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Oh the Irony

Anyone else find the following strangely ironic?

Whenever you are functioning in an environment where certain types of speech (such as profanity) are censored, the censors themselves must familiarize themselves with it in order to censor it? Sort of the way vice cops have to become scum to defeat scum.

In other words, in order to create a filter that blocks undesireable speech, you have to specify what is undesireable, which requires YOU to immerse yourself in said undesireable speech. Governments who are trying to block anti state propaganda from reaching the people must familiarize themselves with it which in and of itself helps to spread it, and does so in the most damaging environment of all.

On the inside.

And - most relevant to this forum - in the case of profanity, it isn't like any nine year old can't decrypt "**** you, you ****ing ****er and your ****ing little dog, too! I will see you burn in ****!"

Oh gee...I wonder what I said? The world may never know, thanks to those cleverly placed asterisks.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying in a relatively friendly environment like Gamespot there should not be restrictions; it just seems to me that a more productive filter would force you to completely change your wording so that the context itself is no longer profane, since just substituting asterisks isn't deceiving anyone at all.

I just find most forms of censorship in general to be a little laughable, somewhat self defeating and more often than not, prone to draw unnatural attention to the things it is trying to cover up.

I just think that's funny. Pretty ****ing funny, in fact.

Posted by JackfnBurton, 02/21/2008 10:26am
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Check this out: Go to game page for "Legendary: The Box"... try to tag it or any other of this publisher's titles as GameKock Media Group (substitute a "c" for the K).
Now try Blade Runner. Attempt to tag it by the author's name: Philip K ****. Alright, now pick a title u hate. Try tagging it as SUX (proper spelling).

In all 3 cases, these tags are not allowed. In the first example GS displays the company name which u are not allowed to duplicate bc it's considered profane. WTF?!
This level of censorship began shortly after the backlash GS created with the Kane & Lynch melodrama... literally hundreds of angry fanboys tagging (and reviewing) that game with liberal use of 'profane language' which GS subsequently edited/deleted.
Pretty damn effing pathetic, eh?
Posted 02/24/2008 3:36am
Yes, it's a madhouse. A MADHOUSE. LOL
Posted 02/25/2008 9:19am
Hmm, a little ironic. I have a friend that is a detective and he had to look at some samples of child porn. Pretty awful. The censorship has gotten out of hand on gamespot. I had the word shi3z censored from an email. I guess there are a lot of kids on here. I doubt they will be censoring any of the games from their sponsors.....
Posted 02/27/2008 4:30pm
What the ****? That's ****ed up.
Posted 03/21/2008 3:10pm
Kingmoonraiser - Interesting what you said, I have a good friend who was in military intelligence, and unfortunately, to catch scumbags like that you have to in a sense become one of them. It's a very thin wire and a very dehumanizing thing. But of course in the case of Game Spot we are thankfully talking about something less significant. But we are talking about communication, and in this case, what constitutes communication in a useful and viable sense. Obviously Game Spot has the right to determine what is said in their forum ant God knows most of the people on the internet probably have little that is useful to say but where do you draw the line? I've always had a talent for knowing where that line is and managing to exist just beyond it. Like Scotty always said: 'Let them think all you've got is Warp eight, and give them Warp nine.'
Posted 03/22/2008 1:00am
Censorship is a complete waste of effort! Most parents use profanity around their kids. Most parents screw in the adjacent room from their kids where the noises can be heard. Most kids hear these words at school, at the city bus stop, in resturants, at the playground, etc... As a kid, I sure as Hell did. But if a kid uses profanity, gets in a fight, gets caught playing "doctor", etc... They blame pop-culture, rap music, video games, comic books, etc... The fact that GameSpot panders to this is annoying, but not surprising.
What about RELIGEON? The Bible and Quaran are both full of bloody battles, plagues, homophobia, the ideal that women are "property", distorted history. Why doesn't anyone censor them?
Posted 04/11/2008 3:08pm
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