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Facebook Rape Pages – Tasteless Jokes or Over the Line?

17
Oct
2011

you_know_shes_playing_hard_to_get

“You know she’s playing hard to get when you’re chasing her down an alleyway.”

That quote – whether it made you chuckle or fume in indignation – is at the center of a rather controversial sequence of events. You see, the quote is actually the name of a Facebook page which contains more than 200,000 people – a rather impressive, or rather, disturbing number considering the page’s topic.

It comes as no surprise that a lot of people are offended by the way the page pokes fun and makes light of rape. Words can’t express the horror and terror experienced by victims of this violent, heinous act. As such, several groups have launched protests, urging Facebook to remove the offensive page. According to The Telegraph, Facebook has stated that while the pages may express “outrageous or offensive” opinions, they do not violate rules because the content is not hateful and doesn’t incite violence.

The protest brought a lot of attention to the page, in times even helping the page generate more likes. All those who try to post their displeasure about the page only received sarcastic, rude, often lewd, comments.

The issue runs a lot deeper than the page’s morality or lack of it. Now there’s an all out debate on the issue, mostly centering on freedom of speech vs. censorship.

Members of the page, have even gone so far as to make numerous rape pages on Facebook, ensuring that trying to censor them would ultimately be an uphill battle. Some of these pages include “Police call it a restraining order, we call it playing hard to get” and “Pinning your mate down while someone HIV positive rapes him for a laugh”.

The administrator of the page, who claims that he does not condone rape but still finds humor in rape jokes, is said to be a member of a hacker network in Britain. Supporters of his cause, are members of 4chan – cyber anarchists who believe that the Internet should be completely free and uncensored.

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