Keep up Facebook.

Facebook have finally backed down to pressure and removed a group that depicted rape as a comical activity. I can’t believe it took them so long.

The main group in question was the “You know she's playing hard to get when you're chasing her down an alleyway” like page. It had nearly 200,000 likes on the social network site. That stat alone is one to send shivers down your spine.

In an interview with the BBC, Facebook said:
 

“We take reports of questionable and offensive content very seriously.”

They removed the group, but unfortunately they’ve completely missed the point. Though the group has diminished, their stance remains unchanged; to them rape is still hilarious.

So long as you tag your group with either ‘satirical’ or ‘humour’ then it’s allowed. So if you want to make a group called “You know she's playing hard to get when you're chasing her down an alleyway,” or “Send the blacks to Iceland and nuke them all,” or “The awkward moment you beat a man to death and realise he was straight” then you can! Just stick on a satire and humour tag and Facebook are cool with it.

It was never about the removal of a group, it was to get Facebook to adhere to their own policies. It was to get Facebook to recognise that rape isn’t funny. How can Facebook, a business, stand back and say “isn’t rape amusing lol.”

Looking at the evidence it appears to me that Facebook have only removed the group for one reason: money. Advertisers were starting to pull out because of these disgusting group pages existing on the site. Facebook have grown quite fond of money, so down the group went.

However that’s not enough (yet) to make Facebook change their stance.

In August, during their resistance to the group removal Facebook said:

"Just as telling a rude joke won't get you thrown out of your local pub, it won't get you thrown off Facebook."

No Facebook, you still don’t get it. You’re a social network website, a business that makes money. The pub in your analogy is also a business that’s out to make money. Telling a rude joke in a pub is NOT the same as telling one on Facebook. For an internet phenomenon, you haven’t really gotten to grips with the idea of THE INTERNET yet have you?

Remember the Ryan Giggs injunction scandal? I was in many a pub where people were talking about it, naming the player, telling their friends and family who it was. Guess what, nobody was arrested, the police didn’t come jumping through the windows to silence them. Do you know why? BECAUSE IT WAS A PUB!

Now look at the people who named him on social networks… There’s a massive difference.

Okay, so people tell rude jokes in pubs, does the landlord care? Not really. But would the same landlord care if someone put a banner on the side of their pub that said: “This pub condones rape and racism. Bring all your racist and rape humour”? Somehow I think they’d object to that!

And yet that’s exactly the banner that should be at the top of Facebook’s website, and stuck outside of their offices in California.

You are a business Facebook, judging by the amount of adverts on your site I’m guessing you’re aware of that. You can’t run a business that laughs in the face of rape victims!

Facebook are just about the only business I know that says rape is funny and should be made fun of. Hiding behind freedom of speech is no excuse to condone this behaviour.

It’s not an issue of freedom of speech, people are still free to have their opinions and voice them. But there are some laws that state that you can’t go about racially abusing people, and laughing at victims of rape. If you did that on the streets of Britain you’d be arrested. And rightly so. If the EDL spray-paint racist rhetoric all over a mosque then they face jail. If a rape victim left court and someone ran up to her and yelled “ha ha you got raped!” then he’d be detained as well!

There is no place for it in the democratic world. Keep up Facebook.