Good morning, Britain! We hope you like your rain/mist/clouds (delete as geographically appropriate) this morning , and don’t feel too let down that today is technically midsummer.
But if you are already a bit sad that the longest day of the year is going to have about four hours of actual sunlight, maybe don’t check Facebook. Somebody at the social network decided to flick the switch on a special morning greeting for the summer solstice without, apparently, checking the weather forecast.
Facebook’s normal greetings are algorithmically produced, typically involving today’s weather for your area and some sort of chipper Californian salutation, but on special occasions, it shows a different message.
The company has previously got in trouble for insensitive algorithmic prompts, and in recent months has stuck to fairly innocuous special occasions like 29 February (“every four years, February gets an extra day – make the most of it”). Although eyebrows were raised by the company’s message for St George’s Day (“Let the spirit of England fill you with pride today and every day”), it takes accidentally mocking Britain for having crap weather on midsummer for social media to unite against the greeting.
We’ve asked Facebook if they’ll be updating the greeting with more rain-appropriate visuals. So far, we’ve heard nothing back.
