4 ms·

>These are just a few examples from an obsessive, and often baffling list of more than 1,400 English words that Google has quietly deemed inappropriate for Andr

>These are just a few examples from an obsessive, and often baffling list of more than 1,400 English words that Google has quietly deemed inappropriate for Android users. What a fatuous line of reasoning. A simpler explanation would be that those are words that one would be less likely to want to type accidentally in, say, a text message, because of their potential for causing misunderstanding or embarrassment. The idea that they would want to bowdlerize a user's text input to advance a vague political agenda is absurd and resembles the worst kind of paranoid conspiracy theory.

jonchristian 13y ago
I wrote the piece, and I strongly agree with you. To clarify: 1) I see no conspiracy here, just a fascinatingly broad definition of "offensive" 2) I do think a togglable filter is a good feature 3) But this list is still weird. "LSAT"? "Cuprammonium"? "Dominatrices" but not "dominatrix"? I think a sloppy intern might have gotten a little heavy-handed. The word lists for other languages (also available) ban far fewer words.
- jameshart 13y ago
  Obviously they're not 'offensive' words, just words they want to autocorrect guesser to reject when it comes up with them as candidate corrections. LSAT is the giveaway - it's there to prevent autocorrect from guessing you meant to type LSAT when you meant to type 'last'. A and S are commonly substituted, and this serves as a way to resolve the tiebreaker when someone types laat or lsst in favor of the more likely word.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  > "I think a sloppy intern might have gotten a little heavy-handed." This isn't very plausible (i.e., a company the scale of Google letting an intern have the run of the autocorrect-avoidance list). The existence of esoteric and obscure words on the list suggests that this list isn't human-generated at all, but probably based on complaints about autocorrects. It also explains why some words on the list but other, equally "offensive" words are not - only words that have close proximity to more commonly used, more innocuous words would appear on such a list. Another "offensive" word that isn't neighbors with a commonly used word would be absent. The list for other languages is almost certainly guaranteed to be shorter as, despite the globalization of the Internet, the dominant language (and thus the one most susceptible to autocorrect-hell) is still English, and Google is still primarily an English-first company.
- herbig 13y ago
  A togglable filter is a feature of the app. How come the article makes no mention of this?
  - sli 13y ago
    It does. > The filter can be disabled in the Google Keyboard settings, which makes all words both swipeable and available for autocomplete. Unless you meant the article makes no mention of it specifically as a feature, which it does not.
- __pThrow 13y ago
  But the headline doesn't mention LSAT, it mentions "preggers" and "pizzle" both words with sexual innuendo attached to them. Thus: TIRED linkbait.
rjknight 13y ago
Yeah, this looks like a "Damn you autocorrect!"[1] protection system rather than a serious attempt at censorship. [1] http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/ http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/
3JPLW 13y ago
Exactly. And the headline is ridiculous. They aren't banned; the auto-correct engine simply won't fix an error in them. Which strikes me as a sensible default, especially for young users trying to type, e.g., duck. And of course, "The filter can be disabled in the Google Keyboard settings, which makes all words both swipeable and available for autocomplete."
blueblob 13y ago
Maybe protecting children from discovering new words?
endianswap 13y ago
This explains LSAT and AMD in context of a virtual or swipe keyboard. In both of those cases, the more common word (last/and) has two keyboard-adjacent letters swapped. Edit: Whoops, AMD doesnt have N and M swapped within the word, it'd be M replacing N. My point still stands with LSAT, and I still argue they're in the same class of problem.

jonchristian 13y ago

I wrote the piece, and I strongly agree with you. To clarify: 1) I see no conspiracy here, just a fascinatingly broad definition of "offensive" 2) I do think a togglable filter is a good feature 3) But this list is still weird. "LSAT"? "Cuprammonium"? "Dominatrices" but not "dominatrix"? I think a sloppy intern might have gotten a little heavy-handed. The word lists for other languages (also available) ban far fewer words.

jameshart 13y ago
Obviously they're not 'offensive' words, just words they want to autocorrect guesser to reject when it comes up with them as candidate corrections. LSAT is the giveaway - it's there to prevent autocorrect from guessing you meant to type LSAT when you meant to type 'last'. A and S are commonly substituted, and this serves as a way to resolve the tiebreaker when someone types laat or lsst in favor of the more likely word.
potatolicious 13y ago
> "I think a sloppy intern might have gotten a little heavy-handed." This isn't very plausible (i.e., a company the scale of Google letting an intern have the run of the autocorrect-avoidance list). The existence of esoteric and obscure words on the list suggests that this list isn't human-generated at all, but probably based on complaints about autocorrects. It also explains why some words on the list but other, equally "offensive" words are not - only words that have close proximity to more commonly used, more innocuous words would appear on such a list. Another "offensive" word that isn't neighbors with a commonly used word would be absent. The list for other languages is almost certainly guaranteed to be shorter as, despite the globalization of the Internet, the dominant language (and thus the one most susceptible to autocorrect-hell) is still English, and Google is still primarily an English-first company.
herbig 13y ago
A togglable filter is a feature of the app. How come the article makes no mention of this?
- sli 13y ago
  It does. > The filter can be disabled in the Google Keyboard settings, which makes all words both swipeable and available for autocomplete. Unless you meant the article makes no mention of it specifically as a feature, which it does not.
__pThrow 13y ago
But the headline doesn't mention LSAT, it mentions "preggers" and "pizzle" both words with sexual innuendo attached to them. Thus: TIRED linkbait.

rjknight 13y ago

Yeah, this looks like a "Damn you autocorrect!"[1] protection system rather than a serious attempt at censorship. [1] http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/ http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/

3JPLW 13y ago

Exactly. And the headline is ridiculous. They aren't banned; the auto-correct engine simply won't fix an error in them. Which strikes me as a sensible default, especially for young users trying to type, e.g., duck. And of course, "The filter can be disabled in the Google Keyboard settings, which makes all words both swipeable and available for autocomplete."

blueblob 13y ago

Maybe protecting children from discovering new words?

endianswap 13y ago

This explains LSAT and AMD in context of a virtual or swipe keyboard. In both of those cases, the more common word (last/and) has two keyboard-adjacent letters swapped. Edit: Whoops, AMD doesnt have N and M swapped within the word, it'd be M replacing N. My point still stands with LSAT, and I still argue they're in the same class of problem.