Everydaysexism corners Facebook via advertisers, FB back down on anti-women 'hate speech' posts

This image with the found at the Facebook page "Offensive Humor at Its Best" shows a woman with her mouth taped shut and the idea to 'tape her and rape her', but Facebook doesn't consider it hate speech. Facebook's response to offensive joke is even more offensive says MSN as they explain that Laura Bates' Everyday Sexism Project aims to remove rape speech and anti-female content from Facebook. The interesting thing to us, dear adfolk, is that Laura's Everydaysexism twitter account often find national middle american brands advertising right next to really offensive images. Do you really want to advertise Legoland and "Dating in London" next to a joke about roofies and a picture of an unconscious woman spread eagle on a bed? Should Magnum ice-cream and Amazon be advertising next to images of a (presumably) dead woman in a blood filled bath tub? Is that really what your target market is into? How on earth did the magic algorithms place these brands next to these photos - Magnum is target to women, for example. This is caused by your personal preferences, not the page you're visiting.

Everydaysexism are attacking where it hurts Facebook, their wallet, with the money making ads, and it has worked! Since the ads themselves appear according to the users preferences and likes I would see things related to my interests (which includes Disneyland and World) next to these 'rapey' images. Another person would get a different set of ads, but if you're a lady you've probably seen "Dove" follow you about facebook for weeks.

Using the Twitter hashtag #FBrape Everydaysexism and their posse oscreendumped Facebook images and called on advertisers to remove their ads from the networks if they were spotted alongside seriously offensive content. Nobody wants to advertise next to a dead woman, and certainly not Dove who was found next to this "Next time, don't get pregnant" picture.

The New York Times reported that Facebook said it failed to stop the misogynous pages, but they will now after Nissan and a host of smaller advertisers have pulled out (pardon) of Facebook ads.

“We thought that advertisers would be the most effective way of getting Facebook’s attention,” said Jaclyn Friedman, the executive director of Women, Action and the Media. “We had no idea that it would blow up this big. I think people have been frustrated with this issue for so long and feeling like that had no way for Facebook to pay attention to them. As consumers we do have a lot of power.”

So, a happy ending, facebook backs down on their moderation rules, and will now remove hate speech, a great success for a twitter campaign that ran but one week and got lots of peoples attention.