I’m an older generation and (generally) refrain from swearing myself, but seeing censored posts on Lemmy drives me fucking insane. This isn’t a preschool nor is it an advertiser-friendly place. We should keep it that way.
Because self-censorship is done to avoid getting filtered or demonetized on certain platforms due to policies put in place by those platforms to attract advertisers. It is not done because of the person’s moral or ethical beliefs. It’s basically willing compliance with internet enshittification to whitewash everything and make it advertiser friendly.
In adult-facing parts of the internet, including here, swears are typically used for an extra bit of “oomph” to spice up a sentence or make a point clear. (I know that there’s an actual word for this but I can’t think of it currently.) It’s generally considered neutering that spice if you censor it; case in point is this meme. It just tends to look childish or dumb, especially if the word is just vaguely censored like this meme here again. At least Grawlixes (“$#@&!”) have some mystery as to the word being said.
I just feel like people can choose for themselves. As another commenter said it takes a lot of the ‘oomph’ out of the swear which I believe does have a time and place. But many people seem to be over the top ofended if you choose to do so.
I’m certainly not suggesting that ‘everyone needs to censor their swears, think of the women and children!’ But lemmy seems to get more angry than I would consider reasonable if someone does censor themselves.
Best anti-censor swears argument I keep seeing is that people are doing it to be more advertiser friendly which is making the internet worse overall, and I whole heartedly agree with that, but sometimes with no other motive than I would prefer it, I like to say fxck instead of fuck.
If you want to swear then swear. If you don’t want to for whatever reason, then use creativity to get your frustration, need of emphasis, or other emotion through. Choosing to censor yourself is just weak.
If you want to swear then swear. Cool, I agree with this as it’s following a simple ‘Do what you want’ kinda thing.
If you don’t want to swear, don’t swear. Again sweet, do what you want.
But what if I want to swear, but I want to censor the swear word, even superficially (replace a vowel with something else, leaving the swear entirely readable where everyone can easily tell what swear is being used)? This is where I’m seeing a ton of people suddenly not as okay with people doing what they want, and that’s what I was trying to get at with this comment chain. Why are people so upset at people censoring themselves in this way?
And I’m not even suggesting that I do this all the time, just in some cases where I specifically want to swear, but softer. Like when I’m trying to make it abundantly clear that I’m not swearing at someone, I’m just swearing in general.
I really hope this doesn’t come across as confrontational and I appreciate that you took the time to reply. This just really feels like something that harms no one but for some reason makes a lot of people mad.
But what if I want to swear, but I want to censor the swear word, even superficially (replace a vowel with something else, leaving the swear entirely readable where everyone can easily tell what swear is being used)? This is where I’m seeing a ton of people suddenly not as okay with people doing what they want, and that’s what I was trying to get at with this comment chain. Why are people so upset at people censoring themselves in this way?
Someone else already has pointed it out under this post, but no matter, it bears repeating. The initial need to use these censored forms of swear words rises from corporate censorship, all kinds of web services have been auto moderated to remove a preset list of words, and replacing a single character might get around such a simple limitation. This is understandable, and a good way to stick it to the corporations worried about spoiling their image. (Filter lists like this are also a copout when it comes to bigotry, corporations can cheap out on moderation and pretend no one is calling anyone nasty names when those words are not allowed.)
People tend to assimilate behavior they see every day, though, so a good chunk of the population has begun to see this kind of censorship dodging as some sort of modest or proper behavior. It never was about not offending our peers, though, so this change in internet etiquette is more succumbing to corporate brainwashing than being considerate. I’m sure there are people who do get upset from seeing crass language, but a human will have no trouble being equally offended about someone saying “F*ck cops!” rather than “Fuck cops!”. A stupid censorship filter might still be fooled, though. Using the self censored forms where there are no such filters feels like bowing to our overlords a bit too much.
We’ve gone all the way around so now censoring a swear makes people more upset than actually saying it and I really don’t understand why.
What happened?
The younger generations decided that being offended by swear words is fucking stupid.
And those motherfuckers are right.
Fuck y**h!
I’m an older generation and (generally) refrain from swearing myself, but seeing censored posts on Lemmy drives me fucking insane. This isn’t a preschool nor is it an advertiser-friendly place. We should keep it that way.
In fact, we should actively try to make it hostile to advertisements.
Fuck your goods I wipe my ass with your services.
That should do it.
They’re unaliving censorship, or however younger generations say it.
Lmao, the term unaliving is censorship. Tiktok won’t let you say “kill”.
That was their point lawl
But. Isn’t it gen Z and older A’s censoring shit?
They don’t censor because they’re offended by the words. They censor so platforms like tiktok don’t delete their posts.
In my mind this makes it even worse
deleted by creator
Because self-censorship is done to avoid getting filtered or demonetized on certain platforms due to policies put in place by those platforms to attract advertisers. It is not done because of the person’s moral or ethical beliefs. It’s basically willing compliance with internet enshittification to whitewash everything and make it advertiser friendly.
In adult-facing parts of the internet, including here, swears are typically used for an extra bit of “oomph” to spice up a sentence or make a point clear. (I know that there’s an actual word for this but I can’t think of it currently.) It’s generally considered neutering that spice if you censor it; case in point is this meme. It just tends to look childish or dumb, especially if the word is just vaguely censored like this meme here again. At least Grawlixes (“$#@&!”) have some mystery as to the word being said.
Intensifiers, goddammit!
I don’t remember people being offended by the word fuck in 2000. Sure on TV it could be considered dicey but on the internet it was pretty fair game
Your comment implicates you are in favour of censoring swear words. Coukd uou enlighten us as to why?
I just feel like people can choose for themselves. As another commenter said it takes a lot of the ‘oomph’ out of the swear which I believe does have a time and place. But many people seem to be over the top ofended if you choose to do so.
I’m certainly not suggesting that ‘everyone needs to censor their swears, think of the women and children!’ But lemmy seems to get more angry than I would consider reasonable if someone does censor themselves.
Best anti-censor swears argument I keep seeing is that people are doing it to be more advertiser friendly which is making the internet worse overall, and I whole heartedly agree with that, but sometimes with no other motive than I would prefer it, I like to say fxck instead of fuck.
If you want to swear then swear. If you don’t want to for whatever reason, then use creativity to get your frustration, need of emphasis, or other emotion through. Choosing to censor yourself is just weak.
I like your comment and I want to posit this.
If you want to swear then swear. Cool, I agree with this as it’s following a simple ‘Do what you want’ kinda thing.
If you don’t want to swear, don’t swear. Again sweet, do what you want.
But what if I want to swear, but I want to censor the swear word, even superficially (replace a vowel with something else, leaving the swear entirely readable where everyone can easily tell what swear is being used)? This is where I’m seeing a ton of people suddenly not as okay with people doing what they want, and that’s what I was trying to get at with this comment chain. Why are people so upset at people censoring themselves in this way?
And I’m not even suggesting that I do this all the time, just in some cases where I specifically want to swear, but softer. Like when I’m trying to make it abundantly clear that I’m not swearing at someone, I’m just swearing in general.
I really hope this doesn’t come across as confrontational and I appreciate that you took the time to reply. This just really feels like something that harms no one but for some reason makes a lot of people mad.
Someone else already has pointed it out under this post, but no matter, it bears repeating. The initial need to use these censored forms of swear words rises from corporate censorship, all kinds of web services have been auto moderated to remove a preset list of words, and replacing a single character might get around such a simple limitation. This is understandable, and a good way to stick it to the corporations worried about spoiling their image. (Filter lists like this are also a copout when it comes to bigotry, corporations can cheap out on moderation and pretend no one is calling anyone nasty names when those words are not allowed.)
People tend to assimilate behavior they see every day, though, so a good chunk of the population has begun to see this kind of censorship dodging as some sort of modest or proper behavior. It never was about not offending our peers, though, so this change in internet etiquette is more succumbing to corporate brainwashing than being considerate. I’m sure there are people who do get upset from seeing crass language, but a human will have no trouble being equally offended about someone saying “F*ck cops!” rather than “Fuck cops!”. A stupid censorship filter might still be fooled, though. Using the self censored forms where there are no such filters feels like bowing to our overlords a bit too much.
Personally, I like feck a bit more. It ain’t the spelling, it’s the intent and context.
If you want to make a post without swear words, just do it. Using a swear word and then censoring it completely defeats the purpose