'Spirit Day' Inspires 'The Guild Effect' On Facebook
- October 15th, 2010
- 7 Comments
Earlier this week, Facebook agreed to team up with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) in an effort to reduce the amount of anti-gay bullying on the site. The partnership was bred from a heartbreaking epilogue to the recent string of gay teen suicides when a grassroots event page set up to coordinate “Spirit Day” in memory of Tyler Celmenti and other victims of anti-gay bullying was flooded with hate speech and more bullying in comments.
After receiving more than 1,800 letters, GLAAD reached out to Facebook who, in turn, agreed to monitor activity closely for any violations in terms of service and would more generally adopt new measures to respond more quickly to hate speech. Facebook Public Policy Communications Manager Andrew Noyes also added in an e-mail that Facebook “intends to work closely with GLAAD and other LGBT organizations on future initiatives.”
This sounds promising, but for now much of the policing still falls on the shoulders of the Facebook members administrating and participating on pages like this that risk drawing vicious detractors. Facebook may provide the tools for moderation, but especially in these large communities, it becomes the users’ responsibility to look after their groups and events and make use of “robust reporting infrastructure” and the “expansive [Facebook] team” behind it. Along with pointing to the need for more educational initiatives that inspire these reflexes (flagging, reporting, etc.) to become second nature in online community members, it also once again creates a valuable opportunity for Facebook or educators/parents/online safety organization to empower those young digital citizens ready to take initiative now.
This struck me as I scrolled through comments on the event page—which continues to be a battleground between supporters and detractors (though not all derogatory comments could be construed as hate speech)—and found a link to an alternative Spirit Day page where 27 different admins have volunteered “to keep watch and make this a safe haven for those that need to talk or just want to post in memory to those we have lost.”
I believe both spaces (heated forum, safe havens) have the potential to be teachable moments in how we help young people appropriately use and protect these public platforms as emotional outlets—whether that means identifying and removing trolls, choosing to engage in a debate (I think it’s important to distinguish what does and do not merit a violation), or creating closed groups to avoid those interactions altogether. As with the systemic problems offline, the hate online won’t disappear overnight, but my hope is that by advancing this consciousness along with smart mediation tools/awareness campaigns and diligent efforts from Facebook/GLAAD, it will get better.
P.S. ReachOut.com is still actively looking for stories from young people ages 14-24 who have overcome this type of digital bullying or sexting. Please share this information with any youth you work with and have them go to http://us.reachout.com/your_voice/share_your_story.php to share their story.
Thanks Meredith. I think it is very important for the media to be covering issues like this and not just focus on the sensational aspects, but what can be done moving forward.
From a professional standpoint, I would obviously love for every page on the web to be moderated professionally, but the world is too big for that - and many non-profit causes such as this can’t afford.
Safety online begins and ends with education. The most powerful moderator on a site is a human being moderating their own environment. Sometimes you can’t escape it in the real world, but you can with the right tools online. The more we educate youth to understand their digital environment and learn how to take control of it the safer these spaces will become in the future.
It breaks my heart to see things like this, but it is not hopeless when administrators, moderators, and the community itself work together to combat hate speech and bullying.
Wonderful to see this is as a story on Ypulse. Thank you for your valuable perspective.
Thanks, Meredith and Chase, both, for your good thinking here. I so agree that - just by the very nature of social media - safety and privacy are a shared proposition, often a negotiation. In case anybody’s curious about Meredith’s ref to “the guild effect,” I first wrote about it and how social networks can be protective here (http://www.netfamilynews.org/?p=28617).
[...] habla bien la propia página abierta en Facebook para solidarizarse con estudiante fallecido, Spirit Day, que al poco de ser lanzada se llenó de insultos homófobos, lo que motivó también la [...]
[...] habla bien la propia página abierta en Facebook para solidarizarse con estudiante fallecido, Spirit Day, que al poco de ser lanzada se llenó de insultos homófobos, lo que motivó también la [...]
I created this new event on Facebook and I am trying to spread it. It is for anyone who has been bullied and I have a disclaimer of “If you post hate speech, you wil find yourself reported.” and I am actively monitoring it a lot. So far since yesterday, there has been no issue. Here is the link: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=138905429490211
[...] la propia página abierta que hay en Facebook para solidarizarse con estudiante fallecido, llamada Spirit Day, que al poco de ser lanzada se llenó de insultos homófobos. Esto motivó también la [...]
[...] closet gracias al twitter de su compañero de cuarto) se le creó un perfil a manera de memoria, que fue llenado con comentarios subidos de tono y derogatorios, tras lo cual la GLAAD contactó a la gente de Facebook para remover el contenido, [...]