Posted on by Californiacontrarian

Perhaps a Rake

Who or what is the Plymouth Hoe? Perhaps a woman of the street; someone we would not want our sons or grandsons mixing with. Actually Plymouth Hoe, referred to locally as the Hoe, is a large south-facing open public space in the English coastal city of Plymouth. In January, Facebook mistakenly flagged the U.K. landmark of Plymouth Hoe as offensive. 

Similarly, from the AP:

Recently, in New York State a gardening club got into hot water with Facebook for using the word, ‘hoe.’ Keep in mind that the WNY Gardeners, has more than 7,500 members who use it to get gardening tips and advice. It’s been especially popular during the pandemic when many homebound people took up gardening for the first time.

However Facebook did not approve of this word, and if a group’s members — or worse, administrators — violate the rules too many times, the entire group can get shut down.

Elizabeth Licata, a moderator for the WNY Gardeners, was not about to ban the word from the group, or try to delete each instance. When a group member commented “Push pull hoe!” on a post asking for “your most loved & indispensable weeding tool,” Facebook sent a notification that said “We reviewed this comment and found it goes against our standards for harassment and bullying.”

Ms.Lucata then contacted Facebook, “which was useless. How do you do that?” she said. “You know, I said this is a gardening group, a hoe is gardening tool.”

Licata said she never heard from a person and Facebook, and found navigating the social network’s system of surveys and ways to try to set the record straight was futile.

Oh well, just a simple mistake by a Facebook algorithm … but then something else came up. Licata received a notification that Facebook automatically disabled commenting on a post because of “possible violence, incitement, or hate in multiple comments.”

The offending comments included “Kill them all. Drown them in soapy water,” and “Japanese beetles are jerks.”

7/27/21

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