Profanity Filter or Thought Filter?
by Alphaville Herald on 09/01/04 at 12:09 am
By The Alpha Riot Grrrlz
O.K., so like say you wanna talk nasty but what you wanna know, is, like, well, is this like something that Maxis will think is profanity? We certainly wanted to know, so we figured you did too. So we undertook a very serious investigation into the matter, and what we did was to check and see what exactly the TSO profanity filter filtered. We figured that this would tell us something about what they thought was profane and show us about ALL the hard work that Maxis put into making the filter. Ready? ‘cuz we’re gonna drop some knowledge on ya.
As a general rule, Maxis considers medical terms for bodily parts and functions to be profane, so you should stick with street talk. So ‘penis’, gonad, and ‘scrotum’ are profane, but dick, balls, nutsack, weenie, schlong, etc. are o.k. ‘semen’ is profane, but ‘jism’ is just ducky with Maxis. Likewise ‘nipple’ and ‘breast’ are profane, so stick with ‘tittie’ or something like that. Oh yah, ‘buttocks’ is profane, so stick with ‘butt’, which is unfiltered.
Ethnic slurs for Asians tend to be considered profanity, but most other ethic slurs are AOK. So like chink, gook, and jap are bad, but spic, kike, redskin, heeb, etc., are just fine according to EA. If you don’t like Italians it’s complicated, since ‘wop’ is profane, but ‘dago’ is ok. ‘nigger’ is out (so is ‘negro’), as are the more hip forms ‘nigga’ and ‘niggas’ (oops they missed ‘niggaz’), but you are o.k. with wigger and old standbys like ‘darkie’.
Now what about evil dictators and terrorists and killers? ‘Hitler’, ‘Stalin’, and ‘Osama’ are profane (as is the word ‘reich’), but ‘Mao’, ‘Pol Pot’, and ‘Bader Meinhoff’ apparently didn’t kill enough people. On the social dimension, ‘retard’ is profane, but ‘idiot’ and ‘moron’ are ok. ‘necrophilia’ is profane, but ‘pedophilia’ is fine. ‘queer’ is bad, but ‘dyke’ is o.k. Ooof, this is sooo complicated. Read on for details…
The following are the words that we found that the profanity filter catches!
Anal, ass, asshole, bitch, breast, buttocks, buttplug, chink, clit, clitoris, cock, cocksucker, cum, cumshot, dickhead, dildo, fag, faggot, reich, fellatio, fuck, fucker, fuckhead, fucking, gonad, gook, jap, Hitler, jackass, jackoff, jewboy, masturbate, motherfucker, Nazi, necrophilia, negro, nigga(s), nigger(s), nipple, Osama, penis, pimp, pussy, queer, retard, screw, scrotum, semen, shit, slut, sperm, Stalin, tit, vagina, vaginal, whore, wop
Please feel free to add any that we missed!
–Theee Alpha Riot Grrrlz
Adrian
Jan 9th, 2004
No visitors on your lot tonight eh?
Dyerbrook
Jan 9th, 2004
I knew this game was going to be fun during my very first week of beta, when I burned a pizza and some AOL subscriber called me a “rectum ranger”. He still has copyright on this term so be sure not to use it on me. BTW, Lenin is in, despite executing hundreds of thousands and laying the groundwork for Stalin, and the system won’t let you name a Sim “Molasses” for obvious reasons.
Squirrel
Jan 9th, 2004
This is the awesomest use of the AV Herald ever.
CherryBomb
Jan 9th, 2004
“Ku” is filtered, as a part of “Ku Klux Klan”.
Maria LaVeaux
Jan 9th, 2004
The profanity filter does seem a half hearted attempt at best.
I was recently given a book of common profane words and terms, the contents of which number nearly 5,000 entries all dealing with alternate naming for body parts, bodily functions and sexual practices. I have an older book called “The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue” who’s entries number over 15,000. English is a Rich and varied language,(Not my first language i might add) and for Maxis to REALLY list all offensive words and phrases would be a Monumental, and continuous task.
I think dyer would agree with me, the “Profanity filter” is more a P.R. tool to justify the games teen rating.
(As a side note, Most of the new words, and variations i have heard seem to originate with the very youth we are trying to protect. Your opinions on this anyone?).
Maria LaVeaux.
drauh
Jan 10th, 2004
hey, not apropos, but nice running into you. here’s the game with vibe link i mentioned: http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2002/10/26/sex_in_games_rezvibrator.html
kale
Jan 10th, 2004
Maria,
I think you propose an insightful way to look at it and you’re probably right on target. As far as I can, there has been tremendous governmental pressure on on-line environments to be careful with content, and there are federal requirements on this front but they are pretty loose (in most areas: the commerce clause gives the government some strong footing for regulating any sort of exploitive content that involves minors, but the idea here is usually aimed at child pornography and even in that realm there are immense gray areas). The biggest attempts at trying to legislate “content” are naturally met with free speech challenges and I think it’s fascinating how this issue evolves and continues to press forward. I hope to be able to offer some of my research on this when I get a breather from other obligations, and I’d love to know what people think about the topic. I think you’re right on, though, in your assessment. Further, your question about whether these companies (if their goal is to tap into the current teen slang) are fairly accurate in this attempt is keen. Personally, I found the filtering of certain political figures particularly interesting and quite odd.
RichRob
Jan 10th, 2004
The profanity filter on any chat/game is always useless and is used primarily as a marketing tool and a means to lower the age rating on the box.
If people want to say a word that the program stops them from using they merely add in an alternative symbol in the place of a letter.
However banning historical figures for the sole reason that they killed a bunch of people is kind of strange, even to the PC “Rectum Rangers™” this must seem stupid.
But there we have it political correctness gone mad(er), i wonder how long it will be before words such as “black” and “white” are banned from common use?
Has anyone tried Honky yet?
urizenus
Jan 10th, 2004
Ha, good question. Your spelling, ‘honky’ is ok, but ‘honkey’ is filtered.
Former Isabella
Jan 11th, 2004
Dyerbrook, i have a question.. is your website name SimsOUTOFLine? right? j/w
your mother
Jan 11th, 2004
check out Dyerbrook’s website, haha he is insane………..
http://syminalist.tripod.com/simsoutofline/
Carnildo Greenacre
Jan 15th, 2004
I know of one game that had an effective profanity filter: Runescape. About a year and a half ago, the developers decided to crack down on profanity and obscene language once and for all. They installed a filter that changed any word not on a list of a thousand or so “approved words” to the nearest matching approved word, functioning as both a profanity filter and a spell checker.
The problems with this filter were that
1) Most usernames were not on the list
2) Roleplay and chatting about anything not directly related to the game were quite difficult.
3) The non-English-speaking players (a sizable fraction of the community) were completely unable to communicate.
In the week it took the developers to realize how big a mistake the filter was, Runescape lost almost a quarter of its playerbase. An effective profanity/obscenity filter is both technically difficult and unacceptable to the players.
Just remember, Newspeak doubleplusungood.
Maria LaVeaux
Jan 16th, 2004
Carnildo Greenacre:
“Just remember, Newspeak doubleplusungood.”
For those of you Unfamiliar with alagorical writing, this refers to a method of manipulating language first postulated in the Book,”1984″
In Newspeak, Anything the state decided was a negative way of expressing a thought was added to a list of “Unwords” use of those words in print, or in speech costituted “Thought crime” and the offender faced severe penalies. Government “Cutbacks were no longer cutbacks, Therefore, ones Meat ration could be “Raised from 6 ounces a week, to 4 ounces.” That would be the correct doublespeak equivilent. The terms “Mother” “Father” or “Parents” were considered obscene since they spoke of a relationship for the Indevidual outside the relationship of State/Citizen.Those words costituted not only thought crime, but “Sex Crime” as well.
Fortunatly for us Of course, this view of the future never came about (COUGH>Politicl correctness
Evan
Jan 18th, 2004
Just for fun.. take a look at the There.com filter. Im no longer in TSO but read the Herald everyday, and this caught my eye.
http://64.125.216.59:2311/resources/censor/badwords.txt