Feminists' Demands For Censorship Backfire: Women Banned From Facebook For Attacking 'All Men'

When comic Marcia Belsky sarcastically replied “men are scum” to a friend’s Facebook post back in October, she never anticipated being banned from the platform for 30 days.

That was exactly what happened.

Belsky was shocked at the severity of the punishment considering her relatively innocuous comment, and immediately spoke to her fellow female friends about the ordeal. They could relate.

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, countless women have taken to Facebook to express their frustration and disappointment with men and have been promptly shut down or silenced, banned from the platform for periods ranging from one to seven days.

Women have posted things as bland as “men ain’t shit,” “all men are ugly,” and even “all men are allegedly ugly” and had their posts removed. They’ve been locked out of their accounts for suggesting that, since “all men are ugly,” country music star Blake Shelton “winning the sexiest man isn’t a triumph.”

“I personally posted men are scum in November and I received a seven day ban. It’s still ongoing. Two days and 23 hours left,” said comedian Alison Klemp.

Kayla Avery, a comedian in Boston said she’s been banned close to 10 times by Facebook and is currently serving out the end of her third 30-day ban.

One of the first times she got banned was when her page was flooded with male trolls calling her derogatory and sexist terms. Avery posted “men continue to be the worst” she said, because she said she “felt helpless to stop their hate.”

“There was one guy who was threatening to find my house and beat me up,” she said. “I got banned before I could even successfully report it.”

In late November, after the issue was raised in a private Facebook group of nearly 500 female comedians, women pledged to post some variation of “men are scum” to Facebook on Nov. 24 in order to stage a protest. Nearly every women who carried out the pledge was banned.

“It wasn’t the best protest because it clearly didn’t work,” said Klemp. Avery said she is still suffering the consequences after posting “men are trash” on that day.

As ProPublica revealed in an investigation in June, white men are listed as a protected group by the platform.

A Facebook spokesperson clarified that this is because all genders, races, and religions are all protected characteristics under Facebook’s current policy. However, it’s clear that even with 7,000 Facebook content moderators, things slip through the cracks.

[...]Feigning outrage at statements that were clearly not written to be interpreted that way has become a favored tactic of the alt-right, Gamergate, and movements known for their coordinated harassment efforts. When moderators can’t make this distinction they punish innocent parties and embolden trolls.

Meanwhile, outright false and defamatory information—like Pizzagate communities accusing private citizens of pedophilia because of their political beliefs—still thrive on the service.

Facebook’s spokesperson stressed that it was working on a fix to this and the company plans to look at ways to eventually apply its policies in a more granular way. In the future it hopes to take into account the history of oppression with different genders and ethnicities, etc. when reviewing posts, but stressed that Facebook is a global platform.

The #MeToo movement has been perpetuated via social media thanks to the open nature of most platforms and the ability for women to speak out publicly in their own words. If Facebook’s community guidelines are being enforced irregularly, whether intentional or not, women say it stifles their ability to speak truth to power and share their stories.

“Social media is how we communicate. Preventing women from expressing themselves like this is an intimidation tactic,” said Meredith, a social-media strategist who has had several of her friends banned.

“This feels like a deliberate and systematic act—and whether it was or it wasn’t, it needs to be addressed publicly by Facebook and Instagram, especially as we’ve seen plenty of examples of true, dangerous hate speech remaining on these platforms even after being reported.”

Avery said Facebook’s banning policy itself ties into the #MeToo movement.

“How else can we have a genuine reaction to what’s going on?” Avery said. “Facebook is absolutely silencing women.”