I recently finished another little terrier on bobbin wheels and once I'd been through the process of listing him on Etsy, I then started the process of adding him to my Facebook shopfront.
In theory, this should be fairly simple. After all, what could go wrong? Well, it appears that the approval process can be somewhat heavy handed, if not downright wrong headed. I use the word 'headed' reluctantly as it's obviously an automated system, not a human being. After all, a robot is supposed to be less fallible than a person.
'Pickles' was rejected, as 'live animals are not allowed for sale on Facebook'. This despite the fact that I've listed many of my creatures in my Facebook shop without problem. So I tried to fill in the appeal form. Which I did several times, as each time I tried to submit it, I was told that I 'had not filled in the required field'. Despite having done precisely that. Further investigation found other users who have had exactly the same issues and no satisfaction from the Powers That Be at Facebook HQ.
So I went about it sideways, rewrote the description and title without any reference to 'dog' or terrier' and re-tagged my photos similarly. Result - instant approval. Which leads me to wonder, as the algorithm seems to be such a blunt instrument, that I could actually have listed a real, live terrier and by calling it a 'thermos flask', with no references to anything canine, I could have got away with directly breaking their rules.
If AI really is the future, I do hope it becomes more sophisticated, because if a robot cannot discern between a real dog and a hand crafted miniature woolly one, then we may very well be headed for catastrophe. It's all about the nuances, and (just my opinion) we humans are still better at it than a computer.
