The Internet is a vicious place. More so, if you are making your opinions known. And God forbid, if your opinion does not go well with the majority, you are as good as dead. As long as trolls and abusers are hidden behind their computer screens, caution, logic and civility gets thrown to the wind.
Eight women from Kerala, subject to such abusers decided to do something to improve the situation, which is increasingly getting out of hand. They joined hands to start a campaign called For A Better Fb .
Preetha G, a single mother from a remote village said “I was the one who was abused but it was my ID that Facebook blocked thrice. When I reported the abusive comments to Facebook in Malayalam, I got a response that said it does not violate our community standards,” as reported by NDTV .
Jasleen CV, faced a similar reaction when she showed her support for a man who got arrested for not standing up when the national anthem was playing. “I was abused, my profile was reported and I was shocked when Facebook sent me a message saying I was using a fake name, when actually I was using my real name,” she said.
They have put forth a few demands to Facebook, which includes getting rid of the real name policy, the need to provide government identification for verification, dedicated personnel to assess hate pages and linguistic experts who can understand the complexity of the non-English cultures.
They are being supported by many international organisations including American Civil Liberties Union, Digital Rights Foundation and Global Voices Advocacy.
