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Facebook takes down (and restores) official page for French town of Bitche
- kbelon94 5y agoUSA Censorship must be stopped in Europe.
- oblio 5y agoYay... I hope they don't notice this small Austrian village: https://goo.gl/maps/x4i9N78MZY6KErca6 https://goo.gl/maps/x4i9N78MZY6KErca6 Will English speakers police the rest of the world, regardless of their language?
- fastball 5y agoPolicing is pretty strong.
- lqet 5y agoThey recently renamed the village. It's Fugging now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugging,_Upper_Austria#Name_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugging,_Upper_Austria#Name_ch...
- oblio 5y agoThis is super ridiculous :-)) Edit: why is this down voted? It IS ridiculous! ...
- progfix 5y agoIdiot people harrassing the town are, not the people renaming it.
- 174SIGSEGV 5y agoAs if that sounds any better in English. It's probably better just to ignore us English speakers anyway. Anyway, apparently Oberfucking and Unterfucking still exist?
- blindluke 5y agoThis small Austrian village already changed the name to Fugging. Someone did notice.
- 4oh9do 5y ago> Will English speakers police the rest of the world, regardless of their language? As long as the rest of the world willingly lets them, yes. > This is not the first time Bitche has been caught up in a censorship crossfire. In 1881, U.S. Ambassador to France Levi Parsons Morton took issue with the location of the American embassy on the Place de Bitche in Paris, named in honor of the town's wartime effort. Morton, embarrassed by the embassy's letterhead, asked Parisian authorities to rename the square — they obliged, changing it to Place des États-Unis.
- raverbashing 5y ago> Will English speakers police the rest of the world, regardless of their language? Especially the native ones being the most ignorant of other languages (and often of their own)? Cultural/linguistic diversity is important, but people are more worried about the low-hanging (centered on their Anglo culture) fruit.
- gambiting 5y ago>>Will English speakers police the rest of the world, regardless of their language? It's not English speakers, it's Americans specifically. Their corporations and their media have infiltrated the rest of the free world and are basically telling everyone what is and what isn't ok. People grow up watching American films and shows, accepting American morality and norms as "standard" even though frequently they absolutely aren't elsewhere. People use American social media from young age, letting American corporations censor and control the content they are seeing, again, even if the content shouldn't be controversial where they live. Yes, I understand the hypocrisy of posting this on an American website. But I believe there is a large portion of non-American users here and it's important to remember that this is happening and should be fought against wherever possible.
- carlhjerpe 5y agoI must say that as a Swedish citizen this wasn't a problem until quite recently. We have the SJW movement here now too, but I've never throught about it coming from the US. A friend of mine stayed over in Canada for a couple of years, and he said everyone was very easily offended and politically correct. The worst is when people intentionally misinterpret what you say to start an argument, kills me inside when someone pulls that trick. I remember a year or so ago I was seeing a VERY leftist girl that kept doing that. Ended up walking out on it all.
- erk__ 5y agoI guess that the infamous Scunthorpe problem [0] is still raising issues all around, hopefully they will get the page back soon, it is a bit scary that the page got taken down and there have not been any response from Facebook at the time of that article. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem
- ruph123 5y agoPhew, this Austrian town formerly known as "Fucking" really dodged a bullet here: https://www.dw.com/en/austrian-village-of-fucking-decides-to-change-its-name/a-55740967 https://www.dw.com/en/austrian-village-of-fucking-decides-to... Edit: Damn someone beat me to it.
- bitcharmer 5y agoAt this point the "intelligent" content filtering algos at fb and yt are a caricature of what they were meant to be. Not so long ago a popular chess Youtuber had a few of his videos taken down simply because of some phrases including words like "black" and "white" alongside "strong" and "weak"[0]. This was of course deemed racist by YT's clever algos. It's insane. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23729156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23729156
- foota 5y ago"what they were meant to be." is probably not a correct characterization, it's likely that the algorithms are intended to prevent "bad" content at all costs, a high false positive rate is likely, if not intended, an accepted consequence.
- gregoriol 5y agoIt's likely better to remove a chess master's video than to let an offensive one stay online
- dcow 5y agoLikely how?
- imgabe 5y agoI think from Facebook's perspective, they will get more public anger and nasty articles written about them for hosting racist content than for taking down some chess video.
- dmingod666 5y agoSuppose, if I think it's better that your comments be removed. Is it better to remove them rather than have them up?
- gregoriol 5y ago
- NL807 5y agoFacebook needs to take down itself.
- 4oh9do 5y agoThis is the anecdote that is most egregious to me in this article: > This is not the first time Bitche has been caught up in a censorship crossfire. In 1881, U.S. Ambassador to France Levi Parsons Morton took issue with the location of the American embassy on the Place de Bitche in Paris, named in honor of the town's wartime effort. Morton, embarrassed by the embassy's letterhead, asked Parisian authorities to rename the square — they obliged, changing it to Place des États-Unis. As long as other countries continue to willingly comply and bend to the will of the US, the US will continue being the bully that it is.
- somedude895 5y agoMost mindblowing is that in honor of the "enlightening intervention" they even renamed it to United States Square.
- hnbad 5y agoWell, not bending to the will of the US used to be a lot easier in the 1800s. But the way it looks now, hopefully it'll soon be a lot easier again.
- vinay427 5y agoWell, the 1800s were also when not bending to the will of European powers was likely far harder and more damaging than not bending to the will of the US (even today) in many parts of the world. There has been some improvement in the overall bullying problem, in my book, and hopefully that will continue.
- estaseuropano 5y agoNonsense, that's just standard diplomacy - no reason to purposefully insult an ally.
- 4oh9do 5y ago> Nonsense, that's just standard diplomacy - no reason to purposefully insult an ally. Can you name a comparative example of the US renaming a street at the request of an ally?
- MaxikCZ 5y agoWhy Web Filters Don't Work: Penistone and the Scunthorpe Problem By Tom Scott https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcZdwX4noCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcZdwX4noCE
- totetsu 5y agoThank goodness they don't know how to pronounce whakatane or whakapapa
- treelovinhippie 5y agoUS imperialism burning all the world's books.
- herbst 5y agoTo be fair its more like they build their own library (facebook) noticed its really bad at containing and preserving information and now start to burn it down.
- sjaak 5y agoClbuttic!
- cblconfederate 5y agoA facebook page cannot be "Official", it is owned by facebook.
- raverbashing 5y agoIt can if it's run by the administration of the place
- netmare 5y agoThere should be a difference between the "official Facebook of X" and the "official site of X". Billy Bob and Aunty Jane should be free to communicate to the world via Twitter, but the government, IRS, emergency services, etc. better avoid the level of indirection. Provided they care, of course.
- raverbashing 5y agoThey have an official site (it's a wordpress one, but still)
- cblconfederate 5y agoAren't official things supposed to be public? The french govt. can easily run a mastodon server for the municipalities.
- Stranger43 5y agoAt what point do we recognize that privately owned social network is completely incompatible with the governments need for communicating with it's constituency and pull all government organization off those platforms? It could easily be argues that any organization that reserves the right to ban users/contents outside that have yet been determined to be illegal by the courts cannot be considered electable for government contracts for communication services, as the government have an absolute duty the principles of due process, and have to give all of it's citizens equal access to all government funded services.
- fastball 5y agoI mean, I think a bunch of people (myself included) realized this a long time ago. If your real question is "at what point do we fix this?", it's unfortunately a bit of a catch-22: realistically we need to get rid of things like lobbying, two-party system, gerrymandering, etc. in order to get good reform going. Unfortunately fixing those things might be difficult before we reform social. Like ranked choice voting or something might be a good idea, but why would our existing selfish legislators vote for something that will effectively reduce their power by tbrowing non-left/right partisans into the mix.
- masswerk 5y agoIsn't there a single language, where "states" (as in US) or "face" (as in Facebook) is an offending word? Edit: "Twit" definitely is offending. (Don't use this nasty word, even, if it's part of a company name!)
- hnick 5y agoYeah, it seems a bit one sided. If they censored equally for every existing language I wonder how many words we'd have left.
- dmingod666 5y agoThe place is called 'Bitche'.. like it's one of the first places going to get hit when some lazy developer implements their algorithm.. rather than 'Facebook bad', I feel for the few people who implemented this.. I want to know what Elon musk's son goes through with that name.. that poor thing with insane parents..
- KMag 5y ago> I want to know what Elon musk's son goes through with that name.. that poor thing with insane parents.. He's going to be socially maladjusted regardless of his name. Also, I wonder if they're just lying about his legal name to try and protect the kid a bit. Though, if I were them, I'd lie that his name is "John Smith". It's tough to steal someone's identity when you don't know their name.
- xtiansimon 5y ago> ‘ The place is called 'Bitche'.. like it's one of the first places going to get hit when some lazy developer implements their algorithm.’ Or, lazy Americans. It’s the sort of gaffe that gives foreign developers the idea they must create their own social network and that their community may just agree with them.
- dirktheman 5y agoThis reminds me of two brothers who did a road trip through Britain to visit all the towns with naughty names and street names. I can't find a reputable link but here's one from the Mirror: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/rude-map-britain-reveals-cheeky-14980427 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/rude-map-britain-revea...
- Turing_Machine 5y agoIntercourse, Pennsylvania Blue Balls, Pennsylvania French Lick, Indiana Middlesex, New Jersey Back in the day, there was a pornographer who arranged to have his material mailed from these towns. That proved to be his undoing. He claimed that his material was of scientific/medical value, but the fact that he chose these towns for his postmark was considered evidence that his primary purpose was pornographic.
- andrewstuart 5y agoIt was also a problem for this poor Australian man: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2015/11/phuc-dat-bich-kicked-off-facebook.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2015/11/phuc-dat-bich-kicked... "Australian with 'misleading' Facebook name thanks supporters" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-34897404 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-34897404 "the Australian man with a name so awkward no one believes him" https://www.smh.com.au/technology/phuc-dat-bich-the-australian-man-with-a-name-so-awkward-no-one-believes-him-20151120-gl4egu.html https://www.smh.com.au/technology/phuc-dat-bich-the-australi...
- HPsquared 5y agoThat one turned out to be a hoax: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-34918491 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-34918491
- rodarmor 5y agoAh yes, the infamous canal milfoil problem.
- collyw 5y agoThey really are a new church, telling us what is acceptable to think, censoring bad sounding names from us, all for our own "safety".
- masswerk 5y agoRelated: I'm providing a JS implementation of Weizenbaum's ELIZA [1] on my website since 2005. Recently, Twitter decided that this is sensitive content, probably, because the page mentions that Weizenbaum's original program was written in MAD-SLIP on a IBM 7094. (I can't think of any other trigger.) This tainting has apparently propagated to my account, which is linked to the site in the description. Now, tweets in context of my site (e.g., announcing a blog post) are randomly marked as sensitive content, as well. Last week, someone sent a Tweet thanking me for putting ELIZA on the web. A simple reply, "You are welcome.", was marked as sensitive content. (My site is up since April 1999 and there has never been any offensive or sensitive content. The same applies to any of my tweets.) Also, there is no process to report such an erroneous tainting. A Tweet to TwitterSupport linking to said "You are welcome"-Tweet was tainted, as well, and doesn't show up in search results. (If not logged in, a direct link to this Tweet [2] results in "This is not available to you" on Safari, but is accessible using Firefox.) [1] https://www.masswerk.at/elizabot/ https://www.masswerk.at/elizabot/ [2] https://twitter.com/mass_werk/status/1378062262905286657 https://twitter.com/mass_werk/status/1378062262905286657
- jpxw 5y agoI don’t even understand how “MAD-SLIP” could be offensive.
- yason 5y agoI'm glad Finnish is so isolated and marginal as a language. This allows us to have names like these below (freely translated/paraphrased to English) with the FAANG AI having no idea whatsoever: Asseye Pond, Assfried's, Ballswax, Bollocks Island, Boob Island, Cape Cunt, Crabs, Dick Hill, Dick Island, Gay's Pond, Glans Bay, Haemorrhoid, Horse Ass Bend, Horse Ass Hill, Horse's Ass, Juggbottom, Knackers Creek, Nigger Island, Perv's Ditch, Pervert's Rock, Piss Island, Pisshead, Pussy Island, Pussy Pond, Tit Hills, Wanker's Field, Wank River
- jokteur 5y agoThere is another town called Bitsch [0] in Switzerland. I am sure you can find any offensive english word, and find some villages / cities in the world that have this particular offensive name. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitsch,_Switzerland https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitsch,_Switzerland
- lopsided10 5y agoUndoubtedly this will get censored again, since for some reason it appears to be morally just to dig in Stallman's past but not in Zuckerberg's. According to newspapers, Zuckerberg had a business card that said "I'm CEO, Bitch": https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2267295/Bill-Gates-Mark-Zurkerbergs-Im-CEO-Bitch-Early-business-cards-worlds-famous-people.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2267295/Bill-Gates-... Cited also here, if you don't trust the Daily Mail: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/opinion/zuckerberg-elizabeth-warren.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/opinion/zuckerberg-elizab... Ok, perhaps all newspapers are wrong, but in that did not prevent anyone from posting similar stories about Stallman.
- Turing_Machine 5y agoThe double-meaning has been noted for a very long time. During the Napoleonic Wars, the French had a harsh, high-security dungeon-like prison at Bitche for British POWs who had caused problems in the regular prisons (trying to escape, attacking guards, etc.). The British troops referred to being sent there as having been "Bitched".
- matbilodeau 5y agoDear English speakers of the United States of America, please be advised that 1. The English language is not earthspeak. 2. The town of Bitche has been around for almost 500 years more than when colonies united. 3. Before judging, stop using odious names for your spawn and town names (Sir, I'm going to Bumpass with your daughter, Anna-Lee, it'll be our only stop before reaching you in Satans Kingdom).