The solution is to roll your own lookahead and lookbehind. Since the apparent intent is to avoid substituting in the middle of words, 
$message =~ s|(?<!\w)\Q$face\E(?!\w)| <img src="$location" alt="$name"
+> |gi

[download]
should work.
Caution: Contents may have been coded under pressure.

In reply to Re^2: working with \Q and \E by Roy Johnson
in thread working with \Q and \E by coldfingertips

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