Censorshit

[beer_good_foamy]

Heads up for anyone who still submits their stories to fanfiction.net, as I do for some reason. Apparently, they've decided that most of their readers are 12 years or under (something I've suspected for a long time, but anyway) and introduced a naughty-words filter on all reviews and forum posts, and also fics rated K+ or lower. So those of you who consider yourselves adults might want to up the rating of your stories if they contain child-brain-shattering words like "kung fu", "butt", "knob" or "bastard", or they'll be full of asterisks.

I guess their slogan "unleash your imagination" just got even more hypocritical.

Censorship: Because if you take out the naughty words on the internet, the activities they describe will disappear in the real world as if by magic.

Oh well. There's always Fanlib... :-/

ETA: they backed down on the editing-fics-thing after a lot of angry feedback. You still need to disable a filter to be able to read/post naughty words in forums and reviews, though, so...

Comments

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

KUNG FU???

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Apparently, "fu" is considered a bad word. Say it enough times and you'll grow hair on your palms.

Interestingly, "bugger" is apparently OK. Yeah. No naughty connotations there.

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

How about Fung Shui?

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

... and what about "Fun"?

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Apparently, it's only whole words that get bleeped. As in you can't say "fuck", but "fuckpissshit" is OK.

*grieves for mankind*

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Good grief.

[rayruz.livejournal.com]

FF.net iced me years ago when I posted an R rated story, with all the proper labels and warnings... interestingly enough, it was a lesbian story and in the same section were incest fics... so why the hell was I the one that got iced? I lost all my stories, except one which a friend of mine so nicely saved.

Granted they were of a fandom I no longer participate in, but still. FF.net has eternally been of the sucky.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

But at least back then it was actual people who did the censoring. Something about a computer reading my stories and deciding which words I get to use in MY stories just chills me to the bone. I know it's hardly the first site to have an autocensor, but... are we not human beings? Shouldn't WE be telling the machines what to do?

The real kicker is their explanation: "We find that some members misrate their entries by mistake. Since K and K+ entries should not have cursing to begin with, we believe this is a good compromise."

THAT is showing respect for the people who built a site.

"Oh, you wrote this by MISTAKE."

"Uh, no, I put a lot of work into it and rated it according to the rules you had then."

"There, there, don't worry your pretty little head about it. Our computers have fixed your mistake now."

[shapinglight]

Oh well. There's always Fanlib... :-/

:Snerk:

I can already see a bunch of bored fans looking for ever more ingenious ways to get round this. It could catch on - like computer chess or something.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Any attempt to have a computer control human behaviour is pretty much doomed from the start - and consequently, they backed down within hours. Yay for the power of fandom.

[shinodabear.livejournal.com]

Kung fu. *snerk*

Ah, ff.net. How I wonder why I ever left you . . .

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I'd feel bad about leaving, I think. I have something like 5 readers there... heh.

What I'd really like for them to do is to ban words like "manflesh", "folds", "orbs" and other WAY overused euphemisms for the human body. The day they can come up with an autocensor that will take out badfic, I might start to take them seriously.

[shinodabear.livejournal.com]

The day they can come up with an autocensor that will take out badfic, I might start to take them seriously.

With only 5% of their library left? Okay, that was harsh. . . but I still want to say it.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

5%? That's on the generous side, I think... :-/

[shinodabear.livejournal.com]

:) I haven't perused through the library in a while. I'm thinking there was a huge influx of teenage Mary Sues to overwhelm my 5% figure.

[faith-chaos.livejournal.com]

Huh.

This makes me sad, actually.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Noooooooooo! Don't be sad! They backed down within hours! Fandom rules OK!

[faith-chaos.livejournal.com]

Yay, then.

I think I-m gonna go upload my Faith/Giles series now.

[lauratd.livejournal.com]

Censorship smensorhip, the real tragedy here is that I now have the song "Kung-Fu Fighting" going through my head. Thanks a whole K*ng- f* lot!

It is good to know that the youth of America is kept safe from cuss-words and naked boobies, which might interfere with their healthy enjoyment of watching people shoot each other, because that's good clean fun for the whole family.

On a lighter note , it reminds me of when one of my second graders told me the " s h word" was in the book I'd assigned their reading group. Embarrassed and worried, I asked her to show me the page. Turns out she called "shut-up" the "s h word" because we are not allowed to say that at our school. Often the hardest part of my job is not busting out laughing at the wrong moment.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

It is good to know that the youth of America is kept safe from cuss-words and naked boobies, which might interfere with their healthy enjoyment of watching people shoot each other, because that's good clean fun for the whole family. Heh. My thoughts exactly. Personally, if I have kids, I fully intend to refer to cauliflower as "the c word". I hate cauliflower, and I intend to make it my mission to eradicate both the vegetable and the word from their world.

[lorelei-frolick.livejournal.com]

"kung fu" is a dirty word? Is it the violence thing they object to, or am I just really naive?

And what if you want to tell a story about doorknobs?

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

See, that's the thing; every fic you write would be about a bunch of characters locked in a room, unable to figure out how to leave... and they can't even have sex while they think about it!

(I think the problem with "kung fu" was that some people apparently take "fu" to mean "fuck you". Which... holy oversensitivity, Batman.)

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

You gotta be kidding me.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

'Fraid not. To quote the late great Frank Zappa: "Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that stupidity is the basic building block of the universe."

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I would hope Frank's wrong; but I wouldn't bet on it.

I still post there ... I'm the stubborn sort.