On a scale of 1-10 how funny is rape to you???

When I hear the term "RAPE PAGES" I have a lot of different things run through my mind. None of them positive. You hear a lot in advertising and business there is no such thing as "bad" publicity.....and we've all seen it in action. Something like one of the many lawsuits that were brought against the owner and creator of Girls Gone Wild by parents of minor's that had been filmed, young women who had "performed" on video but don't remember consenting because of all of the alcohol they consumed, or just girls that say they didn't realize the paper that they signed was consent to have the images appear in ads/video's that were going to be distributed throughout the country and world. No one can say these were positive news stories for Joe whatever his name is, owner of the multi-million dollar franchise "girls gone wild" but guess what>? Every time that those images came across the scroll on channel 3, or another reporter brought the story to millions of homes across the world that was one more potential customer that had the chance to buy another dvd. 

Did he make his money in the most straight forward, 100% honest, integrity in-tact way? No, i don't think he'd even say he is proud of some of the stories that have came out about his cameramen plying young girls to go further and further with excessive amounts of alcohol. But, and this is a big BUT...the idea was ingenious, and in general what he did was perfectly legal.  The women that appear in those video's flashing their breasts to the camera knew what they were doing, they signed a consent form and put themselves in a position to be video taped because it sounded fun at the time, or their friends were doing it or for whatever other reason. Most of these "girls gone wild" tapings are not done at a random party where they just show up with a camera and an idea, there is massive amounts of advertising that goes into these events. 95% of the people that are at an event where they are taping, went there knowing either they wanted to go see some pretty girls that were drinking and going to be half naked, or knowing they wanted to flash the camera so they could get a free GGW t-shirt or hat. What i'm saying is, it's not usually a girl that went out to have a drink with her boyfriend and watch a baseball game on tv and relax and while her bf is distracted some shady character sneaks a roofie in her drink and sneaks her off to the basement to take advantage of her. 

Save your outrage and anger for the women out there that deserve it. Rape is a huge problem throughout the world, whether it's a 3rd world country where rebels rape and pillage while causing a rain of terror or in downtown boston while a student walks home from a night out with her girlfriends, these disgusting actions can occur anywhere.  I use the above example of Girls Gone Wild for a reason. The fact that facebook has decided to take a stand on something as ridiculous as what you will read below amazes me. In a time where they are potentially in the fight of their life to maintain there market share and this is the type of people you want to stand up for? I'm all for freedom of speech, but when they are clearly using it to incite these vile discussions among children it disgusts me. FACEBOOK IS SOMETHING THAT IS TARGETED AT KIDS in my opinion, I know kids as young as 10 years old that are on there and now they are exposed to things like "rape pages" where people are talking about rape fantasies, and other extreme examples openly? This is something your ok with your kid seeing? There is no verification to make sure only people over 18 look at it, no even place to ask that you check this box to signify that you are of legal age which would be nothing more then pretending your trying to keep kids out because anyone can just check the box but at least your pretending.....IT'S CLEAR TO ME WHY THINGS LIKE THIS ARE STILL OPEN.....BECAUSE THEY GET TRAFFIC AND TRAFFIC GET'S ADVERTISING DOLLARS AND ADVERTISING DOLLARS ARE IMPORTANT TO FACEBOOK, all i know is I will never have a facebook account and if after reading this you think you or your kids should then i think you need to read it again. 

Controversy ... Facebook has refused to remove a page about rape. Photo: Getty Images

Nobody knows better than MJ Stephens that rape is no laughing matter. So as the victim of a sexual assault, she was horrified when she encountered the contents of a Facebook page full of jokes about rape and violence towards women.

But worse was to come when the young American tried to argue with people who had attached comments to a page called: "You know shes [sic] playing hard to get when your [sic] chasing her down an alleyway" - most of them teenagers and young adults from Australia and Britain.

In sickeningly explicit terms, several of them threatened her and expressed the wish that she be raped again.

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Such pages, full of ugliness, aggression and pornographic language are multiplying on Facebook, drawing lucrative user traffic to the social networking site.

Now it has emerged that one of the "administrators" of the page - users with the right to edit its content - is believed to be a British schoolboy linked to a network of hackers in Australia, Britain and America who have set up Facebook pages featuring offensive sexual and violent content.

Micheal O'Brien, a Canadian computer systems engineer who co-founded the Rape Is No Joke (RINJ) campaign to pressure Facebook to delete "rape pages" via petitions and boycotts, has tracked the activity on several such pages and contacted participants online.

He told London's The Sunday Telegraph that associates of 4chan, a loose-knit collection of international "cyber-anarchists" who champion absolute online freedom, including the right to share pornography, have founded and administer several of the pages.

The RINJ's own website has been attacked by hackers and campaigners have been subjected to virulent online onslaughts since they started to draw attention to the 4chan connection last week. Pro-4chan images have also been posted to the "alleyway" page.

Facebook protects the identity of those who set up and run pages but Mr O'Brien has identified several posters as likely page administrators, including college students in Australia and a teenage boy in Britain.

With nearly 210,000 people indicating that they "like" it, and many million of monthly visitors, the "alleyway" page is the most popular. Others include "Abducting, raping and violently murdering your friend as a joke", "Pinning your mate down while someone HIV positive rapes him for a laugh", "Police call it a restraining order, we call it playing hard to get" and "Turning into a chain smoking sexual predator when you drink".

Many of the regular users who "post" on the pages are young Australians and Britons- many still at school, judging from information on their own Facebook profile pages. The website allows any child aged 13 or older to open an account.

Activists and victims' support groups in Britain and America, where Facebook is based, have urged the social networking site to shut down and remove the pages. But despite an online petition signed by more than 200,000 people worldwide, the internet giant is refusing to do so.

Facebook did not respond to repeated requests for comment by The Sunday Telegraph. But in response to previous complaints about the pages, the company has said that while they may express "outrageous or offensive" opinions, they do not violate its rules banning content that is hateful or incites violence.

"It is very important to point out that what one person finds offensive, another can find entertaining," a spokesman said. "Just as telling a rude joke won't get you thrown out of your local pub, it won't get you thrown off Facebook."

An administrator of the "rape page" posted an online defence in response to the controversy, insisting that he did not support or promote rape but then directing a sarcastic barb at critics.

"i d[o] not support rape this group doesn't," the person wrote, with a lack of grammar and in internet shorthand characteristic of many postings. "thanks for supporting us uve made us get even more likes i thank u for that but this group has not dne anything wrong according to the terms and cnditions f facebook groups s if it does get taken down it will result in court because it has done nothing wrong."

Jane Osmond, co-editor of the Women's Views on News website, which has led the campaign in Britain, said: "It's ludicrous to compare the content on this page to pub humour. Rape is a crime and we live in a society where the threat of rape is in the mind of every woman who has walked down a street alone at night. Making a joke about rape is not just not funny. It allows people to dismiss it as something not serious.

"Those who post in this way are certainly mostly teenage boys and young men saying inappropriate things, but we do believe that these sites have attracted sexual predators too. It is a dangerous group with some dangerous users."

Activists who have gone online to make their case, and to publish images for a campaign promoting consensual rather than forced sexual activity, have been subjected to such a violent response that some have complained to the police.

Campaigners on both sides of the Atlantic have now switched their attention to businesses as they believe Facebook is inclined to allow the pages to continue because of the viewers and hence advertising revenue they bring in.

"Facebook will only listen to money, so we are now targeting the advertisers who have appeared on their pages," said Miss Osmond.

Major companies that advertise on Facebook were furious to discover that their advertisements were appearing on the "rape page" and demanded they be removed. They included Barclays, 02, John Lewis, Sony, BlackBerry, American Express, Groupon, Heinz, National Lottery, the White Company and PepsiCo.

After complaints from several businesses to Facebook, the "alleyway" page was "whitelisted" last week, meaning that no adverts could be rotated on it. But advertisements continue to appear on other pages where the content was just as offensive.

by Christopher Stokes at 10:19 pm