Facebook bans users over 'offensive' Sussex beauty spot name

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Facebook users in a Brighton group have been reprimanded after talking about a popular Sussex beauty spot.

A number of posts naming Devil's Dyke were removed and some of the group's members were removed by Facebook, it has been reported.

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Facebook has acknowledged the error and a spokesman offered their apologies.

Retiree Glenys Horton is one of the moderators on the 'Brighton Life' Facebook page, which boasts some 58,000 members.

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Glenys said she enjoys using the social media platform for genealogy, chatting with friends and sharing pictures

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She said: "I don't know when it all kicked off to be honest but I have become aware of it after seeing messages from people on the group saying they have been banned by Facebook. It's just ridiculous but I understand because it is not a person sitting there moderating something.

"It must be a computer algorithm which is picking up words like these and may not know what a dyke is."

Dyke is used in places names all over the country and as a surname.

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Glenys added: "The word has been around since the 1300s. There's dykes everywhere. It think it has been lost in translation."

She also compared the mass-banning to George Orwell's 1984.

"What else are they going to ban? One of my friends said 'hey-ho' and was given a short ban."

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