As Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg put it at the "All Things Digital" conference this week, "Put your name on your sexism" – if you're going to engage in behavior or sharing that's offensive to others on your page, your name's going to be on that page now. Sandberg was responding to a reporter's question about Facebook's announcement the previous day that it would be working with women's rights … [Read more...] about Facebook adding accountability to controversial content
hate speech
Facebook to work with women’s rights activists on content
Last week activists Soraya Chemaly, Laura Bates of the Everyday Sexism Project, and Jaclyn Friedman of Women, Action & the Media (WAM!) published in the Huffington Post "An Open Letter to Facebook" about depictions of violence against girls and women posted on the site. This week Facebook responded with some substantive promises, some based on an ongoing review of hate speech policy and some … [Read more...] about Facebook to work with women’s rights activists on content
‘Compassion mobs’ & other digital-age nonviolence stands
You've probably heard the phrase "kill 'em with kindness" for disarming detractors, well in social media it's more like swamping – flooding – public, sometimes collective, cruelty with kindness, acceptance, respect, etc. That was a powerful tactic used by students I wrote about in Part 1 of this series, but it has been practiced to huge ripple effect by students in Nova Scotia, Iowa, Minnesota, … [Read more...] about ‘Compassion mobs’ & other digital-age nonviolence stands
Do watch ‘Class Actions’ on PBS
"How do we learn from the past?" asks the narrator of the promotional video for "Class Actions," a 30-min. PBS documentary about three US towns that, with the help of young activists *have* learned from the past and not let hate take over again. "In Oxford, Miss., student leaders find the strength to unify their campus," says narrator Yul Kwon, who found the strength himself to win "Survivor" in … [Read more...] about Do watch ‘Class Actions’ on PBS
‘Hate 2.0’
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization, recently testified before Congress that there has been a "stark rise in the number of hate and terror sites and Web postings," a New York Times blog reports. Its annual report says the Center has identified about 8,000 such sites in the past year, up 30% over last year, the blog adds. Contributing to the problem is the rise of the … [Read more...] about ‘Hate 2.0’