28
The “B” word is not a slur in all situations (3 bugs in the slur filter)
(links.hackliberty.org)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023
28 points (83.3% liked)
Lemmy Support
4651 readers
39 users here now
Support / questions about Lemmy.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
I am not going to go into whether it's right or not, but using the term "B*tching" may not be a slur, but it is still considered misogynistic in many cases, because it is comparing a negative action (complaining) with a misogynistic stereotype (the B*tch).
R*tard is a slur, but if you called something r*tarded, that would still be ableist and be rightfully removed. Many people believe that the same logic should apply to misogynistic slurs.
Whether you agree or not is up to you, but the developers' logic for the filter being in the state it is is sound.
I've seen "idiot"( I d i o t) removed in a comment while "retard" (r e t a r d ) in the same comment remained.
The OP is very correctly pointing out that even per word, the filter is very inconsistent.
And personally, I think it's a bit ridiculous to shelter every possible bad word. Bad people will come up new ones and good people will be left having to tiptoe over every word(after all, words like "Monkey" or "Ape" could be used racistly, so let's ban them). It doesn't solve the actual problem of human behaviour; it just throws a cutesy, useless bandaid over it. Besides, you will probably never be able to censor something racist like "Colin Powell was well spoken". In context we know it means "he's well spoken for an African American". A phrase used often when he was in office. A phrase that would get past filters but is clearly not ok.
Almost as if the whole endeavor is a ridiculous counterproductive waste of time.
It would be possible to implement a "slur filter" on the reader's side, that automatically redacted a configurable list of bad words from any comment on any instance... but I suspect that the percentage of people who would enable it, and the general community feedback on it, wouldn't be what the person who made the decision wants to hear. Doing it on the sender side provides a convenient pretense of "I'm doing a good thing here" because it prevents that feedback.
Indeed people with malicious intentions will get around the filter anyway. It’s the non-malicious authors who get burnt by this filter.
Men and women both use that word and when a woman uses it, it’s not misogyny because it’s directed at a specific woman (not a demonstration of hatred of women generally). It usage has murky origins but it can’t be assumed that the author is even conscious of that. The bot is making a blunt blanket decision that it can’t, and it assumes the worst of people.
The other two bugs I mention are bugs regardless of how justified or true the positive detection is.
Are you saying women cannot replicate misogyny, especially against other women?
I would avoid trying to pin down absolutes. If you’re looking for absolutes you won’t get that from me.
However generally when a woman uses the word it’s not a reflection of a derogatory attitude toward women but rather just one or a few they are referring to in particular. Of course self hate & hating one’s own people w/same attributes is certainly possible, which is why you’re not getting any absolutes here.
You should read more. The use of misogynistic terminology, that is, referring to any woman as though they are an inhuman dog, is misogyny. When a women uses it to describe another woman, it's still misogyny. Cleanse yourself of the liberal fantasy that misogyny is only present in people who are fully bought in to anti-woman bigotry and hatred.
You should simply pickup a few dictionaries and recognize there are multiple meanings, rather than cherry picking whatever definition plays into whatever narrative you’re fixated on. Have a look at mainstream definitions that most people are commonly working with.
One dictionary defines it as “the feeling of hating that a man has for women”. Another dictionary: “hatred of women”. Another: “Hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women”. Did alternate definitions not survive your whatever cleansing you’ve undergone? Is there a specific book that caused you to deviate from common definitions?
You should stop using dictionaries to understand massively complex topics. Dictionaries are useful, but they are not authorities on how complex social systems work. Using dictionaries to support your argument in discussion like this signals you as unserious and unaware of your own unseriousness.
Mis/Miso is a prefix from Greek meaning hatred. Gyn is Greek for woman. So the word is literally hatred of women. Just like misanthropy is hatred of humans and misandry is hatred of men. However, one of these words also describes a massive social phenomenon that is structural and embedded in social systems including law, employment, art, literature, fashion, policing, war, advertising, incarceration, health care, politics, education, social norms, cultural traditions, etc. Want to guess which one of these 3 words that describes? Hint - the answer isn't in the dictionary.