Facebook flunks English, suspends user for writing “chigger.”

**Posted by Phineas

Dunce_cap02

The illiteracy, it burns:

It started yesterday, when SF author Michael Z Williamson was blocked by Facebook for 12 hours for using the word “chigger” in a post.  When his twelve hours were up — following massive derision against Facebook by all his friends — his block expired. He was promptly blocked again.

Read the rest of Charlie Martin’s post. Williamson finally got his account unblocked, but Facebook also couldn’t understand “niggardly,” and so banned another miscreant; Facebook tried the “we’re overwhelmed with reported posts and sometimes make mistakes” excuse, but that doesn’t explain why they continue to allow a page that calls for a man’s murder and others that repeatedly use an extremely offensive word for Blacks. (Not to mention various pages advocating violent jihad against the West.)

Facebook is a private company and has every right to monitor what’s written on its site, but one would think they should want to a) hire people with the vocabulary of at least a 7th-grader; b) try to be consistent; or c) just give up and let everyone vent. (At least option C is helpful for monitoring idiot jihadis.)

Flashback: It’s not the first time the use of the word “niggardly” has exposed the ignorant.

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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