It also censors some TLAs such as “WTF”. Their censor list is overly broad.
A simple approach could be where license plates only show for the local person and anyone on their friends list.
An even simpler solution is to remove stuff that is not offensive. In what world is “Osama” offensive? To whom?
This absolutely trash. Whether they were the ones who built their censor lists themselves or someone else, it’s garbage that it got implemented like that.
Microsoft and Xbox is already not supporting Arabic localization or have a decent presence in MENA, adding more offense into that just confirms that they are careless, picky about their inclusiveness, and hypocrites.
To Americans which translates to world apparently
They possibly subscribe and use some outside service that maintains and keeps up to date offensive terms and returns a hit indicator. I would hope they don’t maintain their own service for this.
Edit: Then again maybe it’s part of the company they recently acquired? The one about game moderation?
In a world where the US is a real place that exists
Never understood the ideas of censorship
Ok, it still doesn’t make sense. It’s a normal first name in some parts of the world.
Nothing about the US makes sense
Yeah I doubt they go through all of this themselves. Must be some lists or something.
Yes but to americans Osama a synonym for Bin Laden and terrorism and what not. Its absurd.
Yes. The US has some odd concepts of what’s acceptable and what isn’t and varies greatly depending on how far north or south you are.
This happens often, where what’s deemed offensive to the international minorities/PoCs and such are actually still catered to a narrow western conception of it. Its like how recently Google touted “our cameras in the new pixel will capture dark skin tones better than ever before” and the phone doesn’t even launch in most non white countries.
Really strange.
I don’t even think people in the US think that way, especially today. Osama for example is a common name and I’m sure very few think it’s exclusive for one person.
That’s like blacklisting the name Joseph because it must mean one specific Joseph Stalin.
Whoever put that on the list didn’t think it through. It’s an obvious mistake and should be corrected.
Osama isn’t likely banned because it would be offensive to people in the US (or on its own), they are probably thinking people using it in such a way to offend others. Like some troll using it and purposely trying to trigger racist reactions out of people. At least that is where I think they are coming from.
Still a bad look and a lazy solution to real moderation.
It’s why I mentioned “Timothy” in the article; you don’t see a block for the name because of Timothy McVeigh.
It’s not really about the name being offensive, it’s about ignorant users responding to the name in such a way which will cause others to be offended.
Again this is more lazy moderation than anything I think.
That’s great! They listen 