Facebook removes offensive choice from language options

By Molly McHugh January 18, 2011

You can change your language to nearly anything you want on Facebook – including Pirate, JediKnight, or Pig Latin. But you can no longer choose “Nigga Slang.” Up until late last night, however, you were fully able to.

A TechCrunch reader noticed that the “language” was available on the social networking site, which caused some moderate controversy. Twitter and Facebook were both flooded with outraged users over the language option, some of whom were none too pleased to hear the news on Martin Luther King, Jr. day.

But it turns on Facebook isn’t the racist one – users may be. According to TechCrunch, “a source familiar with Facebook” says the languages field generates options that are pulled from other accounts. If a certain amount of users are listing a particular option as their language of choice, it’s more likely to show up when editing your own.

Facebook later contacted TechCrunch later to admit that a “bug” was to blame. “A bug in one of our automated systems incorrectly applied to our type-ahead feature several languages that users inputted as free text. We have removed these offensive strings and apologize for the mistake.” So it seems like majority rules as well as a system glitch are to blame.

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Before coming to Digital Trends, Molly worked as a freelance writer, occasional photographer, and general technical lackey…

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