NORTH SYRACUSE -- An update to a story CNY Central first brought you Monday afternoon.
Facebook has disabled three more web pages after being alerted by CNY Central. Those pages were titled "Syracuse Smuts". They were similar to the "North Syracuse Smuts" page mentioned in our original report, and a parent who contacted us told us one of those pages contained an inappropriate picture of her daughter.
CNY Central contacted Facebook, and within a few hours the company had removed those pages, saying they had violated company policies.
Erica Taylor says her 14-year-old daughter, MacKenzie Bishop, doesn't even have a Facebook page. MacKenzie texted a picture of herself to a boyfriend, and then it ended up on Facebook. Just a few days later, Taylor noticed there were more than 35 comments posted under an inappropriate picture on "Syracuse Smuts." Some of them were from grown men.
"That's my little girl," says Taylor. "This isn't funny. This isn't a joke. It really put a damper on her emotionally. If she wasn't a strong person, Lord knows what she would've done."
MacKenzie says she was harassed at school because of the picture, and she had to switch schools. She says she's very relieved now that the page has been taken down, and she says she's learned a valuable lesson about pictures.
"No matter what anyone says, don't send it," she says.
We have received numerous messages from concerned viewers alerting us to other pages sharing similar content. We contacted Facebook to find out what the website's process is for getting rid of inappropriate pages.
Nicky Jackson Colaco, a member of the company's public policy team - which focuses on online safety - says the best way for people to report content is through the "Report" links found on nearly every page of the site.
"We have systems to prioritize the most serious reports and a trained team of reviewers around the globe who respond to reports," says Jackson Colaco. "Reports of bullying are highly prioritized and are generally acted upon swiftly."
Some of the people who contacted us said they had been reporting inappropriate pages for days with no response from Facebook.
We asked Stephanie Piston, a state action leader with the Love is Not Abuse Coalition, for advice on how to get Facebook's attention. She says the first step is to focus on the things you can control. Block anyone who is involved in harmful pages, so they cannot learn any additional information about you. Also, adjust your privacy settings, to limit anyone who is not your friend from seeing your profile.
Piston says when you report the page to Facebook, the key is to stay persistent, patient, and calm. Add a note to the reporting page, and clearly articulate what your complaint is. If you have written a prior note, write that you have contacted them about this issue before.
Also, encourage your friends to flag and report anything inappropriate. She says if more people report an issue, Facebook is more likely to act on it.
For more information about bullying, cyber bullying and how to protect yourself, you can take a look at these websites:
www.wiredsafety.org
www.stopcyberbullying.org
www.athinline.org
www.thesafespace.org
Original Story:
CNY Central and a North Syracuse woman have helped to take down a Facebook page where posters had written offensive comments about local women.
20-year-old Emily Miller says she noticed her picture was posted on the page "North Syracuse Smuts" four days ago.
Miller says the page is run by men who use codenames. They ask people to nominate "smuts." Then, they post those girls' Facebook profile pictures and write derogatory comments about them. She says some of the girls on the site are still in high school.
Miller says while she was annoyed by the site at first, she became really upset when the posters started writing offensive things about her ex-boyfriend, who had liver cancer and died last summer.
Miller says she had flagged the page and pictures from it several times, but the page and pictures were still up Monday morning. We contacted Facebook and heard back from Nicky Jackson Colaco, a member of the company's public policy team, which focuses on online safety. Colaco asked us for the page link and said the team would investigate the situation.
As of Monday afternoon the page has been taken down as a result of our story. Colaco has issued a statement in response to our inquiry, saying:
I can confirm that the Page was disabled for violating our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, the governing document of our site. This indicates that people are prohibited from bullying, harassing, or intimidating one another while using Facebook.
The safety of the people that use Facebook is extremely important to us, and we have strict policies that prohibit the posting of content that bullies or harasses. Facebook is based on a real name culture, where people must associate their actions with their true names and identities in front of their real world friends and family. We maintain a robust reporting infrastructure that leverages the 500 million people who use our site to keep an eye out for offensive or potentially dangerous content. This reporting infrastructure includes report links on pages across the Facebook site, systems to prioritize the most serious reports, and a trained team of reviewers who respond to reports and escalate them to law enforcement as needed. This team treats reports of harassing messages and impostor profiles as a priority, as well as reports for groups and Pages where "Targets me or a friend" is chosen as the reporting reason. We also prioritize serious reports submitted through the contact forms in our Help Center.
Facebook regularly participates in educational campaigns around bullying with organizations like MTV, BBC, PACER, the National Crime Prevention Council (US) Beat Bullying (UK), and many, many others. Facebook was also a founding member of the Stop Cyberbullying Coalition convened by WiredSafety. Our Safety Center (part of our Help Center) contains FAQs on how to prevent and address bullying.
We’re concerned about any abusive behavior, and have made these efforts to promote an environment where everyone on Facebook can connect and share comfortably. We encourage those who notice bullying to report it to us, and to discuss with parents, teachers, and others in the community who can help.
