It seems like the older I get, the more irrationally angry casual censorship makes me. And it isn't just the "unalive" "grape" alleged filter-dodging vernacular, but the way normal words will be peppered with asterisks, or screenshots will have words like "gay" "hell" "fuck" etc either partially or entirely blurred. Who is this helping? What is the purpose of it, except to reinforce shame and elevate a flimsy perception of purity and safety, however those things manifest. It's so tiresome and I'm sick of it.
100%. This is some kind of weird trickle down fascism. I am a thousand percent anti-censorship, because inevitably censorship simply reinforces existing oppression systems. One example is the whole anti-porn push trawling lgbtq folks out of online spaces.
One of my current band favorites is falling into this. Mannequin Pussy’s lead singer has stated that the pervasive online censorship is likely going to cause the death of her band. I don’t have a tiktok, but apparently if you search for Mannequin Pussy you get nothing. You can, again apparently, search for mannequin dick and get results. So now the censorship reinforces sexism in language, and also actively harms musicians. I don’t want Mannequin Pussy to change their name. I want the world to put on its big girl pants. If you don’t like the word fuck then don’t fucking say it, but do not for a second think you can take my swears and vulgarity away from me.
Also go listen to their I Got Heaven album 10/10.
Words I have seen censored on various content mills:
Escort (probably pings for the sex worker association, but I've seen more typically used in the "escort out of the building" fashion)
Poop
Disability
Depression
Abuse
Addict
Cocky (similar to escort, probably pings because "cock")
More I'm not remembering
Plus, you know, the usual "seven words you can't say on TV" assortment, but like. Censoring disability? I'm sorry, I thought that "Disabled is not a dirty word" was pre-introductory, even.
What gets me is that people didn't even try when making alternative words, they just went for the most infantalizing way to say things... like gods even for death and suicide, seriously are you going to use the babyword unalive? Have some respect, the amount of words you can use that don't make light of such a heavy topic, passed on/away, flatlined (Actual medical term if I'm not mistaken), is no longer with us, departed, hell I feel fucking zeroed sounds far better than fucking unalived. Makes me wonder if was originally done on purpose to desensitize people from actual grave stuff like people being murdered or people commiting suicide the way words like that are used.
It's disorienting when you search something that includes the string "PDF file" and your results are unusable.
I Am Once Again Asking people to consider the idea that the decade-long binge of "words are violence, desiring sex is creepy and weird, symbolic victories matter just as much as real ones" that the political left engaged in from roughly 2012-2021 may have had some effect on such ambient cultural attitudes, especially for people who have never voted for a Republican and never will.
Yup. It’s not (solely) about fascism, unless you’re bold enough to call the blue team fascist.
@bisexualbaker “escort” is absolutely a term widely used for sex workers. Funny story about the censorship of that word; my father had a really strict web filter on our home internet, and drove a car called a Ford Escort, which he mostly repaired himself. There was an exhaust problem, so dad tried to search “escort exhaust” and found himself blocked by his own NetNanny filter, and initially baffled about it all.
