Like many of you out there, I use Facebook.

I use it for personal use, and I’m also the administrator for the BitchBuzz Facebook Page. Any Social Media Expert will tell you that having a Group or Fan Page on Facebook is vital for your brand to thrive online, so we keep the page updated frequently, and use it on a daily basis.

When Facebook’s “Vanity URLs” came out, we went to go register the Vanity URL for our BitchBuzz Facebook Page  (facebook.com/bitchbuzz). However, because we want to use a word in our URL that Facebook consider to be profane, we’ve been banned from setting up a Vanity URL.

Despite Facebook being more than happy to take our money and run “become a fan of BitchBuzz” advertisements that have been seen by thousands upon thousands of their users – they still refuse to let us include the  word “bitch” as part of a URL when setting up Facebook Connect and/or a Facebook Application.

I understand Facebook’s position of trying to *protect* their users as much as possible. I mean, they’ve gone so far as to ban and remove those horrifically vulgar breastfeeding photos, so I really shouldn’t expect any less from The Facebook Modesty Patrol.

Yet despite this, I find their “pick and choose” method of censorship to be as confusing as it is infuriating.

If Facebook are so uptight about having profanity and/or explicit words and phrases in their Vanity URL’s, then how did the following sneak by?

http://www.facebook.com/suckdick

http://www.facebook.com/isuckcock

http://www.facebook.com/I.need.more.SEX

http://www.facebook.com/fcukyou

How is the word Bitch, as part of the word BitchBuzz, going to offend anyone more than the above? 

Anymore than the Facebook Page for “bondage”, “rough sex”, “anal sex” or the group called “1,000,000 Strong For Wife Beating” would? (The latter has some excellent wall posts that range from “it’s the only way these bitches learn” to “if she doesn’t swallow she feels the back of my hand”.)

Perhaps all of the above are just the result of a little hoax, like the girl who had someone set up her Facebook URL as “facebook.com/iloveanal”.

But then how would one excuse the 13,000 search results for the word “rape”, including a group called “RAPE”, categorized under “Sports and Recreation” with a Wall Discussion called “Isn’t rape really just surprise sex?”

Apparently this Group is for a band called RAPE (“myspace.com/raperaperaperape”) who are the “future of all thing sexual/musical”. However, this group has caused a couple of Facebook Users great disappointed,  as they’ve left Wall posts that say things like “I thought this was for actual rape not some band!! Dammit!” and “I like to rape girls.”

And if that wasn’t enough, please feel free to join “It’s Not Rape If...” Group that has a fun profile picture of a young woman gagged and tied up with the caption “It’s not rape. If she didn’t really want to she’d have said something.”

I mean, sure, some say the word Bitch is degrading to women. They say it’s a derogatory term that shouldn’t be used – and this is precisely why I’m guessing Facebook have added it to their profanity filter.

I understand that they have millions (or is it billions?) of users, and that using human judgement as a means of filtering out obscene and explicit content is a huge if not gargantuine task.

But if they’re truly the King of Social Media, the Future of The Internet, and so high and mighty with their censorship tactics, than they may to start using some vague sort of consistency in the way they filter out supposed profanity.

If they are so worried about offending women with the word Bitch, Facebook might also want to get rid of the “I Hate Women” group, for “or anyone who is tired of women and all their god damn complaining or for anyone who just wants a sandwich”. This group also has some clever little Wall posts that include little nuggets of wisdom such as: “PMS is for faggots with wombs”. Charming!

However, a confused Facebook user also wrote on the “I Hate Women” group's Wall, asking why the creator of this group was “still on Facebook” as he himself had previously created a group called "The Elderly are Cunts” and it “got removed”.

Perhaps if Facebook are going to give the impression that they have a policy of banning words that are offensive to women, they might want to do something about the 11,000 search results for the mother of all curse words that is, what most would argue, the worst thing you could call a woman. (Or anyone for that matter.)

Yes. The C-Word. C-U-N-T cunt!

While I can’t really get truly angry about this as I do love the word, I’m wondering why Groups for bands called things like “Cunt Punishers” and  “Cunt Punchers” somehow snuck by Facebook’s Profanity Police. Surely at the rate they’re banning Bitches your keyboard should explode if you get so far as the “t” in “cunt”.

But I guess “BitchBuzz” is just a more inflammatory word that “CUNT PUNCHERS” is.

The bottom line is that Facebook cannot be inconsistent when it comes to censorship and they simply cannot ban a word that’s contextual.

Bitch has many other meanings than just “a woman whom one considers to be malicious or unpleasant”.

Oxford Dictionary also says Bitch is “a female dog, wolf, fox or otter”, a “difficult or unpleasant thing or situation” or according to Oxford dictionary’s “Black English” definition, it simply means “a woman” in a “non-derogatory sense”.  (You know, like: “I love you, bitch.”)

Yet there are other approved Facebook words that have only one explicit definition, such as "cunt” - which, no matter which definition you’re using (“a woman’s genitals” or an “unpleasant or stupid person”) is still and always will be offensive - or “slut”, a “slovenly or promiscuous woman”.

Perhaps Zuckerberg & Co should sit down and have a little read through the Andi Zeisler’s article on The Washington Post about the B Word, which says:

“Is it a bad word? Of course it is. As a culture, we've done everything possible to make sure of that, starting with a constantly perpetuated mindset that deems powerful women to be scary, angry and, of course, unfeminine -- and sees uncompromising speech by women as anathema to a tidy, well-run world.”

Zeisler’s publication, Bitch Magazine, have presumably also been denied a Vanity URL for their magazine’s Facebook Page, as they simply do not have one, despite their Page being quite active, and having over 10,000 Fans.

All we’re really asking of Facebook  is that they rethink their profanity filter for the word Bitch, as part of the name of our brand, BitchBuzz.

It’s not obscene. It’s not offensive.

We’ve not had any complaints, and doubt that they have either.

Facebook should allow us to correctly set up Facebook Connect, create a Facebook Application, as well as setting up a Vanity URL for BitchBuzz’s Facebook Page.

I mean, if “suckcock” and “isuckdick” can have one, surely BitchBuzz should, as well. Unless the latter is a message of what we’d all have to do to get one. In that case, we’d rather not. 

(You know, just like these girls.)

Image via news.com.au