This article was published on January 6, 2012

Facebook finally accepts ‘offensive’ Irish place name Effin


Facebook finally accepts ‘offensive’ Irish place name Effin

Facebook has allowed an Irish woman to set her home location as the small village of Effin, after it had previously blacklisted the name as offensive.

As we reported last month, Ann Marie Kennedy started a campaign for Facebook to recognise the place name, which doubles as slang for the f-word in some places.

Now, as the Irish Independent reports, Facebook has finally accepted the place name as valid. In addition to campaigning on Facebook itself, she reportedly wrote a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg inviting him to visit the village, which is near Limerick.

At the time of our original report, Facbeook told us that it did not believe Effin was offensive and that it was looking into the case. However, Kennedy says that she was not informed of her campaign’s success, and only realised when she spotted others marking the village as their location.

A silly story in one respect, for sure, and one that no doubt hit the headlines simply so that journalists could have some Effin fun with some Effin puns, but it’s good to see that Facebook has done the right thing.

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