Does the New York Times think ‘gay’ is a bad word?
By on Jan 5th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Does the New York Times think ‘gay’ is a bad word?
Towleroad notes that when a reader text messages someone a New York Times article with the word “gay” in the title, the New York Times web service censors the word “gay,” replacing it with a “beep”:
Try it yourself here.
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48 Responses to “Does the New York Times think ‘gay’ is a bad word?”
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Cue daryll in 5...4...3...2...1....
January 5th, 2009 at 12:34 pmOnce-acceptable terms for discriminated groups do tend to become epithets or slurs over time, but I think the NYT is jumping the gun on this one.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:34 pmCensorship...Not that there's anything wrong with that.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:38 pmIt is the internet, more often than not the word "gay" is going to be used as an insult rather than an accurate description, besides it's easily replaceable by "homosexual."
Now, how the Times thinks they can force civility upon their commenters is beyond me, what a bunch of gays. (IT'S A JOKE!)
January 5th, 2009 at 12:39 pmFor God's sake, people are dying in Gaza by the dozens, and we are worried about Blago, Richardson, and the NY Times.
No wonder the Middle East hate us...we are so self absorbed!
January 5th, 2009 at 12:42 pmWell, I cant write the word an_lyse here...
January 5th, 2009 at 12:42 pmDr. Hussein Matt Says:
Cue daryll in 5…4…3…2…1….
Wouldn't it be fun to refer to daryll from now on as "beep"?
January 5th, 2009 at 12:42 pmThey did most likely simply use a library for "bad" words compiled by another company.
Their admin is likely not political enough to check whether the thousands of words in that library are really all 'bad'.
Such problems happen often, for example with the word "Dick".
January 5th, 2009 at 12:43 pmYeah, that one makes little sense. I understand they may want to censor "@nal" (to limit GOPig vulgarity), but TP can program their software not to sensor "@nalyze".
January 5th, 2009 at 12:45 pmIt's easier just to put @nal* as the wildcard to block random variations and forget about it.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:49 pmWhat a b!tch.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:51 pmWould have sounded better if the headline was "NYT is incredibly 'beep'"
January 5th, 2009 at 12:51 pmRemember last summer when a christian website "cleaned up" news stories about US sprinter, Tyson Gay? Or should I say Tyson beep?
http://revealingerrors.com/tyson_homosexual
Hilarious.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:54 pmIf "gay" is such a bad word, why does the NYT use it in their headlines at all?
Or is it a case of the left hand having a completely different set of rules from the right hand -- sort of like TP using "b!tch" in a news item, but disallowing the same word from a poster who copies the text into their post to reference it?
January 5th, 2009 at 12:56 pmAnd I nearly forgot, they ran it during children’s programming.
They need to.
Here in Texas, big dumb urban cowboy-types like to teach their kids from about 5 on what gays, queers, and fags are like (i.e. wrong, weird, to be laughed at).
You don't know what a hideously backwoods country this is until you've been to and lived with people from deep within:
Texas
Tennessee
Virginia
Alabama
Georgia
and
Florida
Notice a trend there?
January 5th, 2009 at 1:00 pmAnd yet they don't censor an insulting, dirty word like GOP.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:01 pmHas anyone verified it's the Times handiwork? Perhaps it's ATT that's squeamish about the "G" word.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:12 pmHow bizarre.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:14 pmThis highlights the difficulty of censoring "bad" language and insults. "Gay" is historically a word meaning "happy" and is found in many classic songs and carols. At some point "gay" became a pejorative term for homosexuals. It was later reclaimed and is now used by many homosexuals personally, look at "gay.com" for example. However, "gay" is also used among predominately school age children as a general insult, without necessarily even connoting that the target is homosexual.
In any case, censoring this word is ridiculous.
School age children are able to turn just about any word into an insult. Insulting language is often determined more by tone and body language than by the words themselves. "Oh, you're a member of the honor club. Have fun at your club meeting, honoring each other."
January 5th, 2009 at 1:20 pmWell, the NYT is famous for having an extremely comprehensive and detailed style guide for their news reports. In fact, their style guide is considered to be one of the premier publications governing modern appropriate use of the English language. So I would think that they might want their wordfilter to match it somewhat.
That is, if it's acceptable to say "gay" in their stories, then it should be acceptable in their text message system.
This seems to come up with a number of discriminated groups around which much controversial discussion occurs. I've seen a number of people very surprised to learn that "jew" is not an epithet, but is an acceptable term. "Gay" falls into the same sort of group that people tend to be confused about.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:26 pmI can understand it. Insecure heterosexual males use the term constantly to affront one another.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:32 pmHow long until Rick Warren claims this is religious discrimination by censoring his God-given right to slander the homos?
Actually, an obvious workaround would be simply not to run the word filter on the NYT articles themselves. They wrote the articles and they're hosting the "send," so it's not like anything user-generated would slip through it. They're just wasting extra clock cycles on their server by doing it this way. Also, looking stupid and baiting the TP crowd into pointing at them and laughing.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:32 pmHow long until Rick Warren's meth dealing gay lover decides to go public for his 15 minutes of fame?
January 5th, 2009 at 1:37 pmI post regularly post on a website where you can't use words like punk, screw, beaver, porn...
Ridiculous. It simply encourages ...ah, creative... spelling. ;o)
January 5th, 2009 at 1:39 pmDoes Think Progress think Data @n@lysts are bad people?
January 5th, 2009 at 1:43 pmDNFP Says:
You forgot to add Louisiana to your list.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:45 pmI gotta get me somma that hot "beep" action...
January 5th, 2009 at 1:45 pmIgnoranceIsNotBliss Says:
DNFP Says:
You forgot to add Louisiana to your list.
And Nebraska, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina... and so on.... hell it may be easier to make a list of states without back woods ignorant hicks and bigots.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:51 pmWHO CARES? Wonderful journalism work on the part of Toilet Paper. This is the kind of topic that will solve all American’s problems and fix the economy. keep it up!!!
January 5th, 2009 at 2:14 pmHicks and bigots don't need the back woods anymore, Wayne, all they need is a couch, a fridge, and a television set.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:17 pm;)
so, when singing the Flinstones theme song, you have to end with
"He'll have a (BLEEP) ol' time"?
ICESPAM
January 5th, 2009 at 2:18 pmYou're stupid.
Seriously.
ICEMAN Says:
WHO CARES?
Here you are. We thought you had gone through the sea ice up there in the Arctic.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:18 pmAnd all this time you've been on the couch. Anything good on the tube? Got any brewskis left?
January 5th, 2009 at 2:19 pmI'll bet you voted for the Republicans in this last election in order to "solve all American’s problems and fix the economy."
January 5th, 2009 at 2:35 pm"I’ll bet you voted for the Republicans in this last election in order to “solve all American’s problems and fix the economy.”"
Some producer could make a hilarious series, depicting the John McCain transition team...
January 5th, 2009 at 2:42 pmThe NYT must have gotten wind of this...I texted the article to my phone, 3PM EST, and "gay" showed up in full texted glory.
BEHOLD teh powr of the intertoobz!!!
January 5th, 2009 at 3:02 pmTo rmurf62, The NYT did not get wind of this; it's AT&T censoring the "G" word when you send a Times story from your AT&T phone...
January 5th, 2009 at 3:06 pmI run an online community, and we also count gay as a bad word. The reason we do it is probably similar to the reason the NYT does it. 90% of the time on our site, when a user used the word gay, they were using it as an insult. While blocking the word is a bit extreme and can make it more difficult to legitimate discuss gay & lesbian issues, the awful slurs and stupid insults were more common than the legitimate issues using the word, and so we decided to ban it outright.
It doesn't in any way mean that the NYT hates all gay people. Warcraft does the same thing, if I'm not mistaken.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:17 pmrmurf62 Says:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The NYT must have gotten wind of this…I texted the article to my phone, 3PM EST, and “gay” showed up in full texted glory.
BEHOLD teh powr of the intertoobz!!!
WHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Thank God. now we can all type gay again. Thanks TP for working so hard for the homosexuals and their find a hole and Fu** It lifestyle. The New York Time’s will never ban another word for happy again thanks to the brave act of this site. HAHAHA what a waist of one's and zeros!!!
January 5th, 2009 at 3:17 pm"...a waist of one’s and zeros!!!"
That's what you get for parking your sorry ass on the couch all day.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:20 pmI'm wondering if it's done to let the email pass through work-place or spam filters. Those subject terms are often electronically monitored to ensure that employees or students are not having sexual chats in the library or workplace.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:32 pmShades of the American Family Association!
So if a texter sent "Tyson Gay Wins Race," the NYT would change it to "Tyson *beep* Wins Race"?
The fundies are winning, folks.
January 5th, 2009 at 4:19 pmICEMAN,
January 5th, 2009 at 4:33 pmSTFU you pathetic piece of sh!t troll.
MSM bought off and/or stooged. Even so called liberal sites, i.e. Huffington Post, Democratic Underground largely stooged.
January 5th, 2009 at 7:37 pmFlet3her: Unca Cecil says bleep has meant homosexual for a long time. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/517/how-did-gay-come-to-mean-homosexual
January 5th, 2009 at 8:21 pmi dunno, tp... you've got the same filter problem with some words yourself... namely, a n a l y s t...
what's THAT about?
January 5th, 2009 at 9:29 pmYou all blaming the NYT, figure it out; it ain't them, it's AT&T. Let's put this story to bed....
January 6th, 2009 at 12:23 amCBS News does the same thing in their comments section on their website.
scroll to the bottom:
January 6th, 2009 at 11:24 amhttp://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/04/ftn/main4697425.shtml