The Newest Thing on Facebook? Rape Pages

Free-speech battles proliferate on the fringes of the popular social network.

Facebook groups dedicated to discussing rape fantasies are popping up all over the world's most popular social network, leading to new concerns over just what should be allowed on a site with nearly 800 million users. The most popular such group, "You know shes playing hard to get when your chasing her down an alley," already has more than 200,000 members, most of whom are adolescent or university-aged boys from the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia. Other groups, according to The Telegraph, include:

• "Abducting, raping and violently murdering your friend as a joke";

• "Pinning your mate down while someone HIV positive rapes him for a laugh";

• "Police call it a restraining order, we call it playing hard to get";

• "Turning into a chain smoking sexual predator when you drink".

Apparently, the endlessly creative degenerates on 4chan, a website forum dedicated to crude jokes and testing the limits of free speech are behind a bunch of the groups, which Facebook has declined to shut down despite a petition signed by some 200,000 people. If it is 4chan behind the groups, then Facebook's hesitance to shut them down could be due to the fact that 4chan's users, also known as /b/tards, have a habit of exacting painful digital revenge on those who cross them.

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