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What happened with the Facebook glitch that removed ‘Philadelphia’ as users’ current city?

A Facebook glitch has removed the option of adding "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania" as a current city users live in. For now, the only option is "New Philadelphia." The error was spotted last week.

A Facebook glitch has removed the option of adding "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania" as a current city users live in. For now, the only option is "New Philadelphia." The error was first spotted last week.
A Facebook glitch has removed the option of adding "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania" as a current city users live in. For now, the only option is "New Philadelphia." The error was first spotted last week.Read moreFacebook/Staff Illustration
    by Emily Bloch
    Updated 
    Published 

Philly, who?

A recent Facebook glitch has removed the ability to mark “Philadelphia, Pennsylvania” as a user’s current city. And frankly, the good people of this city believe they deserve better than this erasure.

Sometime late last week, users started reporting the issue: If they previously had Philly listed as their current city, it had been removed. If they tried to add it back, Philly wasn’t an option. Only New Philadelphia, a small borough in Schuylkill County, was available.

The bug has been fixed, a spokesperson for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said on X (formerly Twitter) Monday afternoon. Meta did not respond to other questions about the glitch.

On Reddit, users reported the issue last week. “We’ve been eradicated,” one user wrote. “We as a people have sworn off Philly due to your sports fans,” a commenter reasoned.

Within days, word of the issue — which seems to occur both on the desktop and mobile versions of Facebook — spread to the mainstream.

“Hey Facebook, what’s going on with ‘Philadelphia, PA?’” Chas Paris, a local DJ posted on Facebook last Thursday. “Why the hate for Philly?”

The post was shared nearly 300 times across Philadelphia neighborhood-centric groups, causing a stir.

“I thought it was just me,” one user commented. “I don’t want to live in New Philadelphia,” said another. “Facebook doesn’t like us, we don’t care?”

As of Monday morning, the glitch was still in place based on a trial by this reporter.

And while this glitch is new, it’s certainly not the first time Philly’s been involved with a Facebook whoopsy.

Back in 2017, a systems error mistakenly placed all Facebook users in Philadelphia. Can we trade glitches and have that one back instead?