PC policing - Think it ain't happening?

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-07-2008
PC policing - Think it ain't happening?
33
Sun, 11-02-2008 - 9:50am

We all know those in the technology field try to keep ahead of the curve.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 11-02-2008 - 10:00am

Companies can do whatever they want to protect against lawsuits and inappropriate internet use by employees. Many softwares have elaborate auto-correction built in, like this one:

"Christian Site's Ban on 'G' Word Sends Homosexual to Olympics
The American Family Association obviously didn't foresee the problems that might arise with its strict policy to always replace the word "gay" with "homosexual" on the Web site of its Christian news outlet, OneNewsNow. The group's automated system for changing the forbidden word wound up publishing a story about a world-class sprinter named "Tyson Homosexual" who qualified this week for the Beijing Olympics.

Tyson Gay wins the men's 100 meters final at June the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials. (Reuters -- Mike Blake)
The problem: Tyson's real last name is Gay. Therefore, OneNewsNow's reliable software changed the Associated Press story about Tyson Gay's amazing Olympic qualifying trial to read this way:

Tyson Homosexual was a blur in blue, sprinting 100 meters faster than anyone ever has.
"
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2008/07/christian_sites_ban_on_g_word.html

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Sun, 11-02-2008 - 10:00am
Anything you send and receive on your employers computer system is subject
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-07-2008
Sun, 11-02-2008 - 10:03am

Wrong, on blaming the company.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 11-02-2008 - 10:04am
Not to mention that iVillage has banned a long list of words.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Sun, 11-02-2008 - 10:06am

Whatever ya want to believe, I thought this was going to be a good discussion, but now I see it for what it is.


iVillage Member
Registered: 10-20-2008
Sun, 11-02-2008 - 10:23am

And you have a link to this story? Or some objective way to verify the facts other than because you said so?

Seriously most companies do some kind of policing of their email systems because anything negative sent through company email reflects back on the company. If you want to send something questionable you should use your own private email. My school district requires us to send ALL personal emails on our own private email accounts, school emails are ONLY for school use period. We are told that when we are hired so if we don't follow that policy then we have to accept the consequences. It's called personal responsibility. That said, IT systems sometimes get screwed up - regardless of who you work for. So you have to be familiar with the company policies and keep paper copies of records to CYA. That is Business 101.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-13-2008
Sun, 11-02-2008 - 10:34am

The term dyke won't cause me any grief, but I would imagine those of you who aren't might not take kindly to being labelled such. ;-)


Seriously, filters are obviously imperfect, what is programmed into them imperfect.


Last I knew, liberals have no issue with free speech, in fact we take rather kindly to it, especially after watching an administration that had issues with constitutional rights.


Full length fiction: worlds undone

"You have no power over my body..." ~ Anne Hutchinson

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-13-2008
Sun, 11-02-2008 - 10:36am
Nice try. Filtering out 'dyke' would seem a rather rightest inclination.

Full length fiction: worlds undone

"You have no power over my body..." ~ Anne Hutchinson

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-23-2008
Sun, 11-02-2008 - 10:40am

Oh, good Lord. It's a program that can be set to filter out virtually ANY set of words, phrases, etc. I can remember when iVillage switched over from the old system of boards to the new one, I had a post which the software filter would not allow me to even MAKE...because I talked about the Vice President, by name.

iVillage's message boards now, because I reported that instance, do indeed allow you and I to put the word "dick" in our posts....because it'd be pretty funny to be unable to refer to the Vice President of the United States by the name that virtually everyone knows him by (almost no one calls him "Richard," except at formal events). I DO recall having a ton of fun wondering in my follow-up post whether (since the blocking of my post had clearly referred to the erroneous assumption that my use of the word "dick" had been a slang reference to male genitalia) iVillage had truly intended, in that same vein, that we refer to him by the clinical, non-derogatory appellation "Penis Cheney" instead - since "penis" was not blocked by the profanity filter. This instigated about a hundred-post group effort to see exactly which slang terms for genitalia were allowed, and which weren't. Some enterprising souls discovered that we were empowered to refer to Mr. Cheney as "Weenie" Cheney, "Schlong" Cheney, and even "Tallywhacker" Cheney. But not "Dick" Cheney.

Good to know.

It's easy to make fun of such a thing - as we did in that long-ago thread....but although I do think it MAY indicate a predisposition to pearl-clutching prudery, it's most likely just a thoughtless inclusion of a standardized list of "banned" words in a software filter, something which is easily altered with a couple of keystrokes. That's why iVillage corrected the problem here, and probably also why the company in your article will allow the word "Dyke" in future email correspondence: because there ARE legitimate uses of both words, beyond the slang, derogatory ones. That still doesn't explain why words like "schlong" - which have NO other usage - slip by un-filtered, LOL.





Konichiwa, Bitches!
McCain LOST???

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-23-2008
Sun, 11-02-2008 - 10:42am

Although this sort of software-ninja sabotage DOES occasionally happen. About ten years ago, it used to tickle my funnybone to no end that some nameless gnome in Redmond had redirected the "suggsted words" function of Microsoft Word's spell checker feature to offer the suggestion "Jingoish" for the proper name "Gingrich."

That one always made me smile.





Konichiwa, Bitches!
McCain LOST???

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