Facebook Doesn't Consider Page Honoring Rapists 'Violent'

The New Zealand teen rapists known as the Roast Busters met many of their victims over social media and had an active Facebook page where members of the group bragged about getting girls occasionally underaged girls drunk and then gang raping them. When news of their exploits broke in local media, the page disappeared. Now, a new page honoring the club has popped up in its place. And Facebook won’t do a damn thing about it.

There’s no evidence indicating that the new Facebook Roast Busters page was set up by members of the group themselves, or just some idiotic kids trying to troll the web. But regardless of who’s behind it, the page, on its surface, exists to promote the interests of a group of admitted rapists who, thanks to the bumbling of almost every authority figure their victims encountered, continue to walk free. And many of the postings on the page were threats of rape against the rapists themselves. Which — while it may appeal to a person’s basest thirst for vengeance — is not okay.

That’s why one reader thought to contact Facebook and ask that the page be taken down, only to discover (WHOOPSIE) that Facebook doesn’t have a violation category that specifically flags “sexual violence.” I poked around a little, and the closest I could find to reporting glorification of sexual violence/rape was by ticking the “This page shouldn’t be on facebook” option and then ticking “sexually explicit content” (not accurate, really), “violence or harmful behavior,” or “hate speech.”

Here’s what our tipster wrote:

I attempted to report the page for sexual violence, which Facebook clearly doesn’t believe exists, so I chose graphic violence instead.
Less than 5 minutes later, I received the response that the page had been reviewed, and it was fine.

Facebook has responded to complaints over a new page lauding the New Zealand teen rapists that called themselves the “Roast Busters” with a resounding internet shrug. Here’s the message they sent the tipster who complained.

Maybe whoever reviewed the complaint hadn’t read the news and didn’t know that a group honoring a bunch of guys who think gang rape is great is much more objectionable than images of a woman who has had a mastectomy. Or maybe this is more shitty behavior toward women from Facebook, which doesn’t exactly have a track record of consistently weeding out harmful or threatening content.

More from the tipster,

I sent feedback on this review “Facebook apparently reviewed my report in less than 5 minutes. If you bothered to look at the page you’d understand that this page is either the New Zealand’s rapists page, or someone purporting to be them.
I do not believe this page was reviewed – or, given that Facebook has no “Sexual violence” listing in it’s “violent” category, you don’t consider rape to be an issue?”
I doubt they’ll look at it again, from what I hear, FB’s review policy is a joke.

Maybe they’re too busy taking down images of women’s breasts in non-sexual contexts.