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NSFW On bot censoring 'art' on this forum


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What is Klipsch and administrators' stand on censoring art?

Why does Klipsch use indiscriminant censor bots?

 

Context: I was recently discussing an iconic Miles Davis album and after I posted it, I noticed that a forum bot had censored the title of the album. Now, if I lived in China, or in North-Korea, or Hong Kong, I could understand. But this is the Free West, right?

So when has Klipsch decided it needs to censor art masterpieces?

Why?

Please enlighten me!

 

The Miles Davis album I was writing about is ******* Brew 

https://jazztimes.com/features/profiles/miles-davis-and-the-making-of-*******-brew-sorcerers-brew/

Bitches Brew : Miles Davis, J. Zawinul: Amazon.fr: Musique

 

To put things in perspective, here is another masterpiece in the history of art, Gustave Courbet’s “The Origin of the World”, which also was the  subject of controversy, until it was brought to court. Watch the video in the link. 

In order not to offend, but rather to open the discussion, I selected a non detailed picture. 

 

 

 

https://www.france24.com/en/mediawatch/20180201-pornography-or-art-facebook-french-courts-over-censorship-courbets-******

 

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So... 

I can happily run a forum search on KKK but I cannot for '******* Brew'. 

Hm...

Interesting... 

 

I'm not sure I want to be associated with the Klipsch brand anymore. I'm going to flag my own post. I want some admin to look at this. 

 

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@MeloManiacThe Forum has always had a software filter which will ***** out a standard set of words and notify the admins.  I don't use those words or I've learned to use other words the filter does like.

 

Usually all it takes is a word to the wise and the person who makes the post takes it down himself.  When I was new to the forum I made posting mistakes and others more experienced helped me with their guidance.  It's easy to use the Edit feature to take out the offending words or pictures.  There are no words that I type which are so important to the world that I can't delete of redact my own post.  It's not personal.

 

In terms of art, the middle picture you've posted showing a woman's private parts is certainly not acceptable on this forum.  There is no filter which will remove it that I know of.  We are left to self-police ourselves so the Admins don't have to inspect every post.  They have enough other stuff to do so we respect that.

 

The typical response of the poster is "thanks for the heads up, I'll take the picture down."  Posters who don't get it eventually get the thread or post flagged and the Admins delete it and the offender can be banned.  Banning a forum member is a very rare occurrence as most people "get it" but it does happen.

 

I hope that helps clarify things.  -Dave

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It would be good that these offensive words are published. Being a language teacher, I have a professional interest in this. Very often, these so called offensive lists are culturally and ethnically biased and prejudiced, discriminating and even racist. 

This article goes deeper into the issue. 

 

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-chatbot-problem

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31 minutes ago, wvu80 said:

here are no words that I type which are so important to the world that I can't delete of redact my own post.

 

So how would you work around the title of named Miles Davis album, ******* Brew? I chose to post a thumbnail of the album, but isn't that equally offensive, or even more?

 

When you say this this is a 'family website', how would you define 'family values' then? Do you have some vague, idealised concept in mind that fits your discourse? Does that include single parent families? Are you referring to all ages, perhaps? Are you setting the age limit for Miles Davis music?

 

I can tell you I never use profanity, and I experienced it as an insult when some unnamed programmer decided to censor Miles Davis with a dumb forum filter. 

 

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Some words could be defined as derogatory when used that way.

Some use the word for a female dog with out a second thought.

And then some use the filters to pre-empt such use, thinking that, this being a forum that has a lounge, some may use profanity casually.

Likely filters are being used to somewhat eliminate some words that are socially inappropriate, on a forum that uses a company name, where the immature are likely to become disenchanted at realizing that wow, what a bunch of cussing each other out. A music forum talking about sexual topics, using grown up words.

Thinking that gaining any traction here will be as fruitless as ******* up a tree. One can try though, suppose.

Thanks!

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2 hours ago, MeloManiac said:

When you say this this is a 'family website', how would you define 'family values' then? Do you have some vague, idealised concept in mind that fits your discourse? Does that include single parent families? Are you referring to all ages, perhaps? Are you setting the age limit for Miles Davis music?

This is actually an easy one:

1) Klipsch can choose the atmosphere/content on their forum and we can choose to be here. {Note: One of my absolute favorite sections is no longer here where we discussed adult issues and was hidden from the general forum. That worked for 15 years until it didn't.}

2) While I agree that certain words shouldn't be omitted during adult discussions, otoh, I wouldn't be talking about Mile's album in a group of elementary school children because of that word alone. Here in the United States. In the US we respect the right of parents who don't want their kids exposed to certain subjects and that is the line I feel Klipsch is trying to walk.

 

Btw, I have actually seen Courbet's painting above and I collect Museum Cards of the paintings I see...that said, DUDE! I am far from prudish but that is definitely over the line for a Speaker Forum.  Just sayin....On a lighter note, I was showing off my card collection to one of the  parents whose kid I worked with for years and we chat about travel.  It was between classes and I had mom in the office about to look through my collection and as she removed the top card in one of the stacks I had and THAT painting was bigger in life and needless to say it put me in an uneasy (and VERY funny) situation. That's my take.

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37 minutes ago, Zen Traveler said:

Courbet's painting

 

I gave that as example because Facebook is facing court in France for censoring an art teacher using it on his educational FB group. I deliberately chose a picture taken from afar in order not to offend. 

 

 

 

 

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35 minutes ago, MeloManiac said:

 

I gave that as example because Facebook is facing court in France for censoring an art teacher using it on his educational FB group. I deliberately chose a picture taken from afar in order not to offend. 

 

 

 

 

Oh, I understand and not offended...Otoh, your "picture taken afar" can be zoomed in on. Imagine someone posting their junk on here, took the photo from faraway and then called it "art" in the "Show me your favorite photograph" thread. 😞

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10 hours ago, MeloManiac said:

Please enlighten me!

Mostly because it's a private company not selling advrtisements and just offering a service for people to discuss  a hobby. So they can set the rules as they like.

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5 hours ago, MeloManiac said:

So... 

I can happily run a forum search on KKK but I cannot for '******* Brew'. 

Hm...

Interesting... 

 

I'm not sure I want to be associated with the Klipsch brand anymore. I'm going to flag my own post. I want some admin to look at this. 

 

If you don't want to associate because you can not post what you want the only option is to not associate. 

 

Sorry mods do not make the rules.

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6 hours ago, MeloManiac said:

how would you work around the title of named Miles Davis album, ******* Brew?

 

There are work arounds for banned words but that is equally against the rules here.  For the sake of discussion you could say "beitches" spell or b*i*t*c..." but you are not supposed to be doing that.  You get the idea.  The best way to refer to that particular album is to link to it, explaining that it contains a banned word that  is prohibited by forum rules.  We would all understand that.

 

There are very few instances where banned words are the title of an album, but the example you give is certainly of of them.  I can't think of anybody I've seen post here who would faint if they saw the banned words as we are all adults.  However many of those same members might object to posting those same words because we don't want to violate the forum rules and lose our privilege of posting here.

 

Your common sense should tell you what words to avoid.   Keep it clean as if your ten year-old child were reading it.   If a forum member were to start a word with F and end it with uck they better be talking about a firetruck or they are likely to get banned.

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What you are complaining about is a standard feature of *all* forums.  Whether or not the feature is enabled is another story.  It is not a bot.  Not sure where on earth you got that opinion.  PHP searches for a string in your post that matches a set of words (generally it's anything above the PG level by default out of the box of forum software).  It then will replace with asterisks or other filler specified in the admin panel.

 

It's a family website.  If you don't want to be associated with a brand because of how their forum software filters words...hate to break it to you, but get in line with just about every audio community that uses any forum software ever.

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I would imagine it's just standard filtering that came with whatever software Klipsch uses for the forum.  I highly doubt a Klipsch committee met and discussed what words would and wouldn't be allowed.

I don't use profanity online or in real life so it's not anything I'd lose sleep over or feel that my rights are being infringed on. 

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15 hours ago, MeloManiac said:

I can tell you I never use profanity, and I experienced it as an insult when some unnamed programmer decided to censor Miles Davis with a dumb forum filter.

Reading this again I saw this.

 

Hi.  I'm one of the "unnamed programmers" you just called out.  My name appears in the contributors for the forum software this site uses.  I have worked for Invision, phpBB, and XMB in the past.  "Dumb" forum filter is right, again, it's not a bot.  It's PHP replace function and exists in virtually any software that passes data from a post-action to a database.  

 

Why would we do this?  Well, a number of reasons.  I'll list a few:

1. Forum owners, operators, and managers are required to comply with certain laws and regulation when it comes to handling sensitive content associated with minors, or where minors may be exposed to content.  This generally ends at the collection of data, but in some states and nations (did you know more than just the west uses software like this?) profanity and exposure thereof to minors is against the law.  So we have to have those in place for that reason.

2. In 2009 when I started working with phpBB, 60% of our installations were by minors, or near-minors.  In 2007, XMB's installations were around 80% AOB age 18.  72% of all Invision Free services at the time of it's termination had a user self-identified as below the age of 16.  See a pattern here?

3. Taking into account that these filters can be easily modified, and the majority of forums being deployed had a high-percentage rate of exposure to minors, and that in some territories that can land you in hot water, we shipped them with default censorship words in place.  You could also add this was to underscore features, and just the standard fact that most software companies and businesses tend to go away from profanity in professional environments - including forums.

 

I seriously can't believe someone is sitting here complaining about this.  I also frankly don't care if I somehow insulted you with including a standard feature shipped in software you know nothing about.  Thanks for trying though? I guess...

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28 minutes ago, The History Kid said:

Reading this again I saw this.

 

Hi.  I'm one of the "unnamed programmers" you just called out.  My name appears in the contributors for the forum software this site uses.  I have worked for Invision, phpBB, and XMB in the past.  "Dumb" forum filter is right, again, it's not a bot.  It's PHP replace function and exists in virtually any software that passes data from a post-action to a database.  

 

Why would we do this?  Well, a number of reasons.  I'll list a few:

1. Forum owners, operators, and managers are required to comply with certain laws and regulation when it comes to handling sensitive content associated with minors, or where minors may be exposed to content.  This generally ends at the collection of data, but in some states and nations (did you know more than just the west uses software like this?) profanity and exposure thereof to minors is against the law.  So we have to have those in place for that reason.

2. In 2009 when I started working with phpBB, 60% of our installations were by minors, or near-minors.  In 2007, XMB's installations were around 80% AOB age 18.  72% of all Invision Free services at the time of it's termination had a user self-identified as below the age of 16.  See a pattern here?

3. Taking into account that these filters can be easily modified, and the majority of forums being deployed had a high-percentage rate of exposure to minors, and that in some territories that can land you in hot water, we shipped them with default censorship words in place.  You could also add this was to underscore features, and just the standard fact that most software companies and businesses tend to go away from profanity in professional environments - including forums.

 

I seriously can't believe someone is sitting here complaining about this.  I also frankly don't care if I somehow insulted you with including a standard feature shipped in software you know nothing about.  Thanks for trying though? I guess...

 

Thank you for this information. 

I was looking at the Invision website as this post above became visible. From the Invision website:

Bad Word Filters

Automatically filter undesirable words from content, replacing them with asterisks or other words. Select groups that can bypass the filters, and optionally put content into the moderation queue when a filter is triggered. https://invisioncommunity.com/features/moderation/

 

With 'dumb filter' I meant this: a more intelligent filter would take the strings before and after the 'bad word' into account and possibly keep ******* Brew excluded from censoring. 

 

My concern is this:  a lot has happened in the past ten years, and I wonder how often this 'standard list/feature' of 'bad words' is updated and edited, taking into account recent developments in the world. 

 

I sense some hostility in your final paragraph. You obviously don't care much about user feedback, and for that reason I have decided it is wise to end this discussion from my side. 

 

Thanks to those who were patient with me and respectful, and suggested workarounds, like linking for instance. I'll be using that in the future. 

 

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I sense some hostility in your final paragraph. You obviously don't care much about user feedback, and for that reason I have decided it is wise to end this discussion from my side. 

You see it however you want man...just remember this was in response to you

some unnamed programmer decided to censor Miles Davis with a dumb forum filter.

 

Your concern as you call it, is moot.  That list has not changed and there's no intention to have it changed.  As for "user feedback" - not sure what you're talking about.  I haven't worked for any software company in 8 years.  That's not really relevant here anyway though.  A forum operator can change what they want on private turf.

 

You fired shots first, sir.  You were the one who launched a myriad without considering practicality first, blaming a company, and then dumping on the developers who developed a piece of benign forum software.

 

I saw your edit in an attempt to roll off what I said. You'd have to design an extensive set 9f code for what you're describing alone, larger than the forum software. That makes absolutely no sense to do.

 

 

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