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June 29, 2004
Censorship
One thing I can never understand about online poker sites is the censorship. Every site blocks out their own set of words from being placed in the chat and even though I generally don’t use many of the words they block I still can't understand why they do it. The idea of censoring certain words in the chat box never makes any sense to me for a few reasons.
First of all everyone playing on the site is of the age of majority. It isn’t as if they can't handle hearing these words, or are going to run around town like a 5 year old spouting off their newfound vocabulary. These are all adults, all of whom have heard these words every day of their life. They aren’t going to cry if they see the word fuck in the chat box.
Now I realize that there are a good number of people out there who buy into society’s ideas of which words are OK and which are not (a lot of useless garbage if you ask me, but a topic for another day) but it is not as if they are forced to see them. Every site I play at features a dozen chat options, including the ability to turn off an individual player’s chat with a couple simple mouse clicks. So if they care for their opponent’s diction they can simply right click their name and remove the offending chat.
Also how hard would it be for each site to give people their own custom chat filter? That way all the people who don’t want to see the occasional “shit” don’t have to, and the people like me who couldn’t care less can say whatever we wish.
Another reason why I can't understand the censorship is that it doesn’t really work anyway. First of all there are too many characters which can substitute for letters. Want to say ass? Try @ss, or a$$. The possibilities are endless, and I am pretty sure the effect is universal. Also there is the spacing trick. Want to say shit? Try s h i t. Some sites actually try to censor these, but you can always seem to find some combination of spaces which will get your word through. In fact on Party (where you can still space the letters to pass the censors) any time they find those 4 letters consecutively with one space inserted anywhere they censor it. Try typing in “wish it” and you will get “wixxxxx”.
Perhaps the funniest thing to me is when players report each other. I think their reluctance to do anything more about it than block the offender’s chat for one day may be my favorite thing about Party. Whereas other sites will ban your chat semi-permanently with little provocation Party will simply send a floorperson in to monitor your chat. He will tell the offender to stop, and if they do no more will be done about it. How great! This whole article came from a really funny situation at a table tonight. One guy offended another, who then reported him. I always find it funny when that happens. I mean how lame do you have to be to actually complain because someone is making fun of you when you can just block their chat? I guess most people are just so insecure that they can't stand the thought of someone saying things about them that they can't see. Party is a never ending comedy isn’t it?
Posted by themaroon at June 29, 2004 8:14 AM
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