A viral Facebook post is once again highlighting the hotbeds of misogyny that exist on Facebook, and the social media giant’s complete inability to do anything about it.
A video of a couple having sex – with strong implications that it was taken without the woman’s consent – was shared to an Australian private men’s group with over 14,500 members.
“What is the biggest whale that you have harpooned?” writes the Facebook user. “I went through a tubby phase and landed this 130kg beast.”
The hundreds of comments on the post are nothing short of abusive, ranging from fat jokes (“you need Jesus after this humpback whale”) to requests for more nudes and videos.
Of the literal hundreds of comments, not one defends the women. However, one of the group’s members, NSW man Hayden Brien, took issue with the photo, and reported it to Facebook.
“I bite my tongue over the daily misogynistic, racist, homophobic and generally uneducated posts in this group because hey, this is a safe space for the working class Aussie males, right?” he wrote in a post that’s since gone viral.
“This however crosses the line in a very very big way, and needs to be stopped immediately. Men’s groups can be a great help to plenty of people going through tough times, but ‘banter’ is no excuse for this sort of behaviour.”
But when he reported the post, Facebook decided that it didn’t “go against any of our specific Community Standards” and left it published.
Brien then screenshotted the original post (censoring the woman’s image), and shared it to Facebook in the hopes of affecting change.
“I’m sick of every bloke on planet Earth thinking we’re some kind of master race and treating women as second rate human beings,” he said. “It’s like you’ve gotta make indirect sexist jokes just to fit in with the lads these days and it’s fucking stupid and I’m over it honestly.”
At the time of writing, his post has been shared over 1,000 times.
PEDESTRIAN.TV has reached out to Facebook for comment. It is unclear if the original post remains published, but it does appear that the person who posted it has changed his name on Facebook.
