(AUDACY / AP) - The gardening group WNY Gardeners has been flagged multiple times for violating Facebook's community standards for its often multiple discussions using the term "hoe."
Of course, a hoe is one of gardening's oldest tools, but Facebook's algorithm keeps flagging the topic as "harassment and bullying," and keeps pulling posts from the group's page. The message came after a group member commented “Push pull hoe!" on a post asking for “your most loved & indispensable weeding tool."
There was another instance whne Facebook automatically disabled commenting on a post because of “possible violence, incitement, or hate in multiple comments."
The offending comments included “Kill them all. Drown them in soapy water,” and “Japanese beetles are jerks."
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Elizabeth Licata, one of the group’s moderators, was worried about this. After all, the group, WNY Gardeners, has more than 7,500 members who use it to get gardening tips and advice. It's been especially popular during the pandemic when many homebound people took up gardening for the first time.
“And so I contacted Facebook, which was useless. How do you do that?" she said. “You know, I said this is a gardening group, a hoe is gardening tool."
Licata said she never received a response from Facebook, but a representative from the social media company said that some of the enforcements had been "corrected," and from now on, an actual person will check supposedly offensive posts in the future before the group is sanctioned or deleted.
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