Facebook Apologises To Elderly Woman For Nearly Banning Her Knitted "White Pigs"

Facebook apologises to elderly porcophile: Rita Rich-Mulcahy is an 81-year-old woman who is self-proclaimed "porcophile". Facebook nearly banned her account when she posted a picture of pigs knitted by her and captioned it "white pigs".

Rich-Mulcahy later received an apology from Facebook for the misunderstanding of the context. The Australian women said that she started knitting after the death of her husband last year and has set-up a Facebook account to share her art. She called the experience of being almost banned on social media "frightening" for someone who has no bad rap apart from "an overdue library book".

She said, “Everyone on the knit site and my page knows I am a porcophile.”Someone who loves pigs. She added that has always "loved" pigs growing up in a Shropshire village farm.  The first post deleted by Facebook was a picture that had a caption by Mulcahy's friend which read," white rabbits, white rabbits." A phrase based on the superstition that says good fortune comes to those who spot white rabbits. Mulcahy replied to her friend's comment and wrote, "No, white pgs, white pigs!"

Another deleted post had "hi-viz piggy" meaning high visibility written as a caption. Before her account could be banned from the platform, a Facebook official spotted the error and apologised to Mulcahy.

“Our systems made a mistake here, and the comments have now been reinstated,” the Facebook rep told Mulcahy. They added, “We do sometimes make mistakes when reviewing content, which is why we give people the opportunity to appeal against our decisions.”

Relieved from Facebook's response, Rita Rich-Mulcahy has now decided to knit 100 small pigs with punny names such as Pigcasso, Hamlet and, naturally, Francis Bacon — as part of her project called “Wittyknits.”The money raised from the sales of the piglets will go to a charity named Smith Family in Australia which supports disadvantaged children's education.

Rita Rich-Mulcahy wrote to Facebook, “You have made an old lady very happy today. It may seem a small thing to most people, but to someone who had never even had an overdue library book, being charged with using hate speech was frightening.” Read about a vegan teacher who scares children that they will go to hell, here.