Farmer Given 3-Day Facebook Ban Over Literal Sheep
Facebook’s Astronomically Stupid Community Standards
It started with a fairly typical exchange for Facebook in 2020. Nicole Goetz, who runs a small farm in southern Michigan with her husband called Frontière Farm House posted some charming pictures of herself on the farm — one with a goat and several with a few sheep. A friend soothed by the cuteness commented she was “Struggling with the big sad and appreciate the goat pictures”. To clarify, Goetz's reply included “all except the all-white dude are sheep”. Somewhere deep in the heart of a poorly-written algorithm, Facebook’s most useless of bots instantly detected white dude are sheep — and Goetz was automatically given a three-day ban.
Facebook’s “Community Standards” are an utter failure on multiple levels. To the average user, it can be a confusing experience because many make the knee-jerk assumption that someone has reported them, when in fact, this “feature” (that is more of an intentional bug from a basic UX literacy perspective) is automatic. It’s the kind of batshit bureaucratic interaction with a large corporation so surreally absurd, it belongs in science fiction films — Brazil’s “Central Services” comes to mind. Facebook clearly came up with a list of phrases, and if you type one of those phrases regardless of context, you get the boot.
