Joanna Bolouri's Blog, page 7

Facebook Fail.

So tonight I saw a picture on Facebook which disturbed me. It was posted on a page which embraced all things distasteful in the name of humour by trolls who get their kicks doing this.  The picture showed a young woman, bound and gagged, looking frightened and underneath it said ‘It’s not rape. if she really didn’t want to she’d have said no.’  So the ‘gag’ was actually the fact she was wearing a gag. How clever.

I reported it to Facebook who had a look and then replied saying it wasn’t violating their terms of service. Hmm. Don’t forget that they removed breastfeeding photos not so long ago. It seems tits are offensive unless they’ve accidentally fallen out of the top of some drunk girl who’s now being ‘bantered’ to fuck by Unilad.

Twitter seemed to agree with me except for the small minority who decided that freedom of speech means anyone can say what they like and if you try to censor it, then FUCK YOU.  As long as they can stick it on a lighthearted meme, everything is fair game –  rape, child abuse, murder, cot death….

This isn’t a post in which I’ll go into why rape jokes are wrong. There are people much better than me to do this.

This isn’t a post where I’ll try to explain how horrific rape is and how triggering ‘jokes’ like  this can be for victims.

This is a post where I’ll say FUCK YOU right back.

I refuse to bring up my daughter in a society where this is seen as acceptable and sit back and say nothing. Apparently Facebook cannot regulate children creating accounts, allow people to post videos of bestiality or beheadings for kicks and allow the trolls to sit back and laugh as we’re genuinely affected by this.  They have the right to do this.

Somewhere someone seems to have forgotten that people have THE RIGHT not to see this.  

I feel sad as a parent, as a woman and as a fucking human being that this is what we’re being fed this shit by those who have become numb and who are void of any kind of compassion. We haven’t and once these images get into your head, they’re very difficult to get out. Who the fuck gave anyone the right to do this?

Facebook is a site to bore people with your endless stream of baby pictures, speak to people you secretly hate and spy on folk you’re jealous of – end of.  If you want to shock, promote rape jokes, watch people dying, whatever, that’s your right but fuck off to 4chan and do it.

The internet is a big place; take your right to be an utter prick and go play somewhere else.

The Twitter Effect.

I use Twitter all the time, in fact you’re probably reading this post because of the link I’ve just tweeted. As a rule I like the people I follow but I’ve noticed how Twitter can turn seemingly normal, compassionate people into fucking bellends -myself included.  Some examples below.

“I DIDN’T KNOW I WAS ANGRY ABOUT THAT UNTIL TWITTER MENTIONED IT. NOW I’M LIVID. FUCK YOU PERSON WHO SAID SOMETHING.”
“I believe everyone has the right to free speech regardless of whether I agree with what they’re saying. What? YOU CAN’T SAY THAT YOU MASSIVE PRICK. *unfollows*
You have over ONE THOUSAND followers!!! You must be some sort of God. Time to start throwing your considerable weight around eh?
If I find you have a large number of followers or I think you’ll be useful, I will DM you and pretend one day I’ll sleep with you. I won’t.
I will claim to be your mate but I won’t RT anything you’ve said/written in case it offends any of my own followers.
I’M GOING TO POST A SEXY PICTURE OF ME IN MY PANTS. Then claim I look fat and wait for people to feed my ego.
I will take part in the bullying of a celebrity because everyone else is but will defend someone ‘normal’ if this happens to them.
If all else fails, I’ll say cunt as often as possible.
VOICES OPINION ON SOMETHING I DON’T UNDERSTAND.
I won’t ever have a conversation with you but I will reply to everything you say with a smart arse remark.
I’m a comedian so this means every tweet will be a joke. Every. Fucking. Tweet.
I am political. LOOK AT MY POLITICAL TWEETS. I have nothing else.
I WILL BLOCK YOU IF YOU DISAGREE WITH ME AND POSSIBLY EVERYONE YOU’VE EVER MET OR LOVED.
Twitter is important because celebrities might talk to you. IMAGINE THAT!

I am guilty of a couple of these. I HATE MYSELF.