These demands follow the release of a report revealing how hate speech and harassment have escalated on Facebook and Instagram since Meta weakened protections.
Arisha Hatch, the interim executive director of the women’s advocacy group UltraViolet, condemned the verdict as “a stain on a criminal justice system that for decades has failed to hold accountable abusers” and called it “an indictment of a culture in which not believing women and victims of sexual assault remains endemic.”
Sheryl Sandberg is under fire for her work as Facebook Chief Operating Officer during the 2016 election. Women’s advocacy group UltraViolet is backpedaling their previous support for Sandberg ahead of the upcoming election.
The press release, titled “UltraViolet Says Facebook is Powering Violence that Harms Women” accuses the COO of Facebook of turning the social media platform into a “right-wing playground.”
UltraViolet co-founder and executive director Shaunna Thomas elaborated: “In 2012, UltraViolet members stood up for Sheryl Sandberg and called for her to be added to Facebook’s board of directors – thinking she was a smart and empathetic leader who cared deeply about improving the lives of all women. We were wrong.”
Adding: “Sheryl Sandberg is in a position where she could have been a champion for women facing attacks on Facebook, but she and Mark Zuckerberg have turned Facebook into a right-wing playground where misogyny, racism, disinformation, violence, and hateful conspiracy theories grow and spread. Women deserve better.”
Thomas shared the quote on Twitter. “Sheryl Sandberg tells women to ‘lean in’, and when they do, they are attacked on the platform she helps run,” Thomas wrote. “We’ve had enough. Look out for an ad from us this weekend calling her and Facebook out and demanding changes NOW.”
“The point of view that’s forwarded is that sexual assault is a function of individual behaviors — it’s one bad apple — but that institutions have no role to play, that they’re not liable,” said Shaunna Thomas, the executive director of Ultraviolet, a progressive group that advocates for gender equity. “It is not a function of a bad apple here and there. It is everywhere, and it is systems and institutions enabling that behavior and protecting and in some cases elevating sexual predators to positions of more power.”