Google bans family cafe for offensive content for posting photo of British dish | Hacker News Reader

Google bans family cafe for offensive content for posting photo of British dish

reclaimthenet.org

125 pointswil42157 comments

It's pretty understandable that they'd get flagged for the word as a result of oversimplified heuristics. However, it should also be expected that there'd be an appeals process for (inevitable) mistakes like this. But of course Google declines to put any effort into that sort of thing, so here we are.

From the article it doesn't look like an appeal was even attempted, though. In fact, it doesn't even look like the journalist herself tried to get a statement from Google before publishing. Also, it's worth pointing out that the headline is wrong. The cafe wasn't "banned", Google rejected an ad purchase.

I think it's very reasonable to ding Google on bad customer service where they won't provide it. But you still need to ask for that service first.

The irony of banning a UK ad because a word is offensive in the US, while letting other ads for the same place which name includes a word offensive in the UK (but not the US), is delicious.

The internet is American, apparently.

> The internet is American, apparently.

Whatever is posted online, you can find someone who is offended by it.

Americans need to stop being afraid of words. I am actually worried this might seep into my culture at some point.

It's fine to hold politicians and such to higher standards, expecting them to choose their words carefully. That's why it's called political correctness.

But going around trying to police people's speech in everyday colloquial language, such as Google is doing here, is a road that will lead to disaster in many ways.

Steve Hughes did a pretty famous 'rant' on the subject: https://youtu.be/fHMoDt3nSHs?t=202

> Americans need to stop being afraid of words. I am actually worried this might seep into my culture at some point.

I'm not sure which culture is yours, but the British are way ahead on being afraid of words. Posting rap lyrics or teaching a pug tricks has got people court dates.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921

https://www.newsweek.com/youtuber-count-dankula-avoids-jail-...

Words have meaning, in specifics, historical meaning. Calling someone a "dolt" doesn't have near the impact as calling someone "f" comes with it the decades of violence associated with the word.

Fuck censorship, it is for dolts.

"Fag" is colloquial British slang for cigarette too. In very common use when I was a smoker, but that's a decade back now.

Top tip: If your British and flying to the US don't say "I could murder a fag" as soon as you step off the airplane.

("I could murder a fag" === "I really want to smoke a cigarette")

You're

American living in Britain here, and I have this page bookmarked (and must refer to it frequently): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_British_terms_not_...

Am still a smoker, people are still asking for twosies on fags.

"Can I bum a fag?" still being used too!

True. People even manage to ask if they can have a wee suck on my fag when I'm done 'cos they are absolutely gagging, without even giggling once.

> includes a word offensive in the UK

In the UK, 'fanny' is pretty much the least offensive term for female genitals available, other than vagina, however vagina is considered a bit clinical. A friend of mine uses the term 'foo-foo' instead, which I find hysterically funny.

>A friend of mine uses the term 'foo-foo' instead, which I find hysterically funny.

Are they French by any chance? The French have the word foufoune. (pronounced foo-foon)

I didn't know that, thanks. That is probably where she has got it from. She's English, however her partner is French but grew up in the UK.

I don't understand the downvotes here. There's a long list of British slang words to describe female genitals, and fanny is about the softest.

the image of an american tourist in london discussing the odd return of fanny packs from the 80s/90s just came to mind as a result.

Fanny is even a normal first name here, as is Dick by the way.

I guess Uk should have built a competing search engine then. Of course Google is American(ish).

It's pretty clear who will win this one. Google. Even though the word isn't a pejorative in England, it will disappear because online it's status in the US is what matters.

Faggot is still a pejorative in the UK, it's just _also_ a food.

And also (by way of `fascis`), a bundle of wood.

Quoting etymonline.com here,

The explanation that male homosexuals were called faggots because they were burned at the stake as punishment is an etymological urban legend. Burning sometimes was a punishment meted out to homosexuals in Christian Europe (on the suggestion of the Biblical fate of Sodom and Gomorrah), but in England, where parliament had made homosexuality a capital offense in 1533, hanging was the method prescribed. Use of faggot in connection with public executions had long been obscure English historical trivia by the time the word began to be used for "male homosexual" in 20th century American slang, whereas the contemptuous slang word for "woman" (in common with the other possible sources or influences listed here) was in active use early 20c., by D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce, among others.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/faggot#etymonline_v_1077

The word is a perjorative for homosexual across the UK and in the private boys schools since the 1700's, fagging has been the term used to describe the practice of senior pupils enslaving younger ones, who are then known as fags.

The perjorative is the most common use, however it also describes a food and small bits of firewood. People generally seem to work out the meaning from the context relatively easily, homonyms being a thing.

To illustrate, here is a picture of a man with a giant cock - http://cdn.ecommercedns.uk/files/5/227995/1/5014991/kmk023-h...

Fags and Fagging are a different root to Faggot, IMHO, which definitely seems more American.

I went to a minor public school and though fagging had been abolished many years prior, the first year of the senior school (age... 12/13ish) were still informally known as the fags. It wasn't particularly a homophobic slur, IIRC, though playground homophobia was rife back then (around 1990) so who knows really.

I do know I see "Faggot" used more for the food than as a slur these days, but then I don't hang around the *chans...

I hear 'faggot' being used more often as a slur than as the food, with the term 'fag' used pretty much synonymously.

Then again, I'm a man who sleeps with other men, went to a crumbling concrete block of a state school and often can be found working in factory environments and hanging around with bikers.

I guess it varies greatly according to one's milieu.

fag/fagging is probably from the verb form, "to tire out/exhaust" -- ie, underclassmen get to do all the work.

Why the verb "to fag" means what it does seems to be an open question, and doesn't seem to be related to the pile-of-sticks root.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/fag?ref=etymonline_crossrefe...

You realize that ads can be targeted to locations, correct?

For Americans....

In this case Faggots are basically big meatballs made from the cheaper cuts of meat as well as some liver. I guess think meatloaf, but in ball form. Same sort economic niche, not a poverty food but something for people on a budget.

Usually served with peas and thick, brown onion gravy. Can be a pretty good, hearty meal. It's years since I've had it though, as it's not really from my region.

For some reason the HN software killed your other comment in this thread. This one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20920071

I vouched for it, but I have no idea if my vouches count for anything.

That's pretty ironic :)

I wonder how it compares to Shanghainese lion's head meatballs. I recently had those and they were very different from typical American meatballs or meatloaf. The meat was much more coarsely cut up, for one thing.

Google algorithms could use some improvement... Searching for "faggots and peas" in Google correctly identifies the dish. Even the urban dictionary (linked by Google) describes the dish first. Looks like they went with a simple word list rather than use their own engine.

Or maybe Google finds the dish itself offensive, a recurring theme with British cuisine :)

This seems odd to me. With products such as Translate Google is investing a lot of time and money into understanding context in language. (I imagine it's helpful for search as well.) It seems inconceivable that their "context engine" could misunderstand "faggots and peas" considering a Google search for that gives many valid results, and it seems unlikely that they wouldn't apply such context understanding across their product line.

Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting it's not true, I'm just puzzled as to how it could happen.

Even in a 200 person company there are often product inconsistencies. Think about how you'd build this thing in a minimal way. You wouldn't "integrate with the context-aware Translate or Search API", you'd "just build a blacklist and improve it if necessary". It's not at all unbelievable.

the scunthorpe problem will never die.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem

I was expecting spotted dick.

Ditto.

I am reminded of the conference NIPS being forced to re-brand because the word “nips” is offensive apparently. It’s not been used as a racial pejorative since the 1940s. A nip is a synonym for a wee dram, over here, if it means anything at all. Or an abbreviation of catnip perhaps.

Nips means something similar here, it’s our only word for those small single-serving prepackaged shots of liquor. And they’re the first thing I think of when I hear “nips” without context. You can use it to mean a poured drink too, but it’s only common with older people here.

The renaming of NIPS was just some uptight busybodies that got too much attention.

"Documenting the wild nip of New England" https://www.instagram.com/fireball_newengland/

and IIRC the hubbub was over "nip -> nipple" anyway.

Scraping the very bottom of the outrage barrel. Oops I said bottom!

It worked though, the NIPS organisers rolled over straight away. Just what you want in people who might need to make an ethical stand over abuse of their work.

When I read the headline, my first guess was that this was about Spotted Dick.

I bet Nigella Lawson has the similar problem on her cookery sites :-)

lol. I entered this thread purely to post the same comment.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a site that was more transparently a propaganda operation than reclaimthenet.org

I would be infuriated if something like this happened to my business. Is this real? It looks like a joke.