A cafe owner has had a post removed from the internet after it was deemed too offensive.
Jo Evans-Pring, 63, owner of Fanny’s Rest Stop Cafe wanted to promote her faggots so started paying for advertising on Google.
Within a few weeks of launching her initial campaign, faggot sales rose significantly so she so realising she was onto something she decided to put a picture of the food on her website.
But then she got an email from Google saying the faggots with peas and onion gravy had been removed for containing ‘inappropriate and offensive content’.
Faggots is a traditional dish, long popular in the English Midlands and South and Mid Wales, made from minced off-cuts and offal.
But the word ‘faggot’ was misconstrued by Google administrators to refer to the pejorative term of abuse referring to gay men.
Jo said she was startled by what happened and ‘the world’s gone totally mad’.
She said: ‘People need to spend their time dealing with real problems, not things like whether or not the word ‘faggots’ when selling that meal is hateful.
‘There comes a time where businesses need to reinvent themselves, and – after eight years of running the shop – I decided now was one of those times.
‘Fanny’s has been doing really well because of the internet campaign. We’ve noticed a big change in the past couple of weeks.
‘People have been coming from a little further afield because we’re paying for adverts when they google for places to eat. They’ve loved coming to Fanny’s because it’s fun and retro.
‘I posted an advert on the website for Fanny’s faggots with peas and onion gravy, a pretty traditional meal and one of my favourites, on the 27th.
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‘But the next day I got an email from Google saying they’d removed a post of ours, and then referred us to their posting contents policy.
‘Me and Chris had a look, and realised they’d moved the faggots one – and we couldn’t think it was for any reason other than it having the word “faggots” in it.’
Fanny’s Rest Stop Café was awarded a Certificate of Excellence 2019 prize, and has been scoring a consistent four-and-a-half stars, on TripAdvisor.
Jo, who admits finding the row initially funny, has become infuriated by the decision, saying: ‘We were totally sidelined by it, to be honest.
‘At first, we found it kind of funny. But ultimately we’re both furious by the decision.
‘I don’t really associate the word “faggots” with anything offensive, and yet someone has made a decision that’s affecting my livelihood.
‘Thinking of all the nasty stuff that’s on the Internet, why are they wasting their time with Fanny’s Rest Stop Café? We’re just asking – what’s the world coming to?’
