Censorship

Hi, I have noticed lately when I "IGM" friends certain words are being censored by star like marks like these *****
Personally, I find this offensive considering so far the words I find getting censored are
God (as in oh my God this is awful!)
General (as in general issues) and
Gay (as in my best friends first name) not a political or cultural statement
If this Game is using an "AI" program to censor messages between 2 people in an IGM chat
that is wrong on sooo many levels, why not use it in the forum where the world can stop by and read? I am VERY angry and wish someone had posted that this was going to happen and give us a list of words that whomever is doing this finds the need to censor!
Thank you for your time

 

Hello sanddollar15,

Recently, BP added a feature to censor swear words/bad language from messages. It is a global feature and while a word may be ok in one language, it may be offensive in another language. The Team will gather these examples and forward them to the Development Team for further review.


Can I assist you further?

 

Hello shooger.sweet. my response is in no way meant to be disrespectful to you or any of our mods, but that is a scripted answer that you all have been given to kind of pat us on the head and hope we will go away. What I don't understand is WHY the words that I have already posted God, as in oh my God, General, as in General issues and Gay as in my friends 1st name and the one from Blackcaviar about "Master" as in Master keys would have been censored as bad language or swear words in the first place! Has there been a lot of complaints from people using IGM about bad language or swear words?? I think the Development Team has a flawed program and we are being used as Guinea pigs and not that anybody cares but I am not happy about being censored at all! And I hope other players will feel the same.
Thank you for your time!

 

The answer was copied from another post, it is only based on the information that we have received Yes, there may be flaws in certain words but as explained, the same words can have different meaning across each language. Gay may be a first name, felling happy but it has other meanings too.

This is a Family orientated game, so these steps may have been necessary to comply with that.

We can only provide cases to the Game Team and it is up to them to decide whether it remains un-censored.


Can I assist with anything further?

 

It would be incredibly disappointing if "gay" remained censored. It is only offensive in very specific contexts (ie. when used as a slur or an insult), but if the Game Team is seriously suggesting that non-hetero orientations are not family friendly (because let's be real, we all know it's not the proper noun version of the word that they're censoring it for) then I would imagine a significant number of people here would be questioning whether they want to continue supporting the organisation.

I can understand the path by which each of sanddollar's words (except for "General") might be flagged by AI. The problem is that none of them are rude or disrespectful except in specific contexts. This game is played by adults who are capable of reading in context, and children who should be monitored by an adult. Surely it makes more sense to have recipients report content as and when it is used in a derogatory or insulting context if they are upset by it, and not automatically flag certain words because they have the capacity to be insulting in a broader context. If that's the route we take, then every word should be flagged.

 

You are welcome to post your thoughts in the appropriate feedback/suggestion threads, but please do not post general thoughts in the Help sections.


Can I assist the OP further?

 

Another censored word "affected" as in "our neighborhood did not get that much affected"
What's wrong with this? I am not a happy camper.

 

A thread has been made here so you can add the word/s that have been censored so we can pass it onto the Game Team.


~closing thread to prevent further spamming~