Facebook Accidentally Declare the Philippines at War on their Independence Day

The Verge

Facebook is such a huge social media service that you think they'd check their facts before releasing graphics and things. Apparently, this time, they haven't because on June 12th they shared a banner celebrating the Filippino independence day, but the colours of the flag were the wrong way around. In the greater scheme of things, this isn't all that bad since they realised their mistake and apologise, but it does say something about how Facebook handle these things.

What a lot of people might not be aware of is that in times of war, two of the colours on the Filippino flag are reversed. In times of peace, the flag is shown with the blue stripe at the top and the red on the bottom. What Facebook shared was the red stripe on top and the blue on the bottom. This essentially suggested that the Philippines were at war. I doubt this really worried anyone, but a lot of people noticed and commented about it on social media. This is embarrassing for Facebook who should really know better. They should  know this sort of thing and update things like flags as they change if they really want to be seen as a global service.

Facebook have apologised and claim that they care about the Philippines and they probably do, but for some reason or another, they missed this mistake until it was too late. Facebook are a huge service and they're probably busy, but whenever something like this happens, it's always embarrassing. They need people checking and catching these things before they actually post them because one day it might be more than a little mistake.

Of course, no harm was done by this mistake and most users seem to just simply be amused by this mistake. All it does is make you wonder how long Facebook are going to be making mistakes like this when it comes to countries outside of the USA. Obviously, mistakes are going to happen, editors will miss things and you just have to get on with it. Unfortunately, on such a big service it just means more people will notice if they do slip up so hopefully they'll try a little harder to not miss anything.

Rosina Brooker

Rosina is a Songbird writer with a degree in Creative Writing. She's trying to focus on her novel on the side but is glad to be playing around with apps and writing about them in the mean time! Follow her @Songbird_Rosina

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