Women's rights activists to fight against explicit content on Facebook

Few months ago, a few political parties had come forward in protest against sexually explicit content on the web. And now it’s few prominent gender groups across the globe who have come forward and filed an official petition against the social networking website Facebook. They have demanded removal of material that trivialises or glorifies violence against girls and women, from the website.

Prominent gender groups like Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS) and Association for Progressive Communications Women's Rights Programme (APCWRP) along with women rights activists like Laura Bates and Jackson Katz have petitioned the popular social networking site Facebook to address the representation of rape and domestic violence on its platform.Women's rights activists to fight against explicit content on Facebook (Image credit: Getty Images)

The petition has called for a swift and effective action from Facebook to recognise all the materials that glorify and encourage violence against women. It has also asked the website to be intolerant towards such posts. In its appeal, the group has asked Facebook to effectively train its moderators to understand how online harassment affects women in various parts of the world due to the prevailing social situation.

More from News Analysis

The appeal comes after Facebook had allowed advertisements that encourage such violence. The appeal reefers to groups like "Violently Raping Your Friend Just for Laughs" or "Raping your Girlfriend" that openly support such acts.

“It appears that Facebook considers violence against women to be less offensive than non-violent images of women's bodies, and that the only acceptable representation of women's nudity are those in which women appear as sex objects or the victims of abuse.” said the petition as it questioned Facebook’s approach towards such instances.