this post was submitted on 26 May 2024
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Today I Learned (TIL)
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Algospeak. The voluntary censoring of your own language to satisfy the advertising requirements of corporations who want to monetize your thoughts.
While I do understand the need for language guidelines on platforms, the nearly instant training of TikTok users to avoid or substitute brand-unfriendly language is disgusting.
edit to add: DV has been a common abbreviation for the term long before social media algorithms were in the public eye source (Google ngrams)
i know people add it to their filters and blocks as a potentially triggering topic. more relevant on mastodon with their custom content warning messages but there are definitely more reasons to do this than “algospeak.” also prevalent on tumblr a la “CW: DV, SA,” which again can be filtered out per user. hopefully this can make u a little less disgusted :)
esit 2: this comment is not a defense of this behavior? i have had to repeat several times in this discussion that i am not defending the action, just providing a parallel narrative that i happen to know a bit about. knowing why people do a thing doesn’t make me an advocate for that behavior, it just makes me someone who paid attention lol
Pretty sure that makes it harder to filter things out if you use abbreviations for normal words. And this isn't Tumbler. If the mention of these topics in a title is too much for you then you should seek more therapy immediately
also people that do this are almost certainly healing in therapy and their therapists probably encourage being mindful of the content they consume so your snarky edit falls a little tasteless.
again i am not expressing my own experience but just how i have seen others interact with their platforms and how that habbit may have spread to reddit which was then reposted by a bot here. i am not even defending them, just saying what i have seen. but this platform is so toxic it devolves into homophobic comments (not from you) and unkind mental health snark (from you) even as i am trying to express a parallel explanation as politely as possible.
well it works for some people. not saying it’s the perfect system, just giving an explanation that fits alongside the one the other person gave 👍
My issue with it is that it ONLY serves to satisfy corporate goals, it doesn't actually prevent people from being exposed to ideas or topics that might be distressing or disturbing to some users. It's sucking corporate cock and being proud of it.
i… did you read my comment? it was a very polite one and it explains specifically how it is a user created standard that serves to allow users to have control of their browsing experience.
i don’t appreciate your homophobic description of something like putting “CW SA” so that people can enjoy the internet as much as possible as “sucking corporate cock.” be fucking nice.
Using abbreviations or initialisms obscures the meaning from people who are not in the know but does nothing to prevent people who might not want to think about the topic from being exposed to the idea, the code IS the idea. Not using coded language maintains clarity, does not bow down to corporate interest and is just as easily caught by filters for people who do not wish to be exposed to those topics.
good okay this is the comment you should have made in the first place. yes i agree uncoded language might be better, while some might disagree and say that fully spelling it out can be more triggering. i don’t have strong opinions either way but i thank you for actually engaging with the topic this time instead of throwing around gross sexual attacks for no constructive reason.
Not common enough that I had heard the abbreviation before. (And I'm older than social media and the internet itself)
Maybe it's common among people involved in the topic, but I'd bet the wider population doesn't know what it means without some added context.
I also don't know what any of those 3 are intended to mean (without further context).
Excessive brevity destroys clarity.
fully agree, again just providing a parallel narrative to explain why people do this
what you are seeing is probably a combination of a) algospeak and b) a niche behavior being applied to the general internet and causing confusion