Put me on the "IANAL, but it seems to me that removing that language is just another way of disclosing, so if they do receive a request they cannot remove the language" bandwagon.
‘Some ?lters are relatively straightforward, such as removing Lorem ipsum placeholder text. However, we ?nd that another ?lter which removes documents that contain a token from a banned word list, disproportionately removes documents in dialects of English associated with minority identities (e.g., text in African American English, text discussing LGBTQ+ identities).’
A word so lovely that we really really don't want to risk putting it in our report...
This is pure speculation, but I wouldn't even be surprised if didn't have any say in this. What likely happened is that higher ups proposed a new feature to ban certain words, likely phrased as a way to remove racist and/or derogatory words.
The end of the article is important: "Language Council could have ignored Google's requests, but decided to remove the word in order to spark a debate."
Sounds like the Language Council is doing a kind of tactical overreaction to keep Google and other companies from bothering them in the future. They also want people to think more about power over language.
I would consider it a form of harassment and such petty language policies would certainly impact my desire to participate in a community. I would feel unwelcome.
Nah, they definitely overreacted to a reasonable request. Different languages, different cultures and different groups will have different words they consider as slurs or not acceptable.
Then there are edge cases like history forums where they have a valid use case for posting transcriptions with words that are currently deemed not appropriate.
Their response can drive possible adopters away because they could only think in US centric politics.
Yeah...we've come to see that the language was encouraging behavior that was clearly against the spirit of the Facebook platform. We have since removed most of that language.
While I sympathise with the intent, to stop this particular debasement of language, I doubt this is an effective way to go about it. It's an anonymous voice shouting into the void.
I think admonishing people to speak and write properly is a genuinely worthy pursuit. If you've got, say, a tech blog or forum, you can set language-policing posting guidelines. Some people might complain, but just ban them (if they're persistent/stubborn offenders.)
People are being asked to change the use of their language for no pragmatic reason: even among possibly offended groups, nobody cares.
If you were to ask 1000 random African Americans for some things they feel should change about America to make it more fair, and to combat systematic racism - 0 of them would identify the terms 'whitelist and blacklist' as problematic language.
These are tropes in the minds of people who think for a living, and who have little better to do than argue over words like 'noosing'.
There's legitimacy in the concept of 'micro triggers' etc. but I think it's been taken entirely out of context.
The most charitable explanation would be, that this phrase is considered derogatory and offensive towards some, akin to say the N-word, and they have banned it on those grounds. Seems unlikely though.
Why is the assumption that if people want to remove symbols/language that it means they aren’t also doing “real” work too? We can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time. We also should be able to acknowledge that terminology/symbols/language reinforce issues. If they weren’t significant, then we wouldn’t have so many people defending them.
better to let those who want to see the list decode it themselves, than potentially expose someone to language that could deeply upset them. It's decisions like this that help make spaces like this unwelcoming to marginalized people.
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