Home > News > SFI Statement on Automated Blocking of Facebook Image
5 March, 2018
In the early hours of Sunday morning, following the outrageous comments by FA executive Martin Glenn about banning the Star of David from football shirts, we posted an image of a star of David and a Swastika with the following text:
‘The head of the Football Association just equated these two symbols. If you do not know the difference between them you do not deserve to be the head of anything!’
The post was made to simply offer a graphic representation of the ludicrousness of Mr Glenn’s comments and to visually highlight the difference between these two symbols.
Immediately after posting the pictures, Facebook informed us that the content was ‘offensive’ and deemed ‘unacceptable according to their terms.’ Facebook then imposed — without warning and with immediate effect — a three-day ban from posting on the SFI Facebook page. Facebook has offered no explanation for their decision and it has proven impossible to contact them directly.
We appreciate Facebook’s desire to make their platform a better experience for its users and by removing offensive content as quickly as possible. However, in this case their use of algorithms and an automated response — with no explanations or guidelines — have proven to be wholly inaccurate and ineffective.
We have attempted to contact Facebook for an explanation and to allow them to reverse this ridiculous decision. Unfortunately, it appears there is no recourse available and the ‘ban’ will remain in place until Wednesday evening.
We will continue to post as much content as possible in the coming days via our other administrators. SFI’s normal service will resume as soon as possible.