4 ms·

Facebook Won’t Remove This Woman’s Butthole as a Business Page

31 points by pulisse 7y ago

minimaxir 7y ago
HN discussion of the original Reddit post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22170749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22170749 Note that hours after this article was posted yesterday, Facebook reversed course and removed the page.
- klyrs 7y ago
  This is a story about a broken review process. It's great that they reversed course after her butthole got international attention, but it would be even better if facebook made the right call the first time.
primordialsoup 7y ago
This is unfortunate that she had to escalate it in this manner for the page to be gone. Now a search for her name will point to these articles.
- acwan93 7y ago
  Good ol’ Streisand effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
pwinnski 7y ago
Next up: "Google won't remove results for a Buzzfeed article about how Facebook wouldn't remove a business page about my butthole."
mikece 7y ago
"Update: Facebook has removed the Page for Jespersen's butthole." Goes to show that Facebook could have moved that fast all along but can't be bothered to respond until it's a news item. I hope Samantha sues for $50MM or more and wins because a precedent needs to be established.
- cjhopman 7y ago
  Or that the people at Facebook that can move that fast on something like this had no idea about this case. I suspect that most reviews, just like any other even medium-sized company's support, are going through people that don't have quite the same capabilities.
  - WalterSear 7y ago
    You are saying the same thing.
bsg75 7y ago
> Facebook has said it isn’t in violation of its community standards (Facebook removed the Page after this article was published) I can't image a more eloquent example describing Facebook's standards.
- bilekas 7y ago
  Or double standards since it's been taken down.. Maybe bad publicity is in their community standards too. God I hate Facebook.
  - WarOnPrivacy 7y ago
    > Or double standards Appending to "Very Confused Double Standards" https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190503/17322942136/content-moderation-scale-is-impossible-facebook-still-cant-figure-out-how-to-deal-with-naked-breasts.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190503/17322942136/conte...
  - CarelessExpert 7y ago
    Reply All just released a Q&A episode that included a story about a woman who tried and failed to regain access to her Facebook profile after a mistake related to the Facebook real name policy. The upshot was exactly this: Unless something rises to the level of creating bad publicity, trying to get help from Facebook for issues like this is basically screaming into the wind.
bilekas 7y ago
In the US, do you guys have : 'the right to be forgotten' or something simular that this could be cleaned up even a little bit from google. This is a good example of when Facebook just doesn't apply common sense.
- dijit 7y ago
  There is no direct corollary to that law in the US. The New York State Assembly has come nearest to an American version of a right-to-be-forgotten. The Bill, A05323, titled “An act to amend the civil rights law and the civil practice law and rules, in relation to creating the right to be forgotten act,” in large part mimics of the European Court of Justice’s decision. But there doesn't seem to be anything outside of that.
RileyJames 7y ago
How do the community standards defend this page / business? I mean, it’s clearly not useful, valuable, or active. It has no reviews, it’s clearly not a real business that sells anything. How did it pass the “seems legit” sniff test? Even if it didn’t break a specific rule, how does it MEET any community standards?
- mcbutterbunz 7y ago
  Im assuming that the problem stems from the review process, which is likely all automated (and poorly). I doubt that a human ever actually looked at this, which is a problem in itself. It wasn't until actual humans got word of the situation that things changed.
- krapp 7y ago
  The community standard is that it doesn't break a specific rule - that is the sniff test. Context-specific pun intended. Facebook doesn't have the right to decide what pages are or are not "legitimate", useful, viable or active apart from whether they violate its terms of service - to do so would be exactly the sort of censorship and violation of freedom of expression that people here are usually up in arms about. Today it's this girl's butthole. Tomorrow it might be a religion or a political party that is arbitrarily determined to be "not legitimate" and banned by the powers that be. And then what? It's the butt of fascism on our heads forever.
  - lawlessone 7y ago
    >Facebook doesn't have the right to decide what pages are or are not "legitimate", useful, viable or active apart from whether they violate its terms of service - to do so would be exactly the sort of censorship and violation of freedom of expression that people here are usually up in arms about. On Facebook , Facebook has that right.
colejohnson66 7y ago
The only things I’ve reported that have been taken down are clearly scam ads. I’ve (also) reported hate speech comments and they always say it doesn’t violate their standards.
jdsully 7y ago
Of course buzzfeed has to plaster her name over the article. Now the FB page will be replaced by this one.
- pulisse 7y ago
  As another comment pointed out[1], the BF reporter offered to anonymize the victim, but she insisted that her full identity be included. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22192847 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22192847.
  - jdsully 7y ago
    Thanks for the correction.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tengbretson 7y ago
Surely buzzfeed could have avoided publishing this person's real name.
- pulisse 7y ago
  See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22192847 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22192847. The subject asked the reporter to include her full name.
ryanmercer 7y ago
My first reaction was t look at the calendar and the date of the article to make sure neither was April 1st. I feel like Facebook just needs to create a list of no-go words and add to it as problems arise. Words like common profanity, 'butthole', 'titty', 'titties', etc. This would be a good, common sense, first step. I've had friends have art flagged and removed when it was non-sexual anthropomorphic nudity (breasts) in their art but then "so and so's butthole" requires news coverage for removal?
- jerf 7y ago
  I was likewise surprised that such a title would pass HN's title standards and figured I'd just gotten someone's early, crude editorialization but... nope, that's the correct the title. That's the news.
minimaxir 7y ago
Re: the use of her real name in the article: > I talked to her about this exact thing and offered to use her first name only. She wanted to use her full name and was aware it would show up in google. https://twitter.com/katienotopoulos/status/1222919952904093696 https://twitter.com/katienotopoulos/status/12229199529040936...
izzydata 7y ago
Now this article is the first result as well as a thumbnail of the images so you can see her face. This doesn't seem like a good outcome.

31 points by pulisse 7y ago

HN discussion of the original Reddit post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22170749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22170749 Note that hours after this article was posted yesterday, Facebook reversed course and removed the page.

klyrs 7y ago
This is a story about a broken review process. It's great that they reversed course after her butthole got international attention, but it would be even better if facebook made the right call the first time.

primordialsoup 7y ago

This is unfortunate that she had to escalate it in this manner for the page to be gone. Now a search for her name will point to these articles.

acwan93 7y ago
Good ol’ Streisand effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

pwinnski 7y ago

Next up: "Google won't remove results for a Buzzfeed article about how Facebook wouldn't remove a business page about my butthole."

mikece 7y ago

"Update: Facebook has removed the Page for Jespersen's butthole." Goes to show that Facebook could have moved that fast all along but can't be bothered to respond until it's a news item. I hope Samantha sues for $50MM or more and wins because a precedent needs to be established.

cjhopman 7y ago
Or that the people at Facebook that can move that fast on something like this had no idea about this case. I suspect that most reviews, just like any other even medium-sized company's support, are going through people that don't have quite the same capabilities.
- WalterSear 7y ago
  You are saying the same thing.

bsg75 7y ago

> Facebook has said it isn’t in violation of its community standards (Facebook removed the Page after this article was published) I can't image a more eloquent example describing Facebook's standards.

bilekas 7y ago
Or double standards since it's been taken down.. Maybe bad publicity is in their community standards too. God I hate Facebook.
- WarOnPrivacy 7y ago
  > Or double standards Appending to "Very Confused Double Standards" https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190503/17322942136/content-moderation-scale-is-impossible-facebook-still-cant-figure-out-how-to-deal-with-naked-breasts.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190503/17322942136/conte...
- CarelessExpert 7y ago
  Reply All just released a Q&A episode that included a story about a woman who tried and failed to regain access to her Facebook profile after a mistake related to the Facebook real name policy. The upshot was exactly this: Unless something rises to the level of creating bad publicity, trying to get help from Facebook for issues like this is basically screaming into the wind.

bilekas 7y ago

In the US, do you guys have : 'the right to be forgotten' or something simular that this could be cleaned up even a little bit from google. This is a good example of when Facebook just doesn't apply common sense.

dijit 7y ago
There is no direct corollary to that law in the US. The New York State Assembly has come nearest to an American version of a right-to-be-forgotten. The Bill, A05323, titled “An act to amend the civil rights law and the civil practice law and rules, in relation to creating the right to be forgotten act,” in large part mimics of the European Court of Justice’s decision. But there doesn't seem to be anything outside of that.

RileyJames 7y ago

How do the community standards defend this page / business? I mean, it’s clearly not useful, valuable, or active. It has no reviews, it’s clearly not a real business that sells anything. How did it pass the “seems legit” sniff test? Even if it didn’t break a specific rule, how does it MEET any community standards?

mcbutterbunz 7y ago
Im assuming that the problem stems from the review process, which is likely all automated (and poorly). I doubt that a human ever actually looked at this, which is a problem in itself. It wasn't until actual humans got word of the situation that things changed.
krapp 7y ago
The community standard is that it doesn't break a specific rule - that is the sniff test. Context-specific pun intended. Facebook doesn't have the right to decide what pages are or are not "legitimate", useful, viable or active apart from whether they violate its terms of service - to do so would be exactly the sort of censorship and violation of freedom of expression that people here are usually up in arms about. Today it's this girl's butthole. Tomorrow it might be a religion or a political party that is arbitrarily determined to be "not legitimate" and banned by the powers that be. And then what? It's the butt of fascism on our heads forever.
- lawlessone 7y ago
  >Facebook doesn't have the right to decide what pages are or are not "legitimate", useful, viable or active apart from whether they violate its terms of service - to do so would be exactly the sort of censorship and violation of freedom of expression that people here are usually up in arms about. On Facebook , Facebook has that right.

colejohnson66 7y ago

The only things I’ve reported that have been taken down are clearly scam ads. I’ve (also) reported hate speech comments and they always say it doesn’t violate their standards.

jdsully 7y ago

Of course buzzfeed has to plaster her name over the article. Now the FB page will be replaced by this one.

pulisse 7y ago
As another comment pointed out[1], the BF reporter offered to anonymize the victim, but she insisted that her full identity be included. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22192847 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22192847.
- jdsully 7y ago
  Thanks for the correction.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

tengbretson 7y ago

Surely buzzfeed could have avoided publishing this person's real name.

pulisse 7y ago
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22192847 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22192847. The subject asked the reporter to include her full name.

ryanmercer 7y ago

My first reaction was t look at the calendar and the date of the article to make sure neither was April 1st. I feel like Facebook just needs to create a list of no-go words and add to it as problems arise. Words like common profanity, 'butthole', 'titty', 'titties', etc. This would be a good, common sense, first step. I've had friends have art flagged and removed when it was non-sexual anthropomorphic nudity (breasts) in their art but then "so and so's butthole" requires news coverage for removal?

jerf 7y ago
I was likewise surprised that such a title would pass HN's title standards and figured I'd just gotten someone's early, crude editorialization but... nope, that's the correct the title. That's the news.

minimaxir 7y ago

Re: the use of her real name in the article: > I talked to her about this exact thing and offered to use her first name only. She wanted to use her full name and was aware it would show up in google. https://twitter.com/katienotopoulos/status/1222919952904093696 https://twitter.com/katienotopoulos/status/12229199529040936...

izzydata 7y ago

Now this article is the first result as well as a thumbnail of the images so you can see her face. This doesn't seem like a good outcome.