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Facebook's Arab Problem? Network Blocks 'Palestinian' and 'Arab' From Profiles
Last week, Facebook accidentally deleted Sarah Palin's rant at/plea to Muslims (depending on your side of the fence) to oppose the construction of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque. On Sunday, a group called The Palestinian Refugee ResearchNet tried to make a Facebook fan page for its supporters, but wasn't allowed because a glitch in the system blocked the world "Palestinian" from page titles. (The conspiracy theorists out there can rest their tin-foil-bedecked heads, because "Palestine" made it through without a problem, and Facebook has corrected the bizarre bug.)To compound Facebook's seeming anti-Arab connivance, a reader wrote to Gawker yesterday, saying that, when she tried to change her maiden name to her married name ("Arab," a common Palestinian surname), Facebook did not approve the change. Although her husband had successfully signed up with his English-transliterated name in 2007, when he changed it to Arabic characters, and then back to English, he was also denied. So this points to a recent change in Facebook's filters.
We don't think that there is any anti-Arab sentiment encoded in Facebook's system, but the repeated problems reveal a company that struggles to promote an open atmosphere while also restricting hate speech, troubled further by lazy or ridiculous filtration parameters. After all, Facebook probably shouldn't allow someone to sign up with the name "F**kthe Arab," or whatever, but that doesn't mean it needs to block the word 'Arab,' itself. (As most everyone would expect, Facebook does block words like "kill" and "murder" from profile names, as well as the standard 4-letter vulgarities.)
Facebook must recognize that it is, due to its breadth, now a political micro-arena. Especially since its flip-flopping stance on 'Everybody Draw Mohammad Day,' the network has been accused of either promoting or disparaging Islam. And while we expect the company to retain a neutral public image, Facebook needs to do a thorough overhaul of its automated processes, so that it won't continue to offend people with inadvertent political gaffes, and stick to simply annoying users with hyperactive FarmVille updates. [From: Gawker]
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Comments
84
Subscribe to commentsxxfufuxx125Jul 28th 2010 1:57PM
Im an Arab and im really offended by this.Ok, alot of people think that Arabs are ALL terrorists but theyre not. Most of them are really sweet and loving. Only some of them are terrorists,and theyre the ones who are blowing up Palestine and killing little children.So before you judge us,get to know us first.
darleneJul 28th 2010 2:10PM
ONE WORD "Seriously"!!!!!!!!!!!!
duanebyrne1Jul 31st 2010 10:54AM
No thanks been there done that.
PATAug 1st 2010 2:07PM
Facebook wants to do what they want to do, you do as they say. They open up all imformation without any warning to it's members to anybody. Will disable you off their services but won't tell you why ? Will keep sending you people that this person is friends with x amout of your friends and then suspend you for requesting to many member friends that they sent to you. I really wonder how many members they really have ? The more members the higher the advertising rate is ! I have trained my eye to not watch the right side of the screen to block out the advetisements. You are suppose to use real name but you can tell they are not. Their is lots of photoshop being used putting different heads on other bodies, you can really see it when you follow a friends of friends route.You can write to some people and get an answer 3 months down the road because they never really get on hardly and have an account at a friends house or when they can get on at the library or at school. There is no quitting, I had to get terms of service violations to be removed from the service and it took a serious one to get my page removed. If you need help it takes forever to find out how to get it or even how to contact them. There is no personal help like the old AOL, Yahoo or Netscape. I hear alot of problem's on Facebook and them constantly changing the way there pages look and people wanting them to quit changing the layout. I know when someone says they are famous or an athelete the accounts are certified on Twitter that they are who they say they are. I never hear anything bad or very many complaints about Twitter, is Twitter better then Facebook ?