Facebook Accidentally Pulls Down Page Of French City. It s All In The Name Facebook Accidentally Pulls Down Page Of French City. It s All In The Name Facebook admitted that the page was removed in error and reinstated it.
Ville de Bitche is a town located in north-eastern France. What s in a name? Shakespeare famously asked. Quite a lot apparently, and a city in France learnt this the hard way. The residents of Bitche in northeastern France were taken aback when the city s Facebook page was deleted. The reason attributed to the action was that the page had violated the terms and conditions of the social media platform. This stumped the city, as they were quite sure that they had done nothing to warrant this move. Soon, they realised they only had the city s name to blame.
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The official Facebook page for the French town of Bitche was temporarily removed from the social media platform last month due to its likeness to an English obscenity.
Bitche’s Mayor Benoit Kieffer said in a statement that Facebook had informed the town on March 19 that it removed its official page because it appeared to be in violation of the site’s community guidelines.
“The name of our town seemed to suffer from a misinterpretation,” Kieffer wrote. “What happened to the town of Bitche demonstrates the insufficiency and limitations of digital moderation tools.”
BBC that the page was removed “in error” and was reinstated on Tuesday morning.
Bitche in the Moselle is situated in the northeastern part of France. A French town called Bitche had a page on Facebook which was removed. | Photo Credit: Representative Image
Paris: A historic town situated in north-eastern France caught everyone s attention for demanding an apology from the popular social media platform, Facebook. Hilariously its name is Bitche.
Called Bitche in the Moselle, the town s official page was removed by the platform deeming it to be inappropriate and insulting. Obviously, the reason behind it was the name that was misconstrued as the popular swear word.
There was no explanation made by Facebook, much to the town residents being angry and baffled about why did it take place. It disappeared on March 19.
A town in France has had its official Facebook page removed because of its name.
Ville de Bitche’s Facebook page was removed because of the name’s proximity to an English insult.
The social media site has said that removal was an “error”.
Mayor of the French town, Benoit Kieffer said officials received a message saying it was
“in violation of conditions applying to Facebook pages.”.
According to
Mayor Kieffer told
“At first, you wonder, was there a technical problem? However, with the length of time, it can be considered a real censorship,”
The page has since been restored and officials were notified that it had been
By @joshmradio
Apr 14, 2021
Facebook has sent out a clear message to its users: It doesn t appreciate foul language and will suspend anyone who uses it to title a page even if it s part of a town s name.
That became clear on March 19th, when Benoit Kieffer the mayor of France s Ville de Bitche tried signing on, only to find the town s page had been removed due to a violation of conditions applying to
Facebook pages. He says, At first, you wonder, Was there a technical problem? However, with the length of time, it can be considered a real censorship. Kieffer says he wrote an appeal to the website but received no response.