A search for the Yorkshire town on Facebook leads to a warning about drugs (Picture: Facebook/ Boroughbridge Town Council)
Facebook is usually the first port of call for those seeking local gossip or second hand furniture.
But search ‘Boroughbridge’ and you’ll find no buy-and-sell or community groups, no business pages, not even people with the town as their surname.
Nothing comes up, except a notice warning: ‘If you see the sale of drugs, please report it. We remove content that doesn’t follow our Community Standards. If you or someone you know struggles with substance misuse, free confidential treatment and information are available.’
It’s baffled residents of the Yorkshire town, home to 4,000 people, who say it’s been this way for weeks.
Commenting on a North Yorkshire page, Sharon Henderson said she tried searching Facebook for insight into a break-in nearby in the middle of the night.
She wrote: ‘We tried to see if anything had been put on the Boroughbridge page and we got the same message.’
It begs the question, as Tracey Frost said, ‘What did Boroughbridge do to upset FB?’.
Where is Boroughbridge?
The sleepy town has been gripped by confusion since Facebook decided to block searches (Picture: Boroughbridge Town Council)
Surrounded by fields, Boroughbridge sit on the banks of the Ure beside the A1(M), a 40-minute drive north of York.
The birthplace of Victorian explorer Isabella Bird, of the £3,000,000 Boroughbridge Hall, and Darren Sadler, who came third in Britain’s Strongest Man 2007, it’s a fairly unremarkable town.
It doesn’t even have a train station to ferry people to see its timber-framed pubs, which form the bulk of its listed building.
Any claim to notability is overshadowed by the neighbouring, far smaller, Aldborough, once the capital of the Brigante tribe, and where you still can find Roman mosaics and walls.
Even the most significant site in Boroughbridge – three Bronze Age standing stones dubbed the Devil’s Arrows – are supposedly the result of a missile falling short when Satan fired it at none other than Aldborough.
What are Boroughbridge’s links to drugs?
‘What did Boroughbridge do to upset FB?’
Nothing, it seems. We can’t say Boroughbridge is a drug-free zone, but there is nothing unusual or out of the ordinary.
Metro asked the police if they were aware of anything – maybe there’s a drug problem particular to the area, or drugs are bought and sold here on Facebook, or is ‘Boroughbridge’ new slang for a drug.
Police said the Facebook warning was nothing to do with them. Maybe, they suggested, it’s a technical glitch or an overactive word filter.
Has this happened anywhere else?
It turns out Boroughbridge isn’t the only town in Yorkshire to find itself blocked on Facebook search.
An hour away, northwest of Bradford, Wilsden and Silsden both get the same result.
‘Can’t get onto any pages with those towns in the names’, Jordan Thompson said.
Just like Boroughbridge, it’s been this way for weeks.
Metro has contacted Meta – the owner of Facebook – for comment.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.