Facebook promises to take action against gender violence in social network

The Californian company Facebook acknowledged Tuesday its lack of oversight on content that promotes violence against women in their social network and promised solutions in response to an advertising boycott organized by feminist groups. In a text published on his Facebook Safety , the Internet company admitted that their "systems to identify and eliminate hate speech did not work "as they should, especially" in relation to gender violence". "In some cases, the content is not deleted as quickly as we want. In others, content that should be removed or have not been been evaluated outdated criteria , "said Vice President of Global Public Policy for Facebook, Marne Levine. Facebook confirmed its willingness to continue promotingfreedom of expression in their social network but acknowledged that should pay more attention to what they publish its 1,000 million users. "We need to improve and we will," said Levine. Facebook listed a number of immediate measures to "ensure this does not happen again in the Facebook community", among which is reviewing the guidelines to evaluate content, update the training of their teams that filter harmful content and expose the identity who actual use Facebook to promote hatred.

Boycott feminist

Facebook's decision came after the May 21 dozens of associations such as The Everyday Sexism Project and Women, Action & the Media , sent to the address of the social network in an open letter asking him to stop tolerating messages applaud aggressive behavior against women. In that letter announcing a campaign to raise awareness of advertisers to advertise on Facebook stop until the team of Mark Zuckerberg react. "The participants sent more than 60,000 tweets and 5,000 emails, and our coalition (signatories of the letter) has grown to over a hundred of groups for women and social justice organizations," said a statement Tuesday from Women, Action & the Media. In total fifteen companies joined the boycott of Facebook, some of great size and Nissan in the UK. Organizations complained that staying Facebook pages as "violently violate your friend just to laugh", "Raping your girlfriend and many, many more", as well as photographs of women being beaten, injured, handcuffed, drugged and bleeding. "Prohibit content deemed harmful directly, but allow content that is offensive or controversial, "said Levine who said that Facebook is also sharp with" hate speech "in which includes gender-based violence.