FACEBOOK - Facebook, Inc. has released a new list of keywords and phrases that are now considered as spam by the Facebook website. Among the 322 is the phrase "proud to be Pinoy" which caused an outrage with the Filipino online community.

"Ano bang masama sa pagiging proud na Pinoy?" ("What's wrong with being a proud Pinoy?") Thousands of Filipino Facebook users posted on Facebook's official corporate page in droves as the announcement was made. The phrase was auto-flagged as spam by the website's bots, but the system administrators have no plans to remove the flag.

"We trust our anti-spam bots and if it's saying that the phrase should be considered as spam, then it is," said Stephen Cobweb as he addressed the media in Menlo Park. "Thousands of accounts post the phrase whenever a Filipino achieves some global recognition, but that phrase itself doesn't contribute to the conversation. It's meaningless exhibition of pride that's clogging up the users' timelines," he added.

Posts containing the phrase will be silently omitted after 7 days and will not appear on public trends unless used under a hashtag (#) symbol. Facebook has stated that it will be firm with its decision to flag the phrase as spam.