KazPost

Kazakhstan News
Tuesday, Mar 19, 2024

Facebook takes down (and restores) official page for French town of Bitche

Facebook takes down (and restores) official page for French town of Bitche

A city in France has had a real rollercoaster of a week, after its Facebook page was accidentally deleted for violating the terms and conditions of the site. Of course, the city of Bitche, France (in the Moselle department in northeastern France) hadn’t done anything in particular to violate any of Facebook’s rules — it just sounded a whole lot like it did.
Bitche’s troubles first began on March 19th, when the city’s official page — titled “Ville de Bitche,” which translates to the perfectly normal “City of Bitche” — was suddenly removed. Valérie Degouy, the city’s communication manager, attempted to contact Facebook to try to appeal the decision but was unsuccessful, and she eventually just made a new page titled “Mairie 57230,” after Bitche’s postal code.

“I tried to reach out to Facebook in every possible way, through different forms, but there’s nothing [I could] do,” Degouy said, explaining that she had already run into similar issues with the social media company when creating the page back in 2016.

Following the viral coverage of the confusion, Facebook quickly reinstated the page on Tuesday, telling CNN that it was “removed in error.”

This kind of content moderation mix-up has been an issue on the internet for about as long as spam and profanity filters have been around. It even has a name: the Scunthorpe problem, after a similar incident in 1996 that saw AOL censor the name of the British town of Scunthrope due to filters confused over an unintentional profanity found within the name.

And while, yes, this is objectively funny, there are larger implications here. Another town in the region — Rohrbach-lès-Bitche — has preemptively changed the name of its Facebook page to ensure that it won’t be accidentally caught up in Facebook’s profanity filter. A Facebook page to be able to communicate with residents and tourists is too important of a thing to not have in 2021, but due to Facebook’s broken content filters, towns are forced to change their digital identity to simply stay online.

For its part, the city leadership seems to be taking the removal in good stride. A statement posted by Benoît Kieffer, the mayor of Bitche, to both the reinstated Facebook page and Bitche’s official website acknowledges the difficulties of content moderation and points out the importance of using human moderators to help differentiate between false positives (like Bitche) and more serious offenders.

Kieffer goes on to ask Facebook to be more transparent and fair in how it makes these decisions, in addition to extending an invitation to both the head of Facebook’s French business as well as to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to visit Bitche for themselves.

Towns are renaming themselves online to stop their Facebook pages from getting taken down. The entire world will one day be governed by Facebook's content moderation standards.
Newsletter

Related Articles

KazPost
0:00
0:00
Close
It's always the people with the dirty hands pointing their fingers
Paper straws found to contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals - study
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
Blackrock gets half a trillion dollar deal to rebuild Ukraine
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
Singapore Carries Out First Execution of a Woman in Two Decades Amid Capital Punishment Debate
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Unlike illegal imigrants coming by boats - US Citizens Will Need Visa To Travel To Europe in 2024
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
The future of sports
Unveiling the Black Hole: The Mysterious Fate of EU's Aid to Ukraine
Farewell to a Music Titan: Tony Bennett, Renowned Jazz and Pop Vocalist, Passes Away at 96
Alarming Behavior Among Florida's Sharks Raises Concerns Over Possible Cocaine Exposure
Transgender Exclusion in Miss Italy Stirs Controversy Amidst Changing Global Beauty Pageant Landscape
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Global Trend: Using Anti-Fake News Laws as Censorship Tools - A Deep Dive into Tunisia's Scenario
Arresting Putin During South African Visit Would Equate to War Declaration, Asserts President Ramaphosa
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
The Changing Face of Europe: How Mass Migration is Reshaping the Political Landscape
China Urges EU to Clarify Strategic Partnership Amid Trade Tensions
Europe is boiling: Extreme Weather Conditions Prevail Across the Continent
The Last Pour: Anchor Brewing, America's Pioneer Craft Brewer, Closes After 127 Years
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
BBC Anchor Huw Edwards Hospitalized Amid Child Sex Abuse Allegations, Family Confirms
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Distorted Mirror of actual approval ratings: Examining the True Threat to Democracy Beyond the Persona of Putin
40,000 child slaves in Congo are forced to work in cobalt mines so we can drive electric cars.
Historic Moment: Edgars Rinkevics, EU's First Openly Gay Head of State, Takes Office as Latvia's President
An Ominous Shift in Warfare: Western Powers Risk War Crimes and Violate International Norms with Cluster Bomb Supply to Ukraine
Bye bye democracy, human rights, freedom: French Cops Can Now Secretly Activate Phone Cameras, Microphones And GPS To Spy On Citizens
The Poor Man With Money, Mark Zuckerberg, Unveils Twitter Replica with Heavy-Handed Censorship: A New Low in Innovation?
The Double-Edged Sword of AI: AI is linked to layoffs in industry that created it
US Sanctions on China's Chip Industry Backfire, Prompting Self-Inflicted Blowback
Meta Copy Twitter with New App, Threads
The New French Revolution
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Application Refiled, Naming Coinbase as ‘Surveillance-Sharing’ Partner
Corruption in the European Parliament - Business as usual
UK Crypto and Stablecoin Regulations Become Law as Royal Assent is Granted
Paris Suburb Grapples with Violence as Curfew Imposed: Saint-Denis Residents Express Dismay and Anger
A Delaware city wants to let businesses vote in its elections
Alef Aeronautics Achieves Historic Milestone with Flight Certification for World's First Flying Car
Google Blocked Access to Canadian News in Response to New Legislation
French Politicians Advocate for Pan-European Regulation on Social Media Influencers
×