Facebook and Singular 'They'

December 8th, 2009
facebook, ling, they
For a while facebook used singular 'they' when it wanted to talk about someone who had not specified their gender. So I would occasionally see updates from friends that read like "John Smith is mad at their sister" or "Jane Doe is happy with themself". I'm ok with singular 'they' as I used it in the first sentence of this paragraph, and facebook's usage seemed strange even to me. As a comprimise, though, I thought it was reasonable.

Apparently facebook changed this about a year ago. They claimed that translation into other languages didn't work for ungendered people. Sadness; I liked how gramatically progressive facebook was being.

Referenced in: Singular They And Social Networking: Google Plus

Comment via: facebook, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Facts I Learned From Maoism: A Global History (Part Two)

As I read Maoism: A Global History, I came to the conclusion that Maoism is a cognitohazard.

via Thing of Things August 18, 2025

The anti-fragile culture

I wrote a post about organizational culture!.

via Home August 6, 2025

Retrospective on life tracking and effectiveness systems

I’ve been doing life tracking for around 10 years, and this post is looking back at some things I learned from the data (since my previous retrospective in 2017). Highlights include what I get out of the Oura ring, correlations between sleep and deep work…

via Victoria Krakovna July 4, 2025

more     (via openring)