[Talk-GB] Meta/Facebook #ProfanityCleanup

[Andy Townsend]

On 11/01/2023 11:01, Mark Goodge wrote:
>
>
> On 11/01/2023 10:02, Robert Skedgell wrote:
>> I've noticed a couple of edits from Meta users in Colorado to clean 
>> up imagined profanity.

I've commented on the "Pussy Lane" changeset (the one that Robert had 
already commented on) asking them where they did all the "talking to the 
community" stuff that the Organised Editing Guidelines asks them to.  
Facebook people are normally pretty good at answering this sort of 
question, but they'll be asleep at the moment so we'll need to wait a 
bit.  If nothing has happened after a  few days I can try a couple of 
alternate lines of contact.


>>
>> In the first case the change from Dyke -> Dike corrected a genuine 
>> typo. However, we have 410 objects in OS Open Names where the 
>> spelling is Dyke compared to only 150 Dike. I'm concerned that others 
>> may be changed without any local knowledge or adequate checking 
>> against OS Open Data sources.
>
> That is somewhat concerning. I hope they don't come across Wyre Piddle 
> or Six Mile Bottom.


Somewhat related, I did wonder if Facebook's "Daylight Map" had any 
filtering in it.  This community post: 
https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/producing-a-validated-osm-dataset/7106/20 
describes what was missing (essentially - admin boundaries and nothing 
much else).  Subsequently also I had a look to see if they had filtered 
this artwork in any way: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/7068065222 
("A Mighty Blow of Freedom: Fuck the Media").  They hadn't; that name is 
still there in Facebook's version of OSM data to download.

More generally, what is viewed as "offensive" now compared to what was 
viewed as offensive in the past is different, and there surely will be 
things that we say and do now that are viewed with incredulity looking 
back from 50 years in the future.  Sometimes street names change; 
sometimes they don't.  The many "Grape Lane"s in the UK attest to that.

Also, what is considered problematical now in the UK (or other 
English-speaking countries) is often different to the US (something that 
US English speakers may not always appreciate).  A good study of this 
for the UK is OFCOM's survey at 
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-releases/2016/attitudes-to-offensive-language 
(PDF of full report at 
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0022/91624/OfcomOffensiveLanguage.pdf 
).  However, just because a word is considered a problem when used in 
one context doesn't mean it doesn't have another entirely different 
meaning (certainly the case for Dike/Dyke).

Best Regards,

Andy