I'm actually just tired of the internet as a whole, which is disheartening after it being the cornerstone of my career for the last several decades.
Corporate censorship has me tired. Government censorship has me tired. Self censorship has me tired. The way we all hate each other has me tired. The way we all hate the situation and yet do nothing has me tired. Knowing that even doing something will change nothing has me tired.
People without power or influence use language creatively to evade censorship, typically as lowly users of social media like reddit, etc.. Content creators, influencers, etc. then pick up that new language and use it, but the typical Tiktok influencer originates nothing. They merely reflect.
The nameless people who actually set language trends can go back to using censored words, but they will simply be banned, shadow banned, etc.. They can try to appeal to the moderators, but they will be ignored. Their fellow users probably won't even notice they're gone. They might just make a new account and start posting again. Or... they might just fall silent.
The real solution isn't to play a peg in the game of censorship whack-a-mole. It's to build and switch to social media platforms that are more open in their moderation and resistant to censorship. American social media is abominable and getting worse. There's a popular desire to move to something better, but the alternatives aren't there. When you're doing being whacked on the head, go build those alternatives.
> There's a popular desire to move to something better
I have to put a big "citation needed" on. The average person really does not care about any of this, they'll happily write "seggs" and not think any deeper about why they are writing it.
Personally my own annoyance with social media really has not much to do with censorship, but more to do with engagement farming. That problem is much less straightforward to fix, though I can pretty clearly see that X's "pay for engagement" incentive structure makes things demonstrably worse than on other places, where "link in bio" is a pretty reliable indicator of an engagement farmer.
I agree with the overall point, but I think a large fraction of the usage of these terms is about in-group signaling rather than conscious efforts to appease the algorithm.
What I mean is that a few people did figure out that appeasing the algorithm generates more views, and these are the people that get many followers. The followers themselves probably don't think that deeply about it; they just want to be like the accounts they follow (because they think everyone else in their social circles want to), and copy their use of language.
It's probably similar to how I started using semicolons more after reading Mary Shelley, except more gross.
For what it's worth, the Prequel Memes subreddit has a similar take [1] on the issue:
> New rule, no algo-speak or self-censoring. This isn't tik tok and the target audience here does not have a median age of 11. You can say murder on the subreddit about the movies where little kids are slaughtered.
No comment on the central message, but I actually like "unalive" as a word: it feels vaguely Old English. "Commit suicide" always felt a little stilted as a two word phrase.
You're right that it's in-group signaling, but that's actually why it's going to basically disappear within a few years. This sort of youth slang rotates out regularly.
I don’t think the algorithm even does care, I think it’s just a mass-hallucination.
I’ve seen these kinds of beliefs appear in organisations too. People will start doing ridiculous things just because the people around them are doing it, until suddenly entire teams are behaving completely wrong and not following proper procedure.
Worth a read, it makes some really good points.
But there's nothing new under the sun - I did laugh and felt old at reading "This sort of attack on people’s expression started on platforms like TikTok"... the author wasn't even conceived when Compuserve/AOL users had to avoid using "breast cancer" and "scunthorpe".
> the author wasn't even conceived when Compuserve/AOL users had to avoid using "breast cancer" and "scunthorpe".
Anil Dash is 51, two years younger than me but I'm old af.
He has written extensively of his time using AOL.
IMO there's a substantive difference between avoiding overzealous and clumsy early profanity filters, and the "unalive" phenomenon where people are being programmed to not use entirely non-profane words like "suicide" on many platforms.
This shit is infecting media everywhere. One of my guilty voyeuristic pleasures is watching the reality TV series Border Security, where you get to watch ingenious smuggling attempts notionally foiled by clever Australian border cops, although mostly just by stupid smugglers too incompetent to come up with a remotely plausible cover story for why they've just flown from Colombia to Melbourne for three days, don't know anybody, have no idea what they're going to do, and have a travel budget of $3.50 and a Taco Bell coupon.
As you'd expect, drugs feature a lot, only they've had to resort to using "dr*gs", "co****e" and "na*****s" (yup, 5 asterisks!) in titles/captions, splicing the naughty words out of the sound tracks, and even blurring words on the screens of drug screening devices so as not to offend The Algorithm. Typical example preformatted for Tiktok:
What is very frustrating is that there is a lot of preemptive compliance. The vast majority of the time there is absolutely no consequence in saying “fuck” or “kill”. Yet we see ridiculous euphemisms and asterisks everywhere. It is maddening to see IRL people re-acting 1984 without realising it.
I guess I'm old, I had no idea what "unalive" meant. I mean, I, of course, realised it meant killing, but I assumed it was ironic and part of youth culture similar to things like "1337". I had no idea it was part of self-censorship.
What a fucking awful hellscape you guys have built for your children.
I'm actually just tired of the internet as a whole, which is disheartening after it being the cornerstone of my career for the last several decades.
Corporate censorship has me tired. Government censorship has me tired. Self censorship has me tired. The way we all hate each other has me tired. The way we all hate the situation and yet do nothing has me tired. Knowing that even doing something will change nothing has me tired.
People without power or influence use language creatively to evade censorship, typically as lowly users of social media like reddit, etc.. Content creators, influencers, etc. then pick up that new language and use it, but the typical Tiktok influencer originates nothing. They merely reflect.
The nameless people who actually set language trends can go back to using censored words, but they will simply be banned, shadow banned, etc.. They can try to appeal to the moderators, but they will be ignored. Their fellow users probably won't even notice they're gone. They might just make a new account and start posting again. Or... they might just fall silent.
The real solution isn't to play a peg in the game of censorship whack-a-mole. It's to build and switch to social media platforms that are more open in their moderation and resistant to censorship. American social media is abominable and getting worse. There's a popular desire to move to something better, but the alternatives aren't there. When you're doing being whacked on the head, go build those alternatives.
But what are those censorship-resistant alternatives? From the top of my head I can only think of:
- 4chan
- Kiwi Farms
- Maybe modern Twitter? (I don't believe this, but that's the current narrative anyway)
Agree overall with the first part, but this:
> There's a popular desire to move to something better
I have to put a big "citation needed" on. The average person really does not care about any of this, they'll happily write "seggs" and not think any deeper about why they are writing it.
Personally my own annoyance with social media really has not much to do with censorship, but more to do with engagement farming. That problem is much less straightforward to fix, though I can pretty clearly see that X's "pay for engagement" incentive structure makes things demonstrably worse than on other places, where "link in bio" is a pretty reliable indicator of an engagement farmer.
The average person is not the terminally online people writing “seggs”.
Are you on Instagram or Tiktok? Even celebrities, comedians etc use "seggs" now.
I agree with the overall point, but I think a large fraction of the usage of these terms is about in-group signaling rather than conscious efforts to appease the algorithm.
What I mean is that a few people did figure out that appeasing the algorithm generates more views, and these are the people that get many followers. The followers themselves probably don't think that deeply about it; they just want to be like the accounts they follow (because they think everyone else in their social circles want to), and copy their use of language.
It's probably similar to how I started using semicolons more after reading Mary Shelley, except more gross.
For what it's worth, the Prequel Memes subreddit has a similar take [1] on the issue:
> New rule, no algo-speak or self-censoring. This isn't tik tok and the target audience here does not have a median age of 11. You can say murder on the subreddit about the movies where little kids are slaughtered.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/PrequelMemes/comments/1p2t06d/new_r...
No comment on the central message, but I actually like "unalive" as a word: it feels vaguely Old English. "Commit suicide" always felt a little stilted as a two word phrase.
At this stage it seems more like slang/ a signifier of being part of the group than actual need to evade censorship so don’t think it’s going anywhere
You're right that it's in-group signaling, but that's actually why it's going to basically disappear within a few years. This sort of youth slang rotates out regularly.
I don’t think the algorithm even does care, I think it’s just a mass-hallucination.
I’ve seen these kinds of beliefs appear in organisations too. People will start doing ridiculous things just because the people around them are doing it, until suddenly entire teams are behaving completely wrong and not following proper procedure.
The snake of political correctness is eating itself.
Worth a read, it makes some really good points. But there's nothing new under the sun - I did laugh and felt old at reading "This sort of attack on people’s expression started on platforms like TikTok"... the author wasn't even conceived when Compuserve/AOL users had to avoid using "breast cancer" and "scunthorpe".
> the author wasn't even conceived when Compuserve/AOL users had to avoid using "breast cancer" and "scunthorpe".
Anil Dash is 51, two years younger than me but I'm old af.
He has written extensively of his time using AOL.
IMO there's a substantive difference between avoiding overzealous and clumsy early profanity filters, and the "unalive" phenomenon where people are being programmed to not use entirely non-profane words like "suicide" on many platforms.
All that said, I agree, it is worth a read.
This shit is infecting media everywhere. One of my guilty voyeuristic pleasures is watching the reality TV series Border Security, where you get to watch ingenious smuggling attempts notionally foiled by clever Australian border cops, although mostly just by stupid smugglers too incompetent to come up with a remotely plausible cover story for why they've just flown from Colombia to Melbourne for three days, don't know anybody, have no idea what they're going to do, and have a travel budget of $3.50 and a Taco Bell coupon.
As you'd expect, drugs feature a lot, only they've had to resort to using "dr*gs", "co****e" and "na*****s" (yup, 5 asterisks!) in titles/captions, splicing the naughty words out of the sound tracks, and even blurring words on the screens of drug screening devices so as not to offend The Algorithm. Typical example preformatted for Tiktok:
https://youtube.com/shorts/gbPiRqpEMKk?si=6VH9qO-T5_4wbnsz
What is very frustrating is that there is a lot of preemptive compliance. The vast majority of the time there is absolutely no consequence in saying “fuck” or “kill”. Yet we see ridiculous euphemisms and asterisks everywhere. It is maddening to see IRL people re-acting 1984 without realising it.
I guess I'm old, I had no idea what "unalive" meant. I mean, I, of course, realised it meant killing, but I assumed it was ironic and part of youth culture similar to things like "1337". I had no idea it was part of self-censorship.
What a fucking awful hellscape you guys have built for your children.