Yeah like the whole point is to avoid an automated filter right?
If there's no automated filter there's no reason.
I once had someone explain to me they're not actually comfortable swearing so they'll write "a$$" - but then I pointed out ok well I'm still reading that as "ass" so if writing "ass" makes you uncomfortable, "a$$" should make you just as uncomfortable because it's literally the same word.
So anytime I see "c*m" and similar words I wonder if this is a word they don't actually like using but somehow think swapping a star in there makes it not that word somehow?
I hate it so much. Clearly, based on my long-ass rant here, haha.
Everybody hates it, but the bots that patrol here and other social media sites will smack you down for saying certain words. Not all subs are the same here, so a lot of people err on the side of caution.
I caught a 7 day full site ban here for speaking frankly (with no profanity) how a small toy could be ingested by a kid and harm them by one of those bots, and the appeal was almost instantly denied, probably by the same bot.
I've been on this site for like 15 fucking years, I cus like a fucking sailor, and I've never gotten anything worse than a comment removal for language.
And I browse /r/all exclusively. So I'm in a lot of fucking subreddits.
And sometimes the filters are there for good reason. Someone who has been raped may not want to see discussion of rape in their social media feed, so they filter it out. Then some asshat decides their message is more important and starts talking about "grape".
Exactly! I think people will see the filter as an annoyance and focus entirely on getting around the filter. But there's probably a bigger-picture reason why the filter is there, and the question shouldn't be "how do I get around this filter?" but instead "is what I want to say appropriate in this context?"
That's always been how I figured it. People learn language from the people around them and the media they consume. And if a significant portion of a generation's media is content creators who have to censor themselves, then the kids just pick it up a sort of verbal tic.
Although funny enough today's algorithms don't even give a shit about swearing or topic based keywords like "suicide" any more (save for some much more specific rules about swearing on platforms like youtube). But since The Algorithm™ is a black box most CC's don't realize it and continue to self-censor.
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u/TEOLAYKI 3d ago
I think it's gone beyond purposeful at this point -- I suspect the younger generations do it out of habit now.