IT has to be one of the more surprising examples of “hate speech”.

A Facebook user who attempted to post pictures of a romantic getaway with his spouse found it repeatedly blocked for violating the social network’s “community standards”.

Gordon Fong was updating his account with shots of his wife Angela enjoying their break at the award-winning Pig Hotel in Combe, Devon.

But his four attempts to share his experience were met with a stern warning from Facebook, saying: “Your post goes against our Community Standards on hate speech.

“No one else can see your post. We have these standards because we want discussions on Facebook to be respectful.”

Mr Fong, a Southbourne resident and director of two tech companies, believes Facebook’s algorithm may have reacted to his wife’s full name, Angela Hang Fong.

“As stupid as it may seem, I think the reason why those photos got flagged were that my wife was clearly in each photo, we were are the Pig Hotel so I set the check-in to that location, I created a Facebook photo album called ‘Chinese Year of the Pig Hotel’ to post them in, and possibly because her middle Vietnamese name is ‘Hang’,” he said.

“Maybe their algorithms picked up on a woman in photo, plus the words ‘pig’ and ‘hang’. I can’t believe it is that basic.”

He added: “I’m not such a snowflake to say it ruined my lovely weekend away, but to have four photographs getting flagged up as if I was posting hate speech is pretty ridiculous.”

After the Daily Echo contacted Facebook, the ban on Mr Fong’s posts was lifted. The company did not say whether the ban would have been based on algorithms alone or whether a human would look at such posts.

Mr Fong is not the first local to run up against bizarre Facebook bans on his content.

Last year, the Daily Echo told how a Facebook advertisement showing the picturesque landscaped gardens at the Italian Villa at Compton Acres was rejected as “sexually explicit”. The offending content was a glimpse of a naked statue and the ad was later allowed.

Justin Cohen, commercial manager of Beales Gourmet, which placed the ad, said then: “They’ve had this quite a lot with artistic paintings of nudes. The algorithm just looks for body parts.”