UPDATE: Article has been updated to accurately represent the genders of those involved, as pointed out by Joy Lynskey, the owner of TIOM, in the comments section.
An anonymous Facebook moderator has had enough and decided to speak up against what he sees as narcissistic cries for attention and faux offense. In a post on The Internet Offends Me blog (TIOM), the author Joy Lynskey, paints a vivid picture of the nasty duties Facebook moderators go through.
Imagine going to work every day and at the start of your day, with your first cup of coffee, you sit down to glance at beheadings, children in the process of being raped, human bodies in various stages of decomposition, the living and dead results of domestic violence, hanging bodies of 10 year old boys accused of being gay, real-life snuff films and bloody dog fighting rings and their subsequent results. Can you think up a human horror? I’ve probably seen it or a picture or video of something very similar. It’s fair to say that some of the people who work around me do not fare so well. Often they end up suffering from the endless barrage of horror they witness 8 to 12 hours per day. Did I share that *most* of these people make around a dollar per hour to do this job? That’s the truth. Not me though. I am an American who demands rights and all, so I make approximately $29 dollars per hour more than them. Technically, I don’t even have to do anymore than make sure they are clicking the buttons in the correct order. I don’t have to look at the images, but most of the time my focus on remaining unbiased in the face of, makes me do so anyway.
That graphic description of what appears to be the daily routine of a Facebook moderator manager hit the web on April 9. A few days later, The Internet Offends Me Facebook page was created. Over 10,000 people and other pages have liked TIOM’s Facebook page in the hopes of acting as a central hub for those who feel they’ve been falsely reported. TIOM’s Facebook page encourages others to share specific issues they’ve had and provide links to pages that have come under scrutiny. Not all reported pages or pictures listed on TIOM’s Facebook page come from political or religious organizations though, as one such supporter of TIOM is the This Milk Matters: Lactation Support Group, which has been reported numerous times for inappropriate imagery.
Much of TIOM’s furor finds root in responding to another Facebook page, but this one set itself up to police images and pages. Rapebook (RB), with its purposeful cringe-inducing name, made it a goal to regularly post links it found objectionable in an effort to encourage its thousands of fans to also report those links to the higher ups in the system for removal. Trista Hendren, a mother of two from Portland, Oregon, created RB to act as a self-appointed censor for Facebook. This can actually be seen as a lofty goal with merit when applied toward one of its original goals of preventing blatant misogyny and rampant talk of acts of violence, especially against women and children, on the social network. Hendren explains more about the creation of and reason for Rapebook in this report from ABC News.
However, the extent to which the followers of RB took their reporting may have gone too far, which in turn kept Facebook moderators from seeing much more important reports. At least that’s what TIOM claims when Lynskey relays this particular story.
What I care about, what really, truly fucking offends me is the fact that after 5 hours of reading through your butthurt sob stories, I find the 7 year old girl who, too scared to tell an authority has figured out how to report a picture her uncle posted of her that was blatantly, obviously sexual, and begged for help. ‘He says he’s coming over today at 2. Can you please help me, I don’t know what to do.’
TIOM goes on to say that many reports deserving lesser attention backed up her queue, and that caused Lynskey not to see the hair-raising report of the seven-year-old girl until four hours after it was sent in. The validity of this anecdote can’t be verified, however.
Spiteful Facebook users struck out in callous, vindictive personal attacks on Hendren that threatened her in such graphic and violent ways that even TIOM would likely deem them worthy of immediate reporting. There is simply no excuse whatsoever for that kind of abhorrent behavior, no matter how much you may disagree with someone. That needs to be abundantly clear. The ad hominem attacks, reporting of personal information, and use of vulgar terms against Hendren are outright shameful. No amount of Facebook reporting, mostly against pages with names like SIDS-Is-Funny-Because-Babies-DI
While TIOM’s Facebook page continues to build more likes, RB has essentially closed its digital doors. Hendren has also removed her own personal Facebook page and says she’s happy to be off it. You can still join TIOM’s Facebook page as the admins claim to seek more ideas to present to managers within Facebook for fine-tuning the reporting process. TIOM doesn’t declare itself to be associated with those that drove Hendren off of Facebook, even if it has spoken out against the page she started.
Whether you support Hendren or TIOM more, Facebook’s reporting method does seem to have serious flaws. Either it’s too lenient or too strict.
As the saying goes though, everything in moderation, and this includes the moderators themselves.
Response by facebook moderator, about our abuse report page ‘Rapebook’.
FYI ‘Rapebook’ was set up, with the purpose of making facebook more aware of how much misogyny is on on its site, by asking our members to report it through the facebook report system.
This moderator surely realizes that the abuse on facebook predates what he refers to as a page ”with its purposeful cringe-inducing name”, which he seems to be claiming we have in order to provoke people?
And, could he possibly be suggesting that because all our reports were not disgusting to the level that the rape and beatings are shown blatantly on the memes, instead of in the form of rape jokes, that we in fact took up so much of his time, that he did’t have enough left to deal with what he deems to be the important abuse.
https://techcitement.comculture/politics/does-the-internet-offend-you-youre-not-the-only-one/#.UbMgc_kwd0h
You(all reading this) can help us make facebook step up the act against misogyny. We have media support, so now is the time to keep the pressure on facebook. This is an ongoing protest, so keep reporting for the long haul and follow the instructions on how to report what is not removed by facebook, so we can follow it up.
”Thanks for being part of ending gender-based hate speech on Facebook!”
Join us in our next stage of protest, to help make sure facebook upholds their agreement to remove content which promotes violence against women and girls.
Please, report as follows and then send an email to the email addresses as appropriate. That will help us keep track of whether facebook is taking steps to keep itself clean of this type of abuse, as they said they would during or recent protest.
”It’s important to note that our campaign and Facebook’s commitment specifically address content that glorifies, promotes or makes light of violence against women and girls.
: :
So, depending on what you have to report, here’s how to do it:
For content that glorifies, promotes or makes light of violence against women and girls:
First, report it to Facebook using their standard reporting system.
If the content has been reported and Facebook has declined to remove it, email us, and we’ll take further action. Please include any information you have about when and how you reported the content, and what response(s) you’ve received from Facebook.”
From http://www.womenactionmedia.org/facebookaction/how-to-report-gender-based-hate-speech-to-facebook/
Admin MF of facebook page ‘Rapebook’
Lot of replies here. Care to rebut?
You put a child at risk for further sexual abuse by her uncle when she was trying to get the help she needed. And you seem to think your cause is more important? I call bullshit
No. The idiots with all their feigned indignation over breasts and mean comments did that. Congratulations to you for being the problem.
Just caught this on my trackback. I own TIOM and just wanted to say this was a really great article on a look from both sides of this respective coin. Thanks for the TB. In reply to the comment here.
What you seem to have failed to understand is that you didn’t just target the worst of the worst. You targeted everything from women recovering from breast cancer displaying an upper chest tattoo, even though no nipple was visible, hell, she didn’t even have any. You reported evidence into oblivion that would have helped in some of those cases and some of those actual people you claim to worry so much about. And you never once realized or bothered to understand that your advocacy would have actually been worthwhile had you.. oh, wandered on out to google and located actual helpful sites for things like this like the various internet tasks forces, cyber protection groups and anything outside of facebook, which isn’t even an indexable, crawlable search engine. None of your calls to action there even acknowledged by Google bot. Not even once. There are tons of anti-everything groups that have members who are retired FBI, CIA, LE and others who really know how to hunt down real issues and put perpetrators in jail.
Lastly, while you and Justin here have both made the same mistake in calling me a HE, I would be willing to bet that Justin made that assumption due to the language I used on TIOM while YOU made that assumption due to the fact that I even wrote it. Do you understand the difference in that?
I am a 40 year old white female born and raised in the US south and while I appreciate the efforts of feminists, past, present and future, I do not appreciate any group of people deciding for me what is or is not available for my viewing pleasure, as long as those things do not violate US law. To say that rapebook mass reported based on biases and butthurt would be an understatement.
“And, could he possibly be suggesting that because all our reports were
not disgusting to the level that the rape and beatings are shown
blatantly on the memes, instead of in the form of rape jokes, that we in
fact took up so much of his time, that he did’t have enough left to
deal with what he deems to be the important abuse. ”
No, what I was really suggesting will be a repeat. If you really cared about real issues and not using your sudden fame and platform as well, sudden fame and platform, and encouraged reporting frenzies on things you had no business deciding for the rest of us, you may have actually been effective in the cases that really mattered. As it rested, eventually, reports coming in from your page hounds made most of us assume we were about to spend the day looking at women in bathing suits again, or even better, women breastfeeding their children. Did you even bother to moderate, organize or even determine a method of focus? None of what you and yours did there looked like anything but more than mob mentality in the digital world.
“For content that glorifies, promotes or makes light of violence against women and girls”
Lastly, here you go again. For content that shows anyone in danger, don’t click report unless you are willing to also call the police. Otherwise, congratulations to lazy ole’ you for doing absolutely nothing to actually address the real issue, just the fact that other eyes may actually see it. Maybe one of those folks would have done something….
And to wrap that up. I was in an abusive relationship for many years. When I finally found myself free, I, like many women, relied a lot on humor and irony to get me through. When >I< see random meme's, like for instance one rapebook would mass report, let's say a joke about Chris Brown and Rhianna, those things actually give me a chuckle and remind me how stupid I was, how stupid she looks, how stupid staying in any horrible relationship is, so again. You are not advocating anything at all. You are using personal opinion, in many cases to determine what you think the rest of America should be able to see, and when you weren't doing that, you were just reporting into oblivion things probably worth investigating to those who actually give enough craps to leave facebook and get help.
Please don't support any efforts that further endanger anyone's freedom of speech. Please don't click report on something on facebook that you wouldn't be willing to have a conversation with law enforcement over.
Please don't let the benefits of true feminism be given a bad reputation until even its supporters shy away from the extremes of it all.
Please think for yourself and learn to use all of those buttons that facebook has provided everyone with that allow you to literally choose each and everything that goes down your feed.
And PLEASE, don't expect the internet to police your children. It is you as parents who are responsible one. My kid hated me until he was 16 because I didn't let him even use the internet for anything but homework until then. Waah, my kid didn't like me, grow a spine and protect your own.
TIOM
To say “well said” would be a painful understatement. Your benchmark of , report if you’d be willing to call the police, is f’n perfect.
Yup, if it ain’t illegal, or if it ain’t depicting any kind of violence towards kids, don’t report it. Noone has the right to not be offended.
it’s the comedy that I like
As usual Joy, witty, thoughtful, intelligent response to some
very challenging issues,thank you
Bravo *claps hands* *standing ovation*, as bwdesmo says, “to say “well said” would be a painful understatement”
Joy, you never fail to amaze and impress me….with your wit, your common sense and your whole general attitude….both here and on TIOM facebook page. Why anyone doesn’t get what you’re saying, is beyond me…..its like some people just overthink the whole issue….and for some insane reason, jump to the wrong conclusion…..regarding your intentions when you first wrote the blog……and also that you’re male. You have simply tried to supply us with the tools…needed to be a responsible “reporter”…..how we choose to use those tools, is ultimately down to us. Anyone who found their way onto TIOM page…..is left in no doubt as to your intentions….your sense of humour is a great plus, for running TIOM page…..and for dealing with trolls and just general idiots….you never lose your cool. Yeah you swear but who the fuck doesn’t? Let’s be honest here ;) I have much respect for TIOM page, yourself and all of the great admin who work on that page. Many thanks for all of your hard work and determination :D xxx
Thank you Lynne
Swearing is for emphasis, right? Anyone who lets words bother them should definitely not be on the internet.. with all these…words.
What about those of us who don’t trust law enforcement to handle a situation?
I guess you handle it the way you would handle any other real life situation that would drive you to actually do something and just deal with legal ramifications of your actions like the rest of us would. Reporting an issue, is actually the epitome of doing pretty much nothing. If you wouldn’t call the law to help you, why on earth would you call Zuckerberg?
This article is ridiculously inaccurate. Joy Renee Lynsky, who runs “TIOM”, is NOT actually a Facebook moderator, but IS a fraud.