The social network Facebook blocked the pages of the French town of Bitch for several weeks because it mistaken its name for English swearing.
The Internet company’s algorithm concluded that the city’s name violated the rules regarding the use of vulgarisms, because it confused it with the word “bitch”, which is a widely used insult in English. Now the head of the French representation of the company Facebook has apologized to the mayor for the curious exchange, the BBC server wrote.
“On March 19, Facebook informed us that our Ville de Bitche site was no longer available online due to a breach of the terms of service,” said Mayor Benoit Kieffer. “Someone seems to have misinterpreted the name of our city,” he added.
According to the mayor, this case proves that the methods that Facebook uses to monitor the content do not work at all. Although the city tried to contact the company, the mistake was only corrected now. Meanwhile, the town of Bitche with 5,000 inhabitants appeared on the social network under the innocuous designation “Mairie 57230”, ie a postal code.
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