Data“DONATE A NEURON TO A HATER”… AND TOUGHER REGULATIONS FOR FACEBOOK

This isn’t a pleasant story. It’s trite, but also increasingly common… Except that in this case, there’s a paralympic athlete involved. Bebe Vio is an extraordinary and courageous young woman, and a true fighter, always ready to take the world head-on. The other party involved here is Facebook, the global giant that continues to devour the market, swallowing up all kinds of services (see Whatsapp and Instagram). What it can’t buy, it copies (Stories is a direct ripoff of Snapchat). That same Facebook founded and directed by Zuckerberg, has launched a full-out political manifesto in the last few days.

A hate page against Bebe Vio

While everyone’s chasing the latest trends and grappling for control of the digital market, Facebook makes up a huge part of many people’s social lives. There are people who spend their whole day sharing sporadically (sometimes they don’t even know what…like Italian comedian Maurizio Crozza’s character, NAPALM51), and compulsively watching what other people are doing.

In the meantime, new pages pop up like mushrooms, tailored for any activity or passion, but especially those against someone or something. There’s an intense and profound need to show and share hate. And this is exactly what happened to Bebe Vio, who was threatened with sexual assault on a Facebook page created about her. How many times did she have to flag the page to have it removed? Many. Too many. And how did Facebook respond? “The page does not violate community standards”. The consumer protection agency Codacons made a formal complaint against the social network. Many users had already reported the page, and always got the same answer.

Does Facebook really think that a page that encourages sexual assault against a woman follows the rules of the largest community in the world? The answer is simple. No. The point is that some things still need human involvement and not just algorithms – people can evaluate, analyze and make decisions, unlike an automatic reply that may not have even checked the page properly before sending its response. The only reason we’re talking about this today is because it involves Bebe Vio, a public figure who is a courageous  and well known role model. So in this case, we need to take a step back – or at least ask ourselves – is it possible to manage a global community without worrying about protecting its members? Maybe the democracy of the web implies the total departure from shared content and values?

“Donate a neuron to a hater”.. A campaign by Ale Cattelan and Bebe Vio

And beyond all this, another great question arises: who are all these haters? The people hiding behind a screen, who spend their time belittling other people, maybe just looking for approval. There reason behind setting up the Bebe Vio page was probably a really trivial one: to get likes. People think ‘the more likes and followers I bring to my page, the more powerful I feel, and maybe I can finally make my mark on the world.’

And what better way to respond to haters than through humor? That’s exactly what Bebe Vio and Alessandro Cattelan did, launching the campaign “Donate a neuron to a hater”. “These are people who were born with a little less: they’re the internet haters. Help a hater: donate one neuron, and double the number that they have,” says Cattelan. The official hashtags of the campaign are #epccdonaunneurone #epcc.

And we can’t help but share this thought. It’s especially important for people like us who work in the digital sector, to be able distinguish between people who take advantage of the viral and communicative opportunities social media offers, and those who use it as a forum – a virtual space to fill their days. It always depends who’s behind an account. That’s the only true holder of the communicative power of social media.

Bebe Vio is a hero – a young woman who worked hard to get where she is now. And the true heroes are the ones who work to achieve their goals, regardless of the number of likes they get.