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Sometimes this censoring words is such a bad thing. I understand this is due to spam issues in the past.
How I understand you want something like facebook. I am not sure the idea is impossible but sure will not look intirely like facebook but alternative look is surely possible.
If you use the forum you can make categories reflecting the different countries, branches etc... where users can write if they are members of a specific group. In the beginning these groups area admin, user, anonym but you could make any group you'd like specifying what content each groups are allowed to see, edit, post.
See for instance this for a more social network approach in Xoops
Thread about the socialNet moduleAll this you ask is possible with xoops, but Xoops is not ready to go with these feautures, you'll need to put in some work but.. Create the groups (group UK, group Ireland etc ect) and tell each group what they can do. Check the demo of socialnet and see if this is something you can use, and it would be possible I think.
Programming is like sex:
One mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life.