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Facebook Takes Down Official Page for the French Town of Bitche

posted by martyb on Wednesday April 14 2021, @01:25AM   
from the life's-a-Bitche-sometimes dept.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Facebook takes down official page for the French town of Bitche:

In an unusual turn of events, the Facebook page for Bitche, a small town in northeastern Moselle, France, was taken down on March 19, as Zuck's offensive verbiage police pulled the town's name into the social platform's unusually stringent dragnet.

According to Politico.eu, the Monday takedown temporarily forced Valérie Degouy, the town's communications administrator, to generate a new page labeled after the area postal code, Mairie 57230.

[...] "I already had problems when I created the town's Facebook page. I could not enter the word Bitche; it was impossible," she said. "I had to create a page that I had called Ville fortifiée, and change it afterwards, in the description, to say that it was the official page of the town of Bitche and point out at the same time, the username was Ville de Bitche. At that time in 2016, it was allowed."

[...] At long last, Facebook restored the original page on Tuesday, almost a month later. The mayor, Benoît Kieffer, said in a Facebook post, translated by the Guardian: "The name of our town seems to suffer from a bad interpretation ... the most astonishing thing is that Facebook took so long to correct this."

What overly-aggressive filter blocks have you encountered?

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Original Submission

• Go Facebook off Go Facebook off (Score: 4, Funny) by SomeGuy on Wednesday April 14 2021, @02:36AM (3 children)

  by SomeGuy (5632) on Wednesday April 14 2021, @02:36AM (#1137250)

  From now on the word "Facebook" is a swear word. It roughly means getting raped bloody while enjoying it. The word is said with an impact heavier than "Fuck" or certain slurs that are too dangerous to even hint at.

  Example usage: Consumertards love Facebook.

  Spread it, use it, and watch it censor itself. Problem solved.

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+2
  Funny=2, Total=2
  Extra 'Funny' Modifier		0
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		4

• Re:Go Facebook off (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 14 2021, @02:44AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 14 2021, @02:44AM (#1137259)

  Belgium man, Belgium.

  Parent

• Re:Go Facebook off Re:Go Facebook off (Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Wednesday April 14 2021, @03:18AM (1 child)

  by Beryllium Sphere (r) (5062) on Wednesday April 14 2021, @03:18AM (#1137273)

  Elayne Boosler suggested that we've lost the impact of current bad words through overuse, and we should switch to things that still have emotional resonance. She suggested that when someone cuts you off in traffic you could yell "Audit you!".

  I like your suggestion and may well use "Facebook yourself" if I find the occasion.

  Parent

  • Re:Go Facebook off (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday April 14 2021, @09:13AM

    by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Wednesday April 14 2021, @09:13AM (#1137365) Homepage

    But it doesn't work. Large chunks of the world were calling twats twatting their twats on twatter just that right from the start, and the association "their brand" == "swear word" had no real effect. OK, this is moving their brand into the swearword context rather than moving the swearword into their brand context, but still, it's the same association, and if anything it's not as powerful as it doesn't already have swearword impact.

    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves

    Parent