Iv seen posts with people substituting rape with r@pe. Other than bypassing filters I can’t see a reason to censor just 1 letter that doesn’t actually censor the word? I see if you fully censor the word, but even still context completely ruins the censorship.
Pretty sure it’s done to avoid videos/posts being removed by TikTok/Twitter/FB and the likes. For example, you can’t use or say the word “Suicide” on TikTok, that would get the video removed. So people say “Unalive” to get around that. This way, they can still talk about difficult topics without the dumb censorship.
If you’re seeing it in places where that isn’t an issue (like Lemmy, for example) they may just be doing it out of habit.
How Orwellian.
Makes sense, figured it was filter dodging. The fact it’s has made its way outside of those places is slightly annoying
I think it’s asinine. Rape is a serious subject. I find it insulting when someone “censors” the word in such a ridiculous way. Does the word “rape” make you uncomfortable? WELL, IT SHOULD. It’s sexual assault. You shouldn’t be comfortable thinking about it.
This seems kind of puritan to me. Why should I be made uncomfortable by the mention of sexual assault? Are you uncomfortable thinking about war?
Why SHOULD the word “rape” make anyone uncomfortable? IMO this kind of thinking is what leads to suppression of victim’s voices. It makes even speaking about SA into a taboo thing.
In an ideal world, wed speak of SA with, at minimum, the same frequency we speak about bullying. We’ve seen successful efforts to lessen both the frequency and impact of bullying by speaking about it more.
I see your point, and an explanation is called for. I don’t mean “uncomfortable” in the sense that one avoids discussing rape, only that the idea isn’t a happy one. For the same reason, I don’t gleefully think about war, either. I don’t delight in its consequences.
The possible suppression of victim’s voices is a major part of the problem. Rape is an important subject and should be discussed openly, but it’s too serious to be mocked with silly attempts at censorship.
Totally agreed.
It’s really shitty for people that actually want to filter triggering stuff out of their feed.
Putting in stupid characters doesn’t make it any less upsetting for the people it upsets, but it does force them to see it because fuck them, apparently.
It’s a shitty, entitled thing to do, and people who do it should feel bad about themselves.
Exactly what I’m thinking, it solves nothing but does create a problem.
When asking people, they seem to think it is “rude” to write out the word in full and consider it a confused courtesy.
Whatever the reason, it fucks with people who have filters set to avoid certain topics or just want to skip discourse that uses rude language.
It’s shitty and should stop.
Why can’t it be normal for everyone just to use the correct words (to me it feels like it’d be kinda insulting to substitute a word like rape because it feels like then you’re putting the platform above the very serious topic), then people be able to set up their own filters to filter out words like rape if they don’t want to see them.
it’s just a silly thing people keep copying from each other.
I wish they would stop lol
It is to get around filters on more oppressive platforms. My recommendation is if you see people self censoring themselves in places where they are free to say the words, tell them to say it!
It’s just as dumb as spelling it f**k everyone still knows what it says and no one should fucking care.
I saw a post somewhere saying that changing 1 letter can prevent it from being searched for by people who just want to troll posts with that particular word
No, you’re right, it is stupid. I have to agree it doesn’t work, since it largely fails to censor the word for those people the censor was made for. I have seen platforms that do full word censorship (like Steam) and when people post screenshots of “I ♥♥♥♥ you”, the only accomplishment isn’t making me not think of a slur - it’s actually rationalize even harder that they did say one of either Rape or Fuck, nothing else. Congrats censorship, you went from 1 slur, to 2 slurs.
My understanding is that content creators have figured out which words trigger demonetisation of their videos (and to a lesser extent other content) so they’ve bowdlerised what they say to get around this. Other people presumably picked that up and used it.
I would assume it’s mostly habit from platforms with content filters and uncertainty if usage of the word is prohibited despite a lack of filter. And then a dash of “online subculture”
Some proprietary social media (looking at you meta) have filter, removing any sensitive topic. So if you write rape you can’t post while if you write r@pe you can.
The ridiculous result is that a health-educator talking about sexual health and condoms will get censored while a teenager twerking in underwear won’t.
n was talking about how her cousin was shot and killed for knocking on her neighbor’s door to get her kid’s thing and she used “unalive” to describe it. It was very jarring to hear in such a somber context. It f
It’s the same with most ways that we euphemise or censor words. It’s so pathetically redundant because everyone knows what the word is supposed.to be. You may as well have said it.
I’d rather see it because then folks can set up word filters to get rid of it. Adding random characters in the middle means it is harder to avoid seeing because it is so obvious what the word means.
Yea great point, people who don’t want to see it now have to because… bullshit?
