Our south of the borough correspondent, PEARL LEE, on the seemingly random block on some harmless organisations that is forcing them to turn their backs on social media Businesses, community groups…

Businesses, community groups, arts organisations and residents in a thriving town on the Croydon-Surrey border are in uproar because the automatic systems employed to police social media have silenced them on one of the world’s biggest digital platforms – all because Coulsdon has the letters L, S and D in its name.

Residents’ associations and businesses with “Coulsdon” in their titles have found themselves “cancelled”, with posts being removed from Facebook and warnings issued as to their future conduct under a set of rules so vague that any post, however innocent, might fall foul of them.

    • @tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
      6•2 days ago

      Fucking, Austria eventually gave in:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugging,_Upper_Austria

      Despite a population of only 106 in 2020, the village has drawn attention in the English-speaking world for its former name, which was spelled the same as an inflected form of the vulgar English-language word “fuck”.[1][2] Its road signs were a popular visitor attraction and were often stolen by souvenir-hunting vandals until 2005, when they were modified to be theft-resistant. A campaign to change the village’s name to Fugging was rejected in 2004 but succeeded in late 2020.[3][4]

      • @AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
        4•2 days ago

        The village on Lunt near Liverpool considered changing its name to “Launt”, because vandals kept adding a top stroke to the L in signs.

  • @scrchngwsl@feddit.ukEnglish
    3•1 day ago

    It doesn’t actually give any examples of removed posts or screenshots of the reasons why? Surely it can’t just be because a town name happens to contain “lsd” in the middle of it?

    • alyaza [they/she]OPM
      3•1 day ago

      Surely it can’t just be because a town name happens to contain “lsd” in the middle of it?

      Facebook is a remarkably bad website so i think you’d be quite surprised at how stuck in the past they are over there

  • masterofn001
    7•2 days ago

    Next up: Facebook bans half the streets and towns in the UK

    Dick place

    Assloss rd

    Semicock rd

    Butthole lane

    Twatt

    Dicks mount

    Cock pond

    Clitterhouse

    Etc