Facebook Accidentally Declared A Country Is At War

The Philippines celebrated its 117th Independence Day yesterday, which meant ceremonies and parties all over the country.

Facebook decided to join in by giving users logging in on Sunday morning a 'Happy Independence Day' message.

Nothing wrong with that, you might think - except that the social media network managed to get the colours of the flag upside down - red on top, and blue on the bottom, rather than blue on top and red on the bottom.

And while that's not a hanging mistake, the real faux pas turns out to be that the Philippines actually does use an upside down flag - but only when they're at war.

Oops.

@facebook please correct this. PH flag 🇵🇭 must be blue over red. Red on top symbolizes war. #RP612fic #Pilipinas pic.twitter.com/qqlKqJv5Ly

According to Philippine law, the flag is only displayed with red on top during wartime.

Facebook took the banner down after people started pointing out they hadn't realised a war had started overnight.

A representative for the company told the Philippine Star: "This was unintentional, and we’re sorry."

We care deeply about the community in the Philippines and, in an attempt to connect people on Independence Day, we made a mistake.

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