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Google Docs will “warn you away from inappropriate words”
- otterley 5y agoThis seems like another attempt at generating controversy for its own sake, as though the mere existence of functionality that helps people write effectively is worth having angst over. If people want it, they’ll use it. If not, they won’t. Same as with grammar and spell checkers. Don’t rich people have better things to do than incite others over trivialities? There’s a world of problems that need solving that people like Marc and his ilk could really move the needle on if they set their minds and put their resources to it.
- cft 5y agoThe problem is that this private company has a list of words that they decided was inappropriate. By highlighting these words in their monopolistic product (Google Docs), they are influencing discourse and shaping opinion and implicitly educating children that use the docs, by providing them with their opinionated advice and suggestions for replacement.
- skybrian 5y agoIt seems like "monopolistic" is the load-bearing word here, and it doesn't apply for writing tools. People write in lots of different editors.
- cft 5y agoI suppose "lots" mean more than one or two. Can you provide a list of cloud-based shareable free office suits?
- InitialLastName 5y agoI'm not going to do it, but Wikipedia's got you covered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_office_suites#Online_(web-based)_office_suites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_office_suites#Online_(...
- bobsomers 5y ago> Can you provide a list of cloud-based shareable free office suits? You've moved the goal posts to narrow the focus onto Google Docs, though. When my grandma wants to write a letter, she doesn't go searching for a "cloud-based shareable free office suite". She launches whatever is already installed on her computer.
- shakezula 5y agoIf you're going to argue Google Docs is a monopoly, the burden of proof is on _you_ to provide the evidence.
- naoqj 5y agoLike when you googled "american inventors" and you only got black ones.
- HL33tibCe7 5y agoCouldn’t this be explained by the fact that the phrase “African American inventors” is used a lot?
- shakezula 5y agoWhat's wrong with getting Black inventors in your search results?
- shakezula 5y ago> implicitly educating children The classic "think of the children" argument. Who could possibly argue against the children? > By highlighting these words in their monopolistic product (Google Docs) Google Docs isn't a monopoly, and you're betraying your bias in your criticism by pushing that narrative.
- Minor49er 5y agoMonopoly, no. But Google certainly dominates education in the US: "Today, more than half the nation’s primary- and secondary-school students — more than 30 million children — use Google education apps like Gmail and Docs, the company said. And Chromebooks, Google-powered laptops that initially struggled to find a purpose, are now a powerhouse in America’s schools. Today they account for more than half the mobile devices shipped to schools." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/technology/google-education-chromebooks-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/technology/google-educati...
- shakezula 5y agoAgain, I don’t agree they “dominate education”. That’s like saying that Bic dominates education because a huge percentage of kids write with a Bic pen or pencil every day.
- Minor49er 5y agoTeachers who accept work with pen and paper will be able to accept work if non-Bic pens are used. Bic pens aren't used to drive classroom learning, collaboration, and assignment completion like Google Classroom, Gmail, or Docs. Bic pens also don't stop to correct you when you misspell a word or suggest that you use a different word when you've used one that it deems to be offensive to a hypothetical audience. I'm not sure how someone can have a notable majority in anything and not be said to be dominating that thing.
- otterley 5y agoCan you provide any concrete examples of the suggestions being provided in the document authoring context; how they are incorrect, inappropriate, or harmful; and how you might correct them? If you can demonstrate an actual problem, that would lend some weight to this argument.
- cft 5y agohttps://twitter.com/thecitywanderer/status/1516176983549530122?t=9J68qbuUvCsJtHC6gYiKsg&s=19 https://twitter.com/thecitywanderer/status/15161769835495301...
- Karawebnetwork 5y agoDictionaries already have such warnings in them. Look up Eskimo, Gypsy and c**n (racial slur) in most dictionaries. I have Merriam-Webster open in a tab right now, so let's check. It says "plural Eskimo or Eskimos, now sometimes offensive" (with a long explaination paragraph under), "usually offensive, see usage paragraph below" (again, with a long paragraph explaining) and "offensive —used as an insulting and contemptuous term for a Black person. Being aware of inappropriate words in not new. Dictionaries are available in schools. Should we ban them now?
- serenitylater 5y ago
- flatearth22 5y ago
- version_five 5y agoRight, the typical "why are you so upset" smug dismissal that seems to be the fallback when something doesn't have any merits, including casual insults or provocation like "having angst"... But somehow it's still important to comment and mock, lest others might think he has a point. When I saw the article, I knew that MS Word has had something like this for a while. I thought is was stupid but not worth my "angst". But people taking the time to speak out against this silliness are doing something good, and casually dismissing and mocking their concerns, rather than taking part in the conversation for or against, or just not commenting, is basically cowardice.
- caddemon 5y agoMy favorite part about the "why are you so upset" argument is that it almost always gets used against both sides in the "culture wars". I doubt anybody commenting on HN is frothing at the mouth, but given that we treat stating an opinion as being upset these days, literally everyone that has any opinion at all is upset over something trivial - because the whole fucking thing is stupid. Like sure I should be doing something better with my time than philosophizing about whether it is okay to delist a couple random Dr. Seuss books. It's true I never actually intended to buy them and would've never noticed otherwise. But hello somebody went through the effort to cancel them in the first place. Don't those people have something better to do than worry about whether one of the dated illustrations in a not particularly popular children's book is a little culturally insensitive? Google is the one that put a non-trivial amount of engineering hours into this feature. I can see ways in which it would be helpful, I can also see how it could be problematic. Regardless though, if we think about the big picture, Google is the one that could have meaningfully increased their impact by redirecting their efforts towards more serious problems. The time spent commenting on this issue on HN pales in comparison and I'm not sure how one could ask the "don't you have anything better to do?" question of commenters without asking it of Google. At least if their opinion truly is that this doesn't matter either way.
- BadCookie 5y agoI agree. The serious problems that need solving are things like police killing Black people unjustly and young gay people harming themselves because their parents don’t accept them. This excessive language policing is a distraction from the real problems in my opinion.
- defen 5y agoI think this is a bit of a shortsighted take. The fundamental question is: should Google allow its systems/software to be used to generate homophobic/sexist/racist/transphobic content? If Google can determine with high likelihood (perhaps through a combination of language modeling of your Google Docs/email + examining your browsing history, search history, email contacts, purchase history, physical location, etc) that you are generating that sort of content, why should you be allowed to use Google for anything?
- browningstreet 5y agoShould Home Depot enforce an Acceptable Use Policy for the many potentially harmful things (ok, let's call them "tools") they sell?
- defen 5y agoHome Depot generally has no way to know how you're using their products once they're sold. The very nature of an internet service means that Google continuously monitors your usage of their products.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tick_tock_tick 5y agoI mean they don't and I don't think they should start.....
- caddemon 5y agoBut that isn't at all what Google is trying to do here. The first example in the Twitter thread is an "inclusiveness warning" about the word landlord. On the one hand, nobody is forced to use their suggested words just like nobody is forced to fix the grammar mistakes Google underlines. So it may have some cultural influence but it isn't really authoritarian. It's also not creepy in the sense that it is not using your data outside of what is directly in the Doc. On the other hand, it is not flagging actually bigoted content, it is more akin to GitHub renaming the master branch (or at the very least that is a subset of what this flags). It would be horrifying if that kind of "infraction" actually did prevent you from using Google services. And I'd be seriously skeptical of any attempted bigotry detection like you're describing that is built on top of the system discussed here.
- bobthechef 5y ago
- HL33tibCe7 5y ago> If people want it, they’ll use it. If not, they won’t. Same as with grammar and spell checkers. Well, it’s enabled by default. Many people won’t know, or won’t bother to find out, how to disable it. They’ll likely just click through and accept the suggestions. In any case, the mere suggestion is bound to have some effect on people writing. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory. Hell, maybe that’s a good thing. Using inclusive language is good. But let’s not sit here and say “this is just a non-issue” because it isn’t.
- istinetz 5y ago>Using inclusive language is good. Is it, though? Using "inclusive" as a terminal value for writing means that other values, such as "conciseness" and "clarity" and "beauty" decrease, for the same amount of effort. As an extreme example, that front page in the Lancet that referred to woman as "bodies with vaginas". And for that cost, I don't believe there is any benefit. Even aside from cost/benefit analysis, I strongly disagree that tech giants ought to nudge the writing I create and consume. People respond to propaganda, and my values don't align with theirs.
- otterley 5y ago> Using "inclusive" as a terminal value for writing means that other values, such as "conciseness" and "clarity" and "beauty" decrease, for the same amount of effort. Do you have any data that points to this? It's not clear that there is a zero-sum game here, or that conciseness and inclusiveness are diametrically opposite goals with metrics that completely cancel each other out.
- istinetz 5y ago>Do you have any data that points to this? What data could I possibly have here? Even theoretically? What do you want me to give you? >It's not clear that there is a zero-sum game here Not necessarily exactly zero-sum, but it's very clear to me - adding a new priority means less focus on the older priorities. Here is a very clear example of all three being sacrificed for inclusiveness: https://twitter.com/justintrudeau/status/1445200620340842496 https://twitter.com/justintrudeau/status/1445200620340842496
- exolymph 5y ago> There’s a world of problems that need solving that people like Marc and his ilk could really move the needle on if they set their minds and put their resources to it. Meanwhile you're commenting on their activities rather than off moving the needle yourself. Why do you concern yourself with such trivialities, hmm?
- otterley 5y agohttps://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/ https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/
- caddemon 5y agoCalling into question a new Google Docs feature isn't some massively time consuming process. Suggesting that the time saved by ignoring the feature could lead to some real human improvement is about as stupid as suggesting that the time saved by ignoring the criticism of the feature could lead to some real human improvement. I find it funny OP did not question if the time spent implementing the feature could have been better directed elsewhere. Only the much shorter time spent criticizing it. And now on a meta level it is okay to spend time questioning the criticism apparently. Makes it seem like the underlying concern has nothing to do with "directing energy elsewhere".
- otterley 5y agoWith great power comes great responsibility.
- exolymph 5y agoMy point is that your putative premise is disingenuous, as the other commenter kindly explained to you.
- nullc 5y agoIf it were actually narrowed to highlighting phrases that might cause offense to sizable populations it would probably be pretty useful! E.g. It might warn a speaker of british english that their text "Remember to bring some fags" is likely to be misunderstood in a rather unfortunate manner. The fact that it alerts _landlord_, however, suggests to me that its false positives will deprive it of most of its utility and that people will either turn it off (/ignore it) or will slavishly follow it and write confusing or even offensive text as a result.
- 3qz 5y ago> Don’t rich people have better things to do than incite others over trivialities? I think everyone in the comments can agree with this.
- waynecochran 5y agoWhat are some examples? I am assuming the concern is idealogical blasphemous words?
- ironSkillet 5y agoEarlier I saw a tweet where Google Docs flagged the word "landlord" as non-inclusive.
- mc32 5y agoIt would actually be nice if Google Docs could keep the gender right in a sentence. Like if you say, Lucy, my landlord and the suggestion were to change it to Lucy, my landlady.
- metalliqaz 5y agoI swear to god I did not know 'landlord' is gendered, at least not in the modern context. Is this one of those "actor" vs "actress" things?
- mc32 5y agoI think it is like actor actress. Landlord can be inclusive (genderless/generic term) and used regardless of gender and is accepted use --but if you want to be specific you can use landlady.
- nullc 5y agoIn american english it had become genderless, but that isn't acceptable to gender-existentialist that insist on forcefully assigning gendered interpretations to everything possible.
- waynecochran 5y agoDid it suggest an alternative? "land-overseer"
- nickthegreek 5y ago
- hprotagonist 5y agoObjective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account. https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_poli...
- dudeinjapan 5y agoWeChat had this feature years ago. Theirs is better because you even get the courtesy of being warned in real life.
- ipnon 5y agoThey even provide room and board for your reeducation. God help us if "rejects inappropriate word recommendations" is being added to people's ad profiles.
- coffeecat 5y ago> God help us if "rejects inappropriate word recommendations" is being added to people's ad profiles. I tried to reproduce the "landlord" warning in Google docs, and I was unable to. So perhaps Google already makes personalized predictions regarding whether or not users want such suggestions.
- weeeeelp 5y agoInclusive language corrections are currently only available in gsuite Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus. source: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2022/03/more-assistive-writing-suggestions-in.html https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2022/03/more-assisti...
- bobsmooth 5y agoGoogle absolutely has an "edginess" factor in peoples' profiles.
- throw93232 5y agoThis is actually helpful. Right now even definition of "woman" is a mine field. Foreigners often struggle with most recent dialect of P.C. English. Imagine someone who learned English from 1980ties movies and Southpark, and did not updated much... For example we could use "African-American" in non ironic way, correct word now is probably capitalised "Black", that was offensive just a few decades ago.
- metalliqaz 5y agoThe definition of "woman" is only a minefield on Twitter. In the real world everyone knows what it means.
- throw93232 5y agoAnd twitter is like 50% of Internet and marketing. I do not want to be harashed by some weirdos. Just give me authoritative source for the most recent translation from 1980ties English. US went through Cultural Revolution, deal with it!
- Clubber 5y ago>US went through Cultural Revolution, deal with it! Perhaps some did, certainly some more than others, but the pendulum always swings.
- naoqj 5y ago
- thegrimmest 5y agoWould you enlighten me as to what it means, exactly? I'm not being facetious.
- pessimizer 5y agomySelf.protect("Adult Human Females") People who assert that the definition of "woman" isn't really in dispute usually say that women are "Adult Human Females." Others say this definition is exclusionary to some women, and therefore bigoted, and therefore an act of violence.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
- bobthechef 5y agoThat sort of naive libertarian view is grounded in a false atomistic anthropology. We are individuals, yes, but intrinsically social animals who need society to live and to thrive, and language is a matter of the common good. Control language and you control thought; control thought and you control action; control action and you control the world.
- dudeinjapan 5y agoGeorge Carlin is rolling in his grave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o25I2fzFGoY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o25I2fzFGoY
- 2bitencryption 5y agoI think there's a valid concern with this; a concern which is not necessarily distilled down to "big brother" or "corporate overlords". Google is so large that any stance they take, no matter how minuscule, has immense influence. Case in point, from this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/technology/google-maps-neighborhood-names.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/technology/google-maps-ne... > For decades, the district south of downtown and alongside San Francisco Bay here was known as either Rincon Hill, South Beach or South of Market. This spring, it was suddenly rebranded on Google Maps to a name few had heard: the East Cut. > The peculiar moniker immediately spread digitally, from hotel sites to dating apps to Uber, which all use Google’s map data. The name soon spilled over into the physical world, too. Real-estate listings beckoned prospective tenants to the East Cut. And news organizations referred to the vicinity by that term. My point is, it might seem like a small, inconspicuous change. But at Google-scale, this actually has an impact on the real world, and personally I don't feel confident with Google deciding what words are the correct words.
- blenderdt 5y agoThis was also proven during the pandemic. Google made it openly clear that they just block everything on YouTube that goes against Google's stance regarding the pandemic. Google controlles what the world sees on YouTube.
- InCityDreams 5y agoNo problem there. When i log in to (login to?) yt, i know who the boss is.
- rgrieselhuber 5y agoYup, if you don’t like it, just go start your own multi-billion dollar video streaming service.
- blenderdt 5y agoWell it a kind of sad in this case. For example they removed some videos that said the virus spreads via aerosols. Now, one and a half year later most agree this is true and good ventilation could have saved a lot of people.
- nerdjon 5y agoI don't really know how I feel about this, the headline is a bit jarring but I guess it is from their own documentation. But without more than the one "landlord" example, it is hard to really get a feel for what this may be doing. That is a strange example though... I have never seen anyone complain about the word "landlord". Regardless, I don't like the idea of Google or any company having the power to dictate what is socially acceptable or not in what should be a private document. Especially when important context will likely be missed. To add. I am gay, I have certain use cases for the related "F" word. I can almost guarantee it will complain about it... but using it is also my right. And some people find "Queer" offenses and some do not, I have seen some heavy debates about it in the community. I would not want Google to take a stance on that. Edit: I was curious to test this theory for myself. It looks like this is only in a workspace document and not google docs as a whole right now. So... maybe someone else can confirm what happens?
- mc32 5y agoAlso, depending on a locale those exact words have active and totally unrelated meanings. (cigarettes and weird). Landlord, landlady, I mean, that's ridiculous. Google and all other language activists will have to deconstruct all languages and purge them of historical artifacts that get in the way --all languages contain these things. I suppose they can slowly replace everyone's languages with a single universal synthetic language like Esperanto but one that's further purified and also controlled by an Academy that ensures meanings remain static and don't deviate from official definitions and uses.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- noduerme 5y agoEsperanto didn't try to eliminate ideas by deleting the words for them. The language you're looking for is Newspeak.
- mc32 5y agoUnderstood, thus: "language like Esperanto but one that's further purified and also controlled by an Academy" But, yes, I agree that this is coming closer to Newspeak and that should set off alarms for people.
- gkoberger 5y agoHere's the announcement from Google: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2022/03/more-assistive-writing-suggestions-in.html https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2022/03/more-assisti... You could think of it as Google wanting to police people, OR you could see it as Google seeing that a ton of people use Grammarly and clearly want this feature. (Remember, Google Docs is used for lots of formal docs. It's not a chat app or Twitter clone.) As it turns out, a lot of people choose to be inclusive and non-inflammatory.
- ajross 5y agoExactly. The paranoia among the plugged in libertarian set (quite frankly Andreesen is one of the worst) gets a little over the top sometimes. This is very clearly Google chasing another product's feature set. They're not even the market leader in this space!
- cool_dude85 5y agoI don't use grammarly, but do they really have suggestions to change e.g. "landlord" as non-inclusive and suggest "proprietor" instead?
- twofornone 5y ago>As it turns out, a lot of people choose to be inclusive and non-inflammatory. Ideologues deliberately gloss over the fact that the "inclusiveness" has become inflammatory. Edit: our D&I consultant does not allow us to use words like "analysis", "independent", "lead", "driven", and "competitive" (there is a whole laundry list) in our job postings to foster "inclusiveness" [0]. The implication that these traits, which are virtues in my culture, are undesirable, is offensive, as is this top-down culturally mandated feminization. Google is doing the same thing here. Its a minority imposing their culture onto others. Let's not even get started on the views that we are supposed to have regarding, say, gender. The same "research" is undoubtedly underpinning Google's "inclusive" suggestions. Is this really benefitting anybody? It's worse than mere coddling, it's antithetical to the equality movement, fosters a toxic workplace for straight men, and we should all be pushing back against it. 0. https://blog.ongig.com/diversity-and-inclusion/list-of-gender-coded-words/ https://blog.ongig.com/diversity-and-inclusion/list-of-gende...
- GauntletWizard 5y agoAs a form of protest, I am going to find a way to put at least one offensive word into every writing I do from now on, so that the people who are slaves to the reductionist thinking that any usage of these words is bad are upset. Newspeak doubleplusgood.
- nullc 5y agoFortunately for you they are defining offensive so broadly that you can resist this being lorded over you without using any words that will offend essentially anyone.
- GauntletWizard 5y agoI don't honestly expect to take any action whatsoever. I suspect that in the course of normal conversation, I will use every word they deem "inappropriate". The question is if I will be blacklisted for it; Lord knows that I was on enough "GG Autoblock" lists without having tweeted for years when that was a thing.
- _bfhp 5y agoAs an anti-tech-censorship absolutist, I can see the utility of this as an opt-in feature for non-native English speakers. I don't love it, sure, but I'd rather us break up the tech monopolies entirely, than play tug of war with little political speech issues like this.
- stby 5y agoAs a non-native speaker, I agree. Such tools are not new and extremely helpful when writing professional documents. I also think that we are nowhere close to actually censoring words in editors like Google Docs, MS Word, ... even though it might seem like a small change from providing suggestions to enforcing them. But when you think about it, it's a huge change, both from a technical standpoint and even more so from an ethical one. Providing writing suggestions is certainly far from the worst thing that tech monopolies have ever done.
- _bfhp 5y agoThe problem is that once you expose any surface area for censorship decisions, some of the loudest voices point to it and apply "inaction is violence" (an appropriate concept in some contexts, I should say.) Because the Euphemism Treadmill is a real thing [1], there's always grounds to pressure companies to ban or steer people away from newly incorrect language. I can see many asking: Why steer writers away from slurs but not "biological male"? Is everyone at Google just... unaware of what's happening right now? I find it hard to believe that there's no one there who can explain what's wrong with this term or how badly we need to raise awareness about it. [1] https://www.cambridgeblog.org/2020/08/ableist-language-and-the-euphemism-treadmill/ https://www.cambridgeblog.org/2020/08/ableist-language-and-t...
- rhn_mk1 5y agoWhat about situations where being vulgar is appropriate? Can google vacuum up the context directly from the writer's brain? As an aside, I find it funny how the English language shies away from calling vulgar words what they are in absolute terms, but instead uses a relative term "inappropriate" without answering the question "inappropriate for what?". That gives me the paternalistic vibes of "for you". Similarly, "explicit" art is all around, but only vulgar is marked as "explicit".
- kehrin 5y ago>What about situations where being vulgar is appropiate? Can google vacuum up the context directly from the writer's brain? Uh, I'm going to be bold and assume the tool is just not made for vulgar tirades. Just how spell checking will bother you if you quote something that's not grammatically correct. /shrug
- rhn_mk1 5y agoWell, grammatical correctness is at least standardized and thus absolute. Oh wait, not in English. But at least respected dictionaries exist for grammar, offering a vague consensus. But is there a dictionary for "absolute inappropriateness", against which we can check google's checker?
- Beltalowda 5y agoEven in languages with much stricter rules than English many people just ignore the strict rules except for a few pedantics, which are widely considered to be a bunch of insufferable twats.
- frob 5y ago> What about situations where being vulgar is appropiate? Can google vacuum up the context directly from the writer's brain That's why it's a suggestion and not a feature that blocks you from writing whatever you please. It's like how I can type my last name into documents on computers I have never used before: the spellcheck indicator will show up and I will choose to just ignore it.
- stolenmerch 5y agoI see this as basically the same thing as a grammar or spelling checker. It's essentially a suggestion that "some people might find this wrong". As long as I'm free to ignore this and use whatever words I please in my own Google doc, I don't really care. However, it's getting harder and harder not to see these moves as incremental steps towards corporate-backed censorship and violations of free speech. I could see Google removing my documents down the road if their algorithms backed by internal policy finds them "objectionable" -- with this feature as the first step only in hindsight. It's pernicious because if I freak out about it now and it doesn't happen then I'm a conspiracy theorist or alarmist. If I don't complain and it does happen, then it's probably too late and has become embedded in culture as acceptable forms of social regulation. It might be time to just do the hard work and run my own hardware and tools.
- causality0 5y agoGoogle has gotten increasingly editorial. Voice Typing now alters my grammar and word choice to the point it's more like a game of telephone than a transcription service, and I regularly have to change the phrasing because it flat-out refuses to get the first word right. As a fun exercise, I invite everyone to just try and get Google to voice-type the word "o'clock".
- birdman3131 5y agoIt will type o'clock so long as you do not preface it with numbers.
- causality0 5y agoIn what situation would you ever use the word o'clock without prefacing it with a number?
- komadori 5y agoTea o'clock. Or more generally with any noun, X o'clock, the time for X.
- cookie_monsta 5y agoBeer o'clock occurs in Australia after 4:59:59 pm, significantly earlier in northern states.
- akomtu 5y agoIf this is left unchallenged, G docs and MS docs will soon prevent you from using certain words, be it the word 'master' in the US or 'Tibet' in China, then the censorship will advance to browsers, so Chrome and Safari will have a strong opinion on what you can write on HN, then it will spill onto phones, so your private chats over sms or whatsapp will be censored by your phone. The US gov has found a clever workaround for 1A: they can't censor speech with laws, but they can create monopolies (big tech, mass media) and let them play the censor role.
- dudeinjapan 5y agoI wonder if Google is applying their own guidelines here. Avoid words like "crush", "kill", "scale", "network effect", "market power", "market share", or even "market". https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7016657-Five-Rules-of-Thumb-for-Written-Communications.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7016657-Five-Rules-o...
- smegma2 5y agoIs this some kind of gotcha? What's bad about telling employees not to use these words when they give an impression of being anti competitive?
- WaffleIronMaker 5y agoIt makes sense in that context, but when people start coming at developers for having documentation that refers to "killing a process", blacklisting language starts to seem a bit silly. Automated tools tend to ignore important context.
- dudeinjapan 5y agoIt's not a gotcha. Perhaps Google can/should use their new Google docs feature to police these words internally as per corporate policy. Whether or not Google is "being evil" by using language to obfuscate it's own anti-competitive practices is a separate discussion.
- smegma2 5y agoGot it. Sorry, I think I am too used to sarcasm on HN.
- chasing 5y agoIt is a suggestion, people. The same way you're allowed to missspell words as much as you want despite the little red squiggly line thing, you're welcomed to either ignore or disable the little purple squiggly line thing. It's going to be okay.
- tpmx 5y agoPlease don't suggest that everyone reading this is a simpleton. No, it's not going to be okay unless we make it so.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 5y agoThat's not how this stuff works, at all. Once something becomes an automated suggestion, see Slack bots gently suggesting you don't use a certain expression ad nauseam, it de facto becomes a standard. People start to wonder why you couldn't just follow a "commonly accepted best practice" and instead you went out of your way to insist on terminology that is now considered insensitive, hurtful, harmful. People start to wonder why you made that conscious choice. What does that say about you? Are you a bigot? Do you harbor hatred for those harmed by such language? Are you making a political statement? Why can't you just do what you're suggested? It's only a click away after all.
- nobody9999 5y ago>People start to wonder why you made that conscious choice. What does that say about you? Are you a bigot? Do you harbor hatred for those harmed by such language? Are you making a political statement? Why can't you just do what you're suggested? It's only a click away after all. And such folks can ask me what I meant or they can just fuck right off. Even if that means a few parting barbs from such folk or even a coordinated campaign to damage my reputation. I have no control over what other people think, do or say, other than to speak my mind as well. As Justice Brandeis put it[0] nearly a hundred years ago: If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_v._California#Quotes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_v._California#Quotes
- stjohnswarts 5y agoBefore we panic and start wailing and gnashing teeth let's find out if there is an opt-out. You probably don't want “fuck” in your sales pitch to your local archdiocese.
- Minor49er 5y agoThat's a rather obtuse example. I don't think anyone would accidentally type that.
- Karawebnetwork 5y ago"2pm: After the sermon, we will go to the pond to feed the ducks."
- Minor49er 5y agoI would take that up with Freud rather than Google. Or maybe the Devil made them type that, in which case an exorcism would be easily performed in that context.
- xdennis 5y agoThat's an oddly specific example. Pretty much everything I've written in Google Docs has been internal only, where I would rarely have an issue with the fuck word.
- Animats 5y agoI wonder how far this will go. It doesn't have to stop at words. Machine learning is now good enough to pick up phrases which express ungood thoughts.
- wraithgourd 5y agoThe [redacted] of the CIA will not prevent me from creating HolyForth. Style warning: You have angered the government
- lionkor 5y ago"Consider turning yourself in immediately to the nearest authorities"
- purplesnowflake 5y agoThis is why I use https://skiff.org/ https://skiff.org/ and not Google Docs or Notion.
- umvi 5y agoI hope this tool isn't going to be wielded politically but knowing SV I assume this tool will trend towards helping people optimize speech for political correctness/equity/inclusiveness/etc.
- jksmith 5y agoAggregation business model ultimately can become evil. Doesn't make any diff whether it's Amazon, Google, Uber, AirBnB, etc. The network has to become strong and trustless enough that any aggregation business model must operate with the fear of being de-platformed.
- vimy 5y agoAs usual with these forced changes in language, like master and main, there is zero proof these word are offensive. Usually it’s only the activists who care instead of the supposed victims who need to be protected. It’s a very tiny but very vocal minority pushing these changes. Unfortunately a lot of those people work at Google and other tech companies with a huge reach.
- titzer 5y agoThe master/main thing drives me bonkers. Master has several meanings in English, one of which is in "master recording"; the original recording of a song, or the final, delivered recording of a song. It has zero to do with slaves. Another definition of "master" is to fully and completely understand and grok a topic of learning, or a technique.
- theonething 5y agoYeah, I can't study for a master's degree anymore. Should it be a main degree or something?
- throw_m239339 5y ago> It’s a very tiny but very vocal minority pushing these changes This vocal minority would have no power if it didn't also serve corporate interests. I don't think all these companies are "victim" of a vocal minority here, American companies actively push these ideas because while people are bickering on wedge issues or blame each other's race/sex for all their problems, there is no time left to look into the ethics of their business practices.
- rootusrootus 5y ago> It’s a very tiny but very vocal minority pushing these changes. I agree. Though I think it's arguably more than a 'very tiny' minority, it is still a minority nonetheless. My wife and I are pretty far to the left, but in the sense that we really want to see America become a modern social democracy, a la Western Europe. The culture wars over racism and other minorities doesn't really resonate with us. But the Republican platform really doesn't resonate with us. I think there are a lot of other people like us that are aghast at the current political climate, where the wings seem to have taken over. I miss the old Democratic Party, when it cared more about labor. I wish we could have some of that back, along with a healthy dose of Medicare for All. And maybe we could stop tossing around the word 'privilege' as accusation, while we're dumping the war over what words are least offensive to sensitive readers. I haven't even met any black person (and a third of my team is black!) who cared about that shit, they just want to be treated like everyone else.
- userbinator 5y ago1984 here we come... one step closer. There's plenty of dystopian fiction to show where things like this will end up. It continues to puzzle me why most people either want that totalitarian future or just dont seem to care.
- NoPicklez 5y agoWord has all of these areas currently within Microsoft Word and they also have an entire section around checking the inclusiveness of wording and has done so since 2020, but I don't see a tweet about that...
- DoItToMe81 5y agoI can understand why. Google is the primary information distributor for billions of people, and they have the power to push said people towards any policy they so desire. Regardless of one's political background, any push of Google towards defining what is and is not acceptable for people to say or believe is EXTREMELY disturbing.
- NoPicklez 5y agoSorry but this is silly. As I said, Microsoft has been doing these same checks for a number of years but nobody has thrown their arms up in the air at Microsoft. I would argue that Word is more common than Google docs. Not everything is a malicious agenda, inclusiveness as an example and it’s use in writing is a big focus across a large number of organisations. Having my text editor pick up my systematic use of gender specific language would be helpful for me to consider.
- userbinator 5y agoWord is more common and also less intrusive, and unlike Google Docs, you can still use a much older version before they introduced this stuff (and I suspect many people do.) I don't know what you mean by "a number of years" but I'm reasonably sure Word 2016 didn't have this, or if it is, it's not enabled by default.
- derevaunseraun 5y agoIt just says that it'll just warn you with a purple underline. I don't think this is that bad tbh; it helps people write documents that are SFW and eliminates the anxiety of publishing something faux pas for the people who use google docs for more illicit things, just ignore the underline??? It's not like google is saying "you can't use these words", more of an implicit nudge that you can choose to address or ignore
- Minor49er 5y agoThen why don't they give the option to enable this in a "work mode" and not turn it on for everyone by default?
- tytso 5y agoActually, it is only going to be enabled for "work mode". It is not being turned on for everyone by default. Certainly not if you are talking about the consumer version of Google Docs, and not even all paid versions of Google Workspace. So not only does your employer have to pay for the feature, they may have to pay extra if they are currently purchasing one of the cheaper tiers of service. Specifically, it is only going to be enabled for these editions of Google Workspace: Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus It is *not* going to be enabled for: Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals, Teaching and Learning Upgrade, Education Standard, Frontline, Nonprofits, G Suite Basic and Business customers Even for those business accounts where this feature is enabled, the Workspace Admin for that domain can turn these stylistic suggestions on or off. (And you can turn off the inclusive language suggestions, while leaving other suggestions, such as for "concise language" on or off. There is a certain amount of granularity as to which classes of stylistic suggestions are enabled or not.) And users can also turn it on or off for themselves, regardless of what your Workspace Admin has decided about the defaults. So sorry for bursting your righteous outrage bubble, but the intent is to enable this for those companies that might want to nudge their employees towards using more professional style of language. And if you don't like that, you can always leave and go work for some other employer....
- CivBase 5y agoRegardless of Google's motivation or intention, it's horrifying to see a massive company exercise so much influence over written language.
- fbanon 5y agoCool! I hope they'll eventually have a feature where you can put $placeholders in your document, and they get replaced automatically with the latest politically correct phrasing!
- exz 5y agoGoogle profanity words list: https://github.com/TrentonGage11/Google-profanity-words/blob/master/list.txt https://github.com/TrentonGage11/Google-profanity-words/blob...
- johnnyanmac 5y agoI figured that this would be a general list that then uses some semi-intelligent language parsing to detect common workarounds. But stuff like 5h1t made me doubtful. Then I got to this lovely streak of words: boob boobs booobs boooobs booooobs booooooobs And realize that maybe I was thinking too smart for this. Though, I am surprised "breasts" is on the list, I don't know how much more formal I could get describing pectorals without sounding like I'm trying too hard to sound smart. on a last note, "viagra" is also a bit humorous given that it is in fact a brand name. I guess this list was sponsored by Revatio.
- AlexandrB 5y agoThese kinds of lists are also extremely silly because they're quickly worked around and new words are created for the same concepts. E.g. sex -> segs or titty -> tiddie. It's like trying to catch water with a strainer.
- npteljes 5y agoThey'll just release an update to the list, the same how I refresh my adblocker. It's not reasonable to expect things to reach a final state, the world is in constant change.
- Beltalowda 5y ago
- giaour 5y agoFWIW, I think "inappropriate" is being misinterpreted here. A word or phrase can be semantically inappropriate even when the grammar and spelling are otherwise correct, like "most unique" or when it's clear from context that "penultimate" was used to mean "final." All the specific examples given in other comments are about suggestions for inclusive language, which Google calls out separately in the blurb, but Andressen et al are up in arms about "inappropriate words."
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- startupspirit01 5y agoIs there a way to disable this?
- dogman144 5y agoPros - will make corporate speak in writing much easier to pull off. Being capable to write like an MBA/HR bot is a good skill for engineers to have. Cons - will homogenize language away from the diverse, semi-structured, creative space it is, and toward MBA/HR bot speak. Shakespeare invented a few words, and those words likely would be flagged. Sure we're not all Shakespeare, but the ramifications of flattening a language are significant and need to be taken seriously. Misinformation thrives in brittle ecosystems where the semantic meaning is flexible and the supporting ecosystem is brittle in the ability to respond to changes. Tools like this do this flattening and brittling specifically.
- stby 5y agoMS Word has had similar features for a few years now, so I think the world outside of HN already has some experience with it. In a professional setting, it's very useful. It's not just about ethnic slurs, which usually don't even find their way into my documents, but also about checking for clarity and conciseness. In the end, I've found that they usually improve my writing. Of course, when writing text messages in WhatsApp or composing a novel, these suggestions are not necessary or even harmful. As long as these tools are optional, however, I don't see any harm there either.
- maydup-nem 5y agook, google
- aimor 5y agoWhat's the inappropriate word list?
- npteljes 5y agoThis is not the word list, but another Google doc to list many of such words and their suggested counterparts. https://developers.google.com/style/word-list https://developers.google.com/style/word-list
- ALittleLight 5y agoOnce they know how inappropriate you are they will be able to discontinue service for their most problematic users. History of using objectionable language in your gmail, texts (for Android users), and gmail? Maybe some of Google's activist employees will decide the company should discontinue service for the bottom X percentile of users.
- tmnvix 5y agoAn actual example from one of those tweets: INCLUSIVE WARNING Some of these words may not be inclusive to all readers. Try instead: 'property owner' or 'proprietor' Those are not suitable alternatives for the word 'landlord'. The word has meaning that the others don't. Trying to delete it from our language is regressive and oppressive. If Google's new 'service' is going to start training people like this, I hate it. INCLUSIVE WARNING Some of these words may not be inclusive to all readers. Try instead: 'utitlity' or 'benefit' Sorry. If Google's new 'benefit'...
- rootusrootus 5y agoThe best part of that example is the idea that 'landlord' is bad but 'property owner' is good. What? Tell that to people whose ancestors were property. What a crazy world we are trying to create.
- jollybean 5y agoThe problem is not 'innapropriate words'. Because 'swear words' are probably not something we want in our G Docs. But to tell users that 'landlord' is 'inappropriate' is way crossing the line. If Google were any bigger it would be Orwellian. There are not too many options outside G for these kinds of things. When populists people get mad on Twitter about 'wokeness', it's exactly this kind of stuff that will give them a kernel of legitimacy. They should really just stay out of it.
- Karawebnetwork 5y ago> But to tell users that 'landlord' is 'inappropriate' is way crossing the line. It does not. It says "This word is gendered. Do you want to use a non-gendered version instead? [Yes/No/Report]" If you are writing a text where the goal is to help abuse survivors in a women's shelter to become land proprietors, it might be of use to you. But if you are writing a text for your men's sport team you simply press "ignore".
- jollybean 5y agoNo, and you've made my point for me. The term 'Landlord' has gendered elements, that's fine, but so does most of our language, and that's mostly fine as well. Rarely, it's not. "If you are writing a text where the goal is to help abuse survivors in a women's shelter to become land proprietors, it might be of use to you." And since this is a 0.00000001% use case, you can see why it's ridiculous. In fact, that 'use case' you've conjured is possibly never likely to have happened in all of history and even then the term 'landlord' may be perfectly justifiable. It's not just that the suggestion itself is almost always going to be de-contextualized, it's for that reason that the software is effectively 'political' in a way. Google is telling us to 'de gender' our culture when the vast majority of people are fine with 'most' things the way they are. This is a bit like the 'Latinx' people - educated White people telling the Latino Plebes, who don't use or want hat language, how they ought to think. Worse, I don't even think the motivation is entirely legit - Google has a ton of extra money, they have ton of busy bodies, everyone wants to get their 'inclusivity brownie points' all the way up the executive chain, humble brag to others, make something nice for the Big Conf. Admittedly - as an intellectual concept it's not far off, but in it's application, it's ridiculous. At very minimum it should be 'off' by default.
- prohobo 5y agoThis is overtly political and has nothing to do with being "nice" or "empathetic". The corporations have inadvertently made an arrangement with critical theory leftists to transform society into a capitalist monopoly on top, and socialism on the bottom. That's the deal. It's been dubbed "Woke Capitalism" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vog7Wn1WGRM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vog7Wn1WGRM), where the managerial class has reached a compromise in which they get to keep and - through being appointed as stewards of the political movement - gain power, while activists of the movement get the transformation they demand. This particular warning in Google Docs is just that. It's Google managing the changes in society that certain activists want, in order to maintain corporate power. Changes like this will keep being added (as we should know by now) while our social structures change into something comparable to a social credit system. These changes are promoted by manufactured social pressures and financial incentives from large investment banks and so are implemented by any company that wishes to grow while under public scrutiny. Discussions about this have been like groundhog day since 2015, no one seems to be able to get past the surface level of what is probably the greatest transformation of any society since the 1930's, and it's astonishing. It's a gradual escalation of demands from woke activists, backed by the behemoth corporations and banks, then adopted by governments. For anyone who wants to help others, or to resolve injustices in our society, having true empathy for the plight of those oppressed and wanting to solve social problems: you know this is bullshit. Even for the activists this isn't about actually helping anyone, it's about pushing us into accepting a shuffling of hierarchies, of which they didn't bother to iron out the injustices.
- juanani 5y ago
- kderbyma 5y agodoes anyone else expect that all serious literature will become some form of Cockney slang to avoid the coppers..... here comes trouble.....
- thomond 5y agoMS Word the same feature: https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-office-s-new-woke-spellchecker-is-perfectly-1848360074 https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-office-s-new-woke-spellchecker...
- throw7 5y agoWho is asking for this? I generally laugh at things like this, but there is something corrosive of also not being able to disable such nonsense. And presumably google will now keep up with each nation's zeitgeist? Over time words change e.g. from negro->colored->african american->black. Which one is appropriate google? Why so? Or, flipped around, why aren't you warning about these "inappropriate" words?
- jdrc 5y agocan we also get a 'cut the fluff and crap, just give me the verbs' mode?
- RachelF 5y agoOne wonders if Google Search also downranks websites that use "inappropriate words" and not "inclusive" ones?
- Proven 5y ago
- rayiner 5y ago“Inappropriate”* * As defined by some affluent, college-educated person in Mountain View.
- NoPicklez 5y agoSpelling and grammar checks have been around for ages and we use them all the time. However there is much more to good writing or reporting than just spelling and grammar and these spell check functions haven't been great at picking up on more than that. Microsoft Word as part of its grammar checks also looks at refinements that include "Embarrassing Words", "Jargon", "Simpler Wording", "Words expressing uncertainty" and has a section around Inclusiveness and Slang to name only a few. But I don't see this reflected in a tweet somewhere around big brother nonsense. Grammarly are also creating a business model on providing these additional insights. As someone who writes reports as part of my job I am glad that there are further refinements coming, especially around conciseness which is something new graduates struggle with.
- wly_cdgr 5y agoGoogle has no business doing this. Full stop.
- diegs 5y agoBetter living through chemistry, until we’re all filed down into featureless automatons. This feature turned on for me today, and ignoring the problematic 1984-ish implications, it’s also nudging me very hard to change my writing style. I’m not a perfect writer or close to it, but I’m not bad. Part of my word choice is what makes something written by me distinct from something written by someone else. I’ve accepted and even embraced some of these idiosyncrasies. Hilariously the system seems to have a hardcore vendetta against the word “sophisticated” despite it being a perfectly cromulent word in the context I was using it IMHO. I’m just ignoring the suggestions (as a google PM would certainly suggest in defense of this feature) but I’m sure many people won’t, and all our writing in docs will start to look and sound the same.
- nixpulvis 5y agoHow about we have our peers actually read our work when it matters so much, or we just accept peoples idiosyncrasies and gently nudge them as we see appropriate. The idea that every digression must be flagged and corrected is a quick ride to a uniformatic dystopian hellscape ruled by faceless, soulless drooling drones.
- mbgerring 5y agoThis is just grammar check
- tlear 5y agoReason number 10000 and one to not use google apps or google anything
- im3w1l 5y agoThis is what happens when you let your software auto-update. The developers have all the power and they know it. That's why they push these things that they know you will hate. "I can do this to you, and you can't stop me." An intoxicating power trip I'm sure.
- spacexsucks 5y agoCan barely moderate youtube comments and dislikes and now this? Fuck off every single o e of you at google
- guelo 5y agoInterestingly I couldn't read this tweet because apparently @pmarca has blocked me even though I've never interacted with him. I'm guessing I have been added to some shared blocklist because I expressed wrongthink somewhere. So much for @pmarca's belief in freedom of expression.
- inglor_cz 5y agoThe verbal inclusivity effort, looked at from a distance, seems to be an unending exercise in neuroticism or a strange variant of compulsive obsessive disorder. Pity that Freud isn't alive today, he would skewer it in his characteristic witty style. There isn't any chance of arriving at any stable "non-offensive" language if being offended is a virtue and some people must go out of their way to find a new outrage for their Twitter bubble everyday, if they want to stay relevant. Inclusivity is an effort to build a skyscraper on quicksand of ever shifting standards. Not that standards were ever set in stone, but they tended to develop a lot slower. Nowadays their development is dictated by speed of a clicking tornado, which means that condoned language of 2015 is incredibly offensive and out of date by 2022.
- zarzavat 5y agoI agree. Being offended cannot be the means to creating a more inclusive society. In fact it has the opposite effect, dividing society though the lazy mechanism of the “you are either with us or against us” gambit. Rather, being offended is the means for the offended people to feel power over others, and to achieve catharsis through anger. No wonder it’s called “Outrage porn”, as indeed there is a certain orgasmic quality to expressing one’s anger. Twitter, boxing, wars, medieval witch hunts, football, ... they are all various shades of the human craving for conflict.
- inglor_cz 5y ago"war in Ukraine" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This expression may be offensive to people who prefer the expression "special military operation". Also, you seem to be accessing Google Docs from a Russian IP, so you can potentially be locked up for 15 years. Please reconsider ... ============================================================================ "the country of Taiwan" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We suggest "Chinese Taipei" instead. ============================================================================ "terrorists" ~~~~~~~~~~~~ This word is emotionally charged and could be substituted with "militants". ============================================================================ "have faith" ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Could be offensive to atheists. "be confident" works as well. ============================================================================ "Muhammad" ~~~~~~~~~~ Do you mean the Prophet (PBUH)? Also, you cannot insert any images that resemble humans on this page, just in case.
- cjbgkagh 5y agoI hate McDonalds —> I don’t know enough about McDonalds (hate is illegal and a sign of ignorance, hating McDonalds is offensive to the many satisfied customers that McDonalds serves every day)
- esaym 5y agoI'm a little rusty, but isn't "confidence " derived from the Greek word for "faith"?
- helsinkiandrew 5y agoI'm not sure what the fuss is about, these are just groups of suggestions that can be turned on or off by the user. In the same way that you can specify you want spelling or grammar suggestions turned on or off. Grammarly has supported this for several years. If you're worried about Google deciding what you can write, why are you using an online editing tool rather than a word processor app? https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2022/03/more-assistive-writing-suggestions-in.html https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2022/03/more-assisti...
- tastysandwich 5y agoUh-oh. I'm Australian and we love a good swear-word every now & then. It's gonna be raining purple squiggles for me. We once had a tourism campaign that ran overseas. The slogan was "So where the bloody hell are ya?". In Australia, it's very common to say "bloody" in everyday conversation, and it's not at all offensive. But in the UK apparently this was very offensive, and the ad was banned. [1] We're so cavalier with swearing, a tourism campaign for the Northern Territory was literally "C U in the NT" [2]. To this day I still see the stickers for this campaign on cars, all the way down in Melbourne! My point being, different cultures have pretty different attitudes to what is "offensive". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_where_the_bloody_hell_are_you%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_where_the_bloody_hell_are_y... [2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-08/c-u-in-the-nt-tourism-slogan-causes-social-media-stir/8004430 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-08/c-u-in-the-nt-tourism...
- sen 5y agoThat was my first thought, the americanisation of global culture (especially online) already causes so many annoying issues. My kids get confused on how to spell things because everything online and in TV/movies is different to what we tell them. They get auto-correct on their devices telling them they're making mistakes when they're not (such as Firefox in this very comment underlining "americanisation" and telling me it should use a Z, despite my language being set to EN-AU). We have people forgetting our own slang and historically-common phrases because they've been replaced in popular media with American equivalents. Is Google going to detect the persons location and suggest things relevant to their local culture? Of course not, they're going to tell my kid to speak more american or punish them with red (or purple in this new case) underlines which makes them feel bad... despite them doing nothing wrong.
- nathias 5y agoWhen words are just containers for adds the most important thing about them is their inoffensiveness.
- jdrc 5y agoIt will be interesting, from now on, to watch the 'petitions' to the language control police to add new phrases
- toto444 5y agoFirst this and soon you will be "Fined 1 Credit For A Violation Of The Verbal Morality Statute". Who would have thought that demolition was such a visionary movie.
- jimmydeans 5y ago
- nottorp 5y agoAnd what are these words? Engagement? Tracking? Privacy?
- rosmax_1337 5y ago"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it."