# Facebook content warnings have gone mad **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 14, 2021, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899 "2021-03-14T21:13:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/1 "2021-03-14T21:13:27Z")
In a FB thread I was following someone asked what quiche was. A friend of mine responded “Quiche is a savory egg tart.” To which I replied, "No U are a savory egg tart 🤣 " I got an instant 30 day suspension for “not following community standards.” ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/2 "2021-03-14T21:18:02Z")
Well, you just called someone a prostitute. What did you expect? Had it been said to me, I would have reported it. Civility and all. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/3 "2021-03-14T21:35:33Z")
I mean, it’s obviously a joke, and if a friend of mine said it to me in an obviously joking way I wouldn’t be offended by it. But I wouldn’t say it on a Facebook page where I have no idea who might or might not read it and how they might interpret it. IMHO 95% of the trouble with social media is that human beings instinctively adapt the tone of their communication to the individual they imagine themselves talking to, and just don’t notice the fact that they’re effectively talking to several billion other individuals as well. ---
**Author:** ![Lancia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lancia/32/17174_2.png) [@Lancia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lancia)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/4 "2021-03-14T22:14:24Z")
If one is put in “Facebook Jail” (having their account suspended), can they still use the Messenger app to send and receive IMs? ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/5 "2021-03-14T22:16:23Z")
I’ve been put on warning several times, usually for a sarcastic post that then gets a label saying “parts of this aren’t factual,” which always makes me laugh. One got it for laughing at somebody else’s Nazi joke. You can’t win with occasional Nazi Facebook. But don’t worry, they’ll happy allow fake people trying to friend you because that way it looks like they have more people as an advertising audience. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/6 "2021-03-14T22:17:21Z")
Lissener, you can have several FB friends petition for your reinstatement. But you might just want to move on with your life. ---
**Author:** ![TheCuse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thecuse/32/2854_2.png) [@TheCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheCuse)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/7 "2021-03-14T22:20:39Z")
> [@Lancia](#): > > If one is put in “Facebook Jail” (having their account suspended), can they still use the Messenger app to send and receive IMs? My younger sister was able to when she was in Facebook jail for a week. She and her daughter were joking. Daughter said she was going to call her at 2:00 a.m. Sister said I’ll kill if you do. BAM! Facebook jail for threatening to kill someone. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/8 "2021-03-14T22:47:56Z")
Yes plus five characters ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/9 "2021-03-14T22:50:01Z")
It was an algorithmic instaban: came up the instant I hit send and the comment was never posted. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/10 "2021-03-14T22:52:30Z")
I think you missed the part where I said this to a friend. Who did not report it. It was intercepted by an algorithm. But you sound like you’d be awful fun at parties. 🤣 ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/11 "2021-03-14T23:40:25Z")
You’re right, I did miss that you said it to a friend. S/he no doubt knew the intent. Had you somehow posted it as a riposte reply to a comment of mine I would have just blocked you because it isn’t civil to even jokingly refer to a person as a prostitute where strangers would see it. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/12 "2021-03-15T00:11:57Z")
I’m sorry but if you see that as a literal accusation of prostitution\* you and I would have some truly bewildering conversations irl \*NTTAWWT ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/13 "2021-03-15T00:16:28Z")
Facebook’s content algorithms leave a lot to be desired. A while back a cousin posted a photo of his dog (dog facing upward). The shape of it’s snout and the front of it’s head was kind of suggestive of um…part of a lucky African American fellow. I took the photo and blanked out the bottom part and put a label something like “downloading 60%” and posted it as a reply that it was a good thing he didn’t post that in dial-up days. Facebook thought it was the real thing and instantly removed it for being porn and placed me on double secret probation. Later other people complained about images they had deleted. One was a horrible glurgy image of Santa kneeling over the baby Jesus. I figure that one was thought violent because of the figure covered in red kneeling over another figure, and the hat drooping in Santa’s hand was even interpretable as knife-like. I made a negative of the image (so no more red) and test posted it with no problem. Another was a nature painting in a forest. Looking at that, one of the foreground trees split into two thick branches part way up the trunk, and could be concidered to _very_ vaguely resemble a nude woman in shape (but not coloration) and I think that triggered the algorithm. The content guesses the software makes are often very vague and/or very wrong. Lots of them are just “may contain food” when they don’t. But I _was_ impressed a while back when some photos of fossil crabs were labeled to “may contain crustaceans”. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/14 "2021-03-15T00:39:12Z")
This afternoon Twitter was auto-suspending people who used the word “Memphis” in posts. I think it’s been fixed, but lots of people got 12-hour suspensions. ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/15 "2021-03-15T00:40:51Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > NTTAWWT Agreed, there isn’t anything wrong with this kind of work. ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/16 "2021-03-15T00:42:24Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > if you see that as a literal accusation of prostitution\* you and I would have some truly bewildering conversations irl I said ‘even joking refer to’, hardly an accusation. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/17 "2021-03-15T00:56:35Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > It was an algorithmic instaban: came up the instant I hit send Not too surprising, given that Facebook content algorithms are trying to juggle the ways people instinctively pitch the tone of their communications to the people they imagine themselves talking to, along with the fact that several billion other people could end up reading those same communications. Such algorithms are notoriously known to be very imperfect, as illustrated by Facebook’s recurring [bans of breast cancer awareness campaigns](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37721193) for “offensiveness” and [anti-porn AIs that think pictures of deserts are nudie pix](https://petapixel.com/2017/12/20/uk-police-porn-spotting-ai-gets-confused-desert-photos/). ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/18 "2021-03-15T01:30:30Z")
I have seen people suspended for jokingly complaining about children with the phrase “fucking kids” ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/19 "2021-03-15T01:37:31Z")
Interestingly, we might see on social media the return of the double-entendre joke, for the purpose of fooling the algorithms. Rhyming slang? Judiciously sprinkled Latin phrases? There must be social-media pranksters experimenting with the boundaries here. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/20 "2021-03-15T01:48:45Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > 🤣 I support an instant 30 day suspension for anyone who uses this particular emoji. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899.md?page=2)