and Coca Cola through its digital advertising service on the group page.
Update: After I posted this to Slashdot’s Firehose, the Fuck Islam group was deleted today. However, the Fuck Israel and Jewish group, the I hate Iraqis group and the Fuck Old People remain open, among others. In other words, I think the point of this post is still quite valid.
Why is Facebook leaving its brand and reputation at risk to hate groups? I don’t get it. Since July 21, 2007, Facebook has left its “Fuck Islam” group intact despite more than 53,482 members joining an opposing group called petiton: if “f**k Islam” is not shut down..we r quitting facebook group.
While I’m not a total cynic, Facebook’s lack of overall responsiveness on the “Fuck Islam” group does make me wonder if there is a bit of opportunism going on. Does the company believe that no publicity is bad publicity? They clearly earn money every time another member joins those 53,482 members signing up against “Fuck Islam” and posting to the discussion board. Those page views do add up. It’s not like Facebook is donating revenue from those ad clicks to charity. I wonder what advertisers like Sprint, Verizon, T Mobile, Target, Qwest, French’s and EarthShare (via the AdCouncil) think about paying for their brand to appear on the “Fuck Islam” group pages (refreshing the “Fuck Islam” group page did generate ads for each of those companies).
I’m not advocating a policy against free speech, just strict enforcement of Facebook’s own Terms of Use which state that users must not: “upload, post, transmit, share, store or otherwise make available any content that we deem to be harmful, threatening, unlawful, defamatory, infringing, abusive, inflammatory, harassing, vulgar, obscene, fraudulent, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;” While the content in the group is somewhat innocuous, the “Fuck Islam” group name is clearly vulgar and obscene. Arguably, it and its Islamic crescent moon and star logo with the line through it qualify as inflammatory, harassing, hateful and racially objectionable.
While it appears the profile of the user who formed the group, Variable Variable of New Mexico, is no longer active, I don’t understand why Facebook would leave the group open for more than six weeks. Aside from further upsetting the 53,482 petitioners, the possibility of negative publicity by association with hate speech would seem to be incentive enough for them to delete this group.
Facebook has positioned itself as the darling of the social network world, without the spam, porn and sex offender problems of MySpace. Why leave your brand exposed to this kind of intolerance? It makes very little sense to me.
The continued existence of the “Fuck Islam” group is either an issue of incompetence, carelessness, ignorance, corporate bigotry or cynical opportunism.
I’m going to assume that Facebook has been informed of the group’s existence. Aside from the complaint I filed earlier this weekend, at least a small fraction of the 53,482 members of the opposing group have likely used the link to file a complaint with Facebook as well. I actually counted more than 17 groups formed against the “Fuck Islam” group.
Technorati Tags: facebook, fuck islam, hate groups, hate speech, islam, obscenity, profanity, intolerance
It’s not hard to prevent groups with obscenities from being created. Code that filters bad words like “fuck” is commonplace. So perhaps Facebook’s support team just hasn’t gotten around to deleting the group. I find that difficult to believe with so much opposition.
Perhaps Facebook doesn’t care. There are numerous profile names with the word fuck in them, despite this also being prohibited by the terms of use. There are also groups called Fuck All Religions, Fuck all these hate groups, Fuck Christianity, Fuck Christians…Jews…and all other religions that degrade Islam… and even Fuck Creators of Face BOOK! There are also parody hate groups such as FUCK ALL Y’ALL and I hate everybody.
Yet, this sort of thing isn’t new to Facebook. Freydblog wrote about finding more than 50 groups emphasizing hate against elderly people including groups named Kill the Elderly, Fuck old people and their stupid grey hair, Fuck old people, F*CK** OLD PEOPLE, Asking old people for a quarter then throwing it in there face‚Ķ..hahaha! and I Beat up old people. In, Facing Up to Facebook Racism, Mythili Rao wrote about a facebook group called, “‘Asian women are truly the most scrumptrillescent delicacy abroad.’ The group‚Äôs purpose was ‘to bang out Asians. Bang hard or go home. Yes, even the ugly bitches.’‚Äù Mideast Youth reported on a group called, I hate Iraqis (also still active) regarding Iraqi refugees flooding Jordan to flee violence in Iraq.
While it’s unlikely that Facebook’s managers hold widespread prejudices, they seem to be pretty careless and lackadaisical about enforcing their own terms of service. This might be okay for a startup like NewsCloud with one employee, but it’s not acceptable for a startup with more than a hundred employees rumored to be worth a billion dollars. Three weeks is too long for a group named “Fuck Islam” to stay up on a site.
Perhaps Facebook employees aren’t sensitive to the harm that a group like “Fuck Islam” can do on communities and our collective psyche. A group like this perpetuates stereotypes that enable the fear mongering our government used to get us involved in the Iraq War in the post September 11th era. It also arguably makes Islamic members of Facebook uncomfortable and could be used as propaganda to fuel the fire of anti-Americanism abroad.
Facebook should know better. Hate speech in the blogosphere rose to the forefront earlier this year when blogger Kathy Sierra shut down her blog and cancelled public appearances.
As a Facebook member, I would prefer to see the company make a clear statement against these kinds of materials and put more resources behind shutting them down in a reasonable amount of time e.g. 72 hours.
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16 Responses to “Facebook Brand Left to Mercy of Hate Groups”
By TheTruth on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
Its a free world, you realise the problem lies a whole lot deeper than that of hate groups on the internet right? You start trying to control people in the world first, hate arises, 1st worlds invade 3rd worlds with the “idea” of “peace” when all it is, is power mongering. You then try to control people on the internet, a free, fair, equal environment (something our world today should be based on) more hate arises.
The solution in this is not to hide the hate, the solution is to fix it. And shrugging it aside will do exactly the opposite. I.E. shutting down a group because people thought it was inappropriate, hell, what if i thought your surname was inappropriate? Perhaps it is good that we finally see the REAL personas of the human race, maybe we finally look deeper than the surface and look within ourselves and realise what we have become. A change starts with you…
The solution is: Not to try control, rather try to understand. Think on this for a second, imagine 50 years of control, imagine the effects it has? Now imagine 50 years of understanding? Can you honestly say that with 50 years of understanding we will still have hate groups among us?
Wake up. Before its too late.
By bob on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
free speech? anyone? i mean i dont subscribe to such mode of thought, but people are allowed to express their views. surely.
By Theo Antoniou on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
We invite all to come join College.com. We are “Open for speech, not open for hate”.
By Saint on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
To clarify, I don’t hate like these people do, but why shouldn’t they have the right to have a group about what they believe in (although in the end Facebook has every right to do whatever they want on their service, of course)?
By Petter Häggholm on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
I personally believe that freedom is a much more important attribute of speech than political correctness and should never be sacrificed for it; while I can understand the will to censor “hate speech” directed against people or intrinsic properties of people (such as ethnicity), I will never sympathise with those who censor criticism of ideology, however harsh. (I will not necessarily like it, but like the woman Voltaire quoted, “I may not like what you have to say…”)
By jeff on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
If your comment doesn’t appear, try removing the obscenities and reposting.
By AK on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
Yes, filtering out the f word isn’t hard, but the same filters that stop child molesters also stop victims of child molestation support groups from functioning. When one online service implemented ‚Äúbetter‚Äù filters, they shut down the official newsgroups of the American Breast Cancer Society.
And there is always yet another variation of letters and numbers that will get the same point made. There is no stopping this. Trolls have always been with us. People pick how they react to Trolls and if they need to be saved by somebody else or themselves.
The trolls are probably having a great time today. They got exactly what they were looking for.
By rali on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
No matter free speech or not, those users are violating a Terms of Use Agreement they have signed with Facebook, therefore by shutting down groups/profiles that are clearly obscene, Facebook is not censoring - just exercising their rights. However, it seems they do not want to, for one reason or another. If you sign off on a contract, and then violate it, then you should not be using the benefits from it anymore, period. If you do not agree to the terms of use, well, then hit the road. There are two major issues I see with the current situation - Facebook not enforcing their own agreements and a bunch of morons who have nothing else to do but invest in hating things/people/religions. We can’t really fix the second problem - we’ll always have people that are strong supporters of pacifism and people who thrive in hatred and violence. If they are banned from Facebook, they’ll find another way to congregate and instigate violence. However, I think it is more important to take care of the people who actually have constructive, not destructive thinking, and get rid of all the stupid elements. Facebook should rethink what is more important for them - a bunch of idiots scribbling offensive things on websites, or the thousands of users that are ready to think first, before f**cking, hating or killing someone. It’s one of those things people argue for ages, but most miss the point.
By MEC A-Town 703 on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
It really doesn’t matter about free speech at this point. Facebook violated it’s own terms of usage. There needs to be a limit to what any of these ignorent people do, but at the end of the day, we can’t change people. It’s just best for everyone to IGNORE all hate groups. If you see any curse words ignore them. It’s futile to deal with arrogance and ingnorence.
As for free speech. They can say all they want, but when does personal reponsiblity come in effect?
The days bottom line -> “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Thank you for puttin it out Truth.
By variable on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
Hi,
My name is variable, and I opened the Fuck Islam group on facebook. We are not a hate speech group. We are a group concerned with religion. The group members might disagree on this but I explicitly state that muslims should not be discriminated against or treated worse than others because of their religion. I simply oppose religion.
By Ames Tiedeman on Sep 10, 2007 | Reply
“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step.” — Sir Winston Churchill - circa 1899
By Tris on Sep 11, 2007 | Reply
I think some people confuse the meaning of “free speech”. Free speach is not a license to go ahead and do and say what you like. Free speech is about having an educated opinion about something and saying it in a respectful way.
Walking up to someone, telling them to go f*** themselves and spitting in their face has nothing to do with free speech.
By dawg on Sep 13, 2007 | Reply
Vicious anti-Christian comments such as those by Kathy Griffin (who speaks truth to power) should be celebrated and protected by the Freedom of Speech Clause of the First Amendment. Comments even mildly critical of Islam should be considered a hate crime. Why? The evil straight white christian males have all the power. Islam (like Judaism) has no power. Hate crime prosecution protects the powerless victims of evil straight white christian males.
By Jason Berger on Sep 13, 2007 | Reply
I am (was?) an admin in the group I’M NOTHING WITHOUT GOD until it was inexplicably deleted last nightish. It had 40,000 friggin’ members and a very active message board. I contacted Facebook about it but they haven’t responded yet.
Free speech is a right given to you by the government, not Facebook. It’s a legal right. It means that you can’t be prosecuted in a US court for what you say. An internet networking site censoring itself is not a violation of the first amendment.
By Gerhard on Oct 8, 2007 | Reply
I was going to report that the Afrikaans people and language are also the target of several hate groups on Facebook, but the collective IQ of your posters, who fail to see the difference between free speech and hurling obscenities at specific religions and ethnic groups, is so dreadfully low that it won’t do any good.
Good God, man, how smart do you need to be to know that you can’t go around saying “F*k the religion of billions people?” Even if you were brought up under a bridge you should have, at the least, better manners than that.
Oops, I wrote a long sentence. What I meant was:
u say bad things & dirty words to other people. u say there religion is stupid. that ain’t cool. that’s hate speech. that’s r-a-c-i-s-m. dont talk about freedom of speech if u dont no what it means.
How shall we survive the mind-numbing stupidity and the total lack of morality and ethics of the people? Cicero was right not to go to the games … it may be contagious.
Apologies to the blog owners, who did nothing to deserve such a deluge of sewerage by asking an intelligent question.
By Avril James on Oct 18, 2007 | Reply
Hate stemmed from FEAR.Hating someone is like the hater drinking poison and waiting for the person who is hated to die! THINK ABOUT IT!
Many diseases are caused by negative emotions such as hate,
anger, envy, anxiety—just to name a few.
Take time to help and care for each other– Life is short.