# 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:** 16\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2021, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/61 "2021-05-26T21:42:24Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > @Melbourne I have to agree with @lissener: what the hell? Right back at you. Based on the one sentence, I’m guessing that poster identifies as female. Is that not clear? And I explained my reasoning. If that’s what you disagree with, you need to be more clear in your objection. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2021, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/62 "2021-05-26T22:49:10Z")
It’s this: > [@Melbourne](#): > > So, based on that one sentence, I’m guessing that you identify as female. The sentence was: > [@lissener](#): > > I said “I am sending people to kill you 😒” What about that sentence indicates female to you? You said that (I think) women say it where you are, but it’s forbidden to men. I don’t get it. It’s not a gendered statement, as far as I understand it. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2021, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/63 "2021-05-26T23:10:48Z")
Was **Melbourne** ’s (sexist) assumption that only a male would _actually_ send people to kill you? As a feminist, I demand to be threatened by all genders, and I want to have hit_women_ take me out! But seriously, are you surprised that you got in trouble for saying “I am sending people to kill you”? Any social media platform would want to avoid responsibility for posting that and having the person follow through! Even my favorite message board (here) has a firm policy of “Do not wish death on anyone” (let alone make an actual threat). ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2021, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/64 "2021-05-27T02:32:42Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > What about that sentence indicates female to you? You said that (I think) women say it where you are, but it’s forbidden to men. I don’t get it. It’s not a gendered statement, as far as I understand it. First, let me do a little man-splaining: “Gendered Language” is not the same as “Gendered Statements” Secondly, yes, that’s exactly what I said. It is gendered language. It is language a woman would use, and would be (in my culture) acceptable language coming from a woman. It is not language a man would use, because (in my culture), it is not acceptable language from a man. So, based on that one sentence, I identify the poster as female. Actually, since language is more closely linked to self-identity than to biological gender, I guess that the poster identifies as female. On the balance of probability I expect that the poster identifies as female because of biological gender, but that’s not relevant to the discussion about Facebook content warnings. I may be wrong about the poster. I may be wrong about language used by the poster. As I wrote in my first post, “I’m guessing”, and “my culture”. How about other readers? In your culture is it acceptable for men to write/say “I’m going to kill you”? Have you had men write/say that to you? Have you practiced identifying other language differences between men and women? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2021, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/65 "2021-05-27T02:40:24Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > the AI’s assumption that “fucking” was a verb and not an addictive. For some people, fucking can be _very_ addictive. ---
**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:** [May 27, 2021, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/66 "2021-05-27T02:56:10Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > How about other readers? In your culture is it acceptable for men to write/say “I’m going to kill you”? Have you had men write/say that to you? As for my culture, I believe that it would be accurate to view the gendering of that jokey response thusly: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/LQCU36pkH7c/hqdefault.jpg ""Everyone Is Now Dumber" - Billy Madison") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQCU36pkH7c) ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2021, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/67 "2021-05-27T03:12:56Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > How about other readers? In your culture is it acceptable for men to write/say “I’m going to kill you”? Have you had men write/say that to you? No, I haven’t threatened anyone to that extent, or even annoyed anyone to the point that they’d want to kill me. But why do you only ask about men? Would I consider it acceptable for a woman to say they were planning to kill me? That’s a big NO. And why do you keep mentioning your “culture”? I would hope saying you were going to kill someone would be a Very Bad Idea in any culture. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2021, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/68 "2021-05-27T03:57:28Z")
What is your “culture” that has this bizarre reading of that phrase? I thought you were Australian? There is absolutely _nothing_ about what Lissener (who is a guy, btw) said that is gendered in any way in America. ---
**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:** [May 27, 2021, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/69 "2021-05-27T07:48:07Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > So, based on that one sentence, I identify the poster as female. What the literal freeze-dried _fuck_? ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2021, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/70 "2021-05-27T12:34:30Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > How many times irl do people hyperbolically tell someone “I’m gonna kill you lol”! Of that imaginary number–thousands to millions depending on the area in which you are imagining it 😅–what percentage of these ejaculations do you further imagine are literal threats–no, self-incriminating announcement of criminal intent!–? I feel sure there would be a lot of zeros between the decimal and the %. So it’s irrational to presume it’s more likely to be literal than, well, joshing. Especially if the recipient doesn’t choose to report it. But there’s a huge gap between saying it to your friend and writing it on a note, signing it and leaving it on his desk at work. In one case, everyone involves knows it was a sarcastic comment, in the other case, the only thing co-workers and management have to go on is what, on it’s face, appears to be a genuine threat. Sure, you can probably explain your way out of it, but the business you work for would much rather you just didn’t say do it in the first place. It’s the exact same reason I’ve told, at least two people, when they’re angry at another person (in both cases, someone their now-ex girlfriend, was cheating on them with), that I completely understand all the nasty/violent things they had to say, but in the future, for the love of god, don’t leave it on their voicemail. In both cases they’re really lucky the recipient didn’t turn that voicemail over to the police. Unrelated, mostly, but it reminds me of something that happened back in high school. One of the students in my class got pulled out of the room and had to have a private chat with the teacher, some other admins and, IIRC, a counselor. He was beyond confused as to what was going on until he was shown the test he handed in the previous day. This was one of those teachers that had everyone pass their tests up to the front of the class and she grabbed them all from there. Someone in front of him wrote ‘I hate myself and want to die’ on his test. It took him a loooong time, like days or weeks to convince them he’s not suicidal, it wasn’t a ‘call for help’ or even just a random joke he scribbled down, but rather a prank that he had no prior knowledge of. ---
**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:** [June 30, 2021, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/71 "2021-06-30T18:14:16Z")
In one of my FB movie groups, there was a thread about favorite _ **Moonstruck** _ quotes. I commented " ‘I’m gonna kick you till your dead’." So . . . I’m back behind bars again. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2021, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/72 "2021-06-30T18:33:51Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > So . . . I’m back behind bars again. You obviously didn’t learn your lesson the first time. 😉 The lesson being, Facebook algorithms are not capable of understanding context. ---
**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:** [June 30, 2021, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/73 "2021-06-30T18:42:35Z")
I know. You’ll note I didn’t say I was bewildered by what happened. But unfortunately none of that occurred to me in the moment; just Olympia Dukakis’s brilliant deadpan delivery of one of the funniest lines in movie history. ---
**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:** [January 1, 2025, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/74 "2025-01-01T19:24:11Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > 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.” I’m in a Facebook rock ID group where the answer is quite often “slag”. (The question is usually “is this a meteorite”.) But now that question will be more difficult to answer because the word “slag” has been banned. ( My reply “Maybe we should come up with a new word for solidified furnace waste. Is “skank” taken?” wasn’t censored.) ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2025, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/75 "2025-01-01T19:48:23Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > But now that question will be more difficult to answer because the word “slag” has been banned. - Did a Tenctonese complain? ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2025, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899/76 "2025-01-03T07:11:12Z")
I once got put in Facebook jail for saying “Send Hook,” a catchphrase referring to AEW professional wrestler Hook. They thought I was encouraging prostitution. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-content-warnings-have-gone-mad/937899.md?page=3)