Media Release

Embargoed until 5.30pm, Thursday 10 November 2011

NCWNZ keeps pressure on Facebook

The National Council of Women of NZ (NCWNZ) says that while Facebook's decision to remove several pages promoting rape and violence against women is good news, it is not letting up in its campaign to ensure that similar pages are taken down and new pages prevented from springing up.

NCWNZ has joined organisations in the US, UK and Canada in taking action against pages such as, 'We're gonna have sex tonight -Why? - Because im stronger than you are'; 'It's Not Rape If You Yell Surprise'; and 'Whats 10 inches and gets girls to have sex with me? my knife'.

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world have signed petitions and joined Twitter campaigns to get these kinds of pages banned. In New Zealand alone, two and a half thousand people signed the NCWNZ petition in the space of just three weeks.

In a speech to the Tauranga branch of NCWNZ today, National President Elizabeth Bang said, "As an organisation working to improve the status of women and build a society in which women are safe, NCWNZ believes Facebook is marginalising women and rape survivors by failing to come out against this type of content.

"It's not enough for Facebook to simply pay lip service to its stated mission to be a safe community where people can communicate and share ideas. It's time the company put some action behind its words."

Elizabeth Bang said that NCWNZ is calling for Facebook to meet the following demands:

1. State publicly that rape is never acceptable; remove content that advocates violence against women, and update the terms of service to specify this

2. State publicly that it does not consider promoting violence against women to be a joke, and that such content will be held to the same standard as any violence against any other group or individual

3. Be transparent about the content monitoring process by stating publicly how many pages that promote violence against women are removed; and establish relationships with experts in sexual violence and violence against women who will help identify content that needs to be removed

4. Update its terms of service to specify that content promoting violence against women or sexual violence violates Facebook's terms of use and will be removed whenever reported.

"New Zealanders do not condone a culture in which rape and violence against women are OK. We want Facebook to adopt and apply the same principle," Elizabeth Bang said.

ENDS

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