Nexus One Censors Naughty Words

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
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Reuters noticed that Google’s Nexus One phone will censor cuss words if you’re using the voice recognition function. Instead of showing the word on the screen, you get a series of hash marks that match the number of letters in the naughty word. I just tried it on my Droid and it does the same so I guess this is an Android thing, not just a Nexus One thing. Anyone else get the same behavior?

So why the no-curse policy? After all, what business is it of Google’s if a person chooses to be profane in their private communications? A Google spokeswoman provided a statement suggesting that replacing curses with # symbols aimed less at enforcing etiquette than to ensure that offensive words don’t accidentally appear in transcriptions – a potential concern given the fact that voice recognition technology is still not perfect.
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to ensure that offensive words don’t accidentally appear in transcriptions
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As stupid as this sound, they have to do it to avoid the idiot parent that sues because their kid's cellphone popped up "fuck" when the kid said "puck" ...
 
I buy their explanation, but there should certainly be a toggle. Some people don't have a single person in their contact that they have to worry about slipping an f-bomb to.
 
lol that's awesome. Doesn't make any sense though. If we say the swear word, how are they preventing us from learning it? We already know it obviously because we're saying it! Isn't that what censoring is usually about?
 
would seem to be a vicious cycle.

when you are trying to type a sext and all you get is **** it will probably lead to frustration which will lead to more **** and *****.

really short sighted!
 
hl3395 said:
As stupid as this sound, they have to do it to avoid the idiot parent that sues because their kid's cellphone popped up "fuck" when the kid said "puck" ...
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"Those that sacrifice liberty for security deserves neither."
Sure when Google goes big brother, it's okay. That's bull####. I don't need no ####ing company that I am paying for a service to censor my ###.
 
Keiichi said:
"Those that sacrifice liberty for security deserves neither."
Sure when Google goes big brother, it's okay. That's bull####. I don't need no ####ing company that I am paying for a service to censor my ###.
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lol Keiichi
 
Yeah! What the shit gives!!!! :D If I wan't to curse out my boss and get fired, thats my problem! Lawlz
 
an easier solution:

if its guessing: guess another like word
if its not guessing: use the swear

sounds more like a publicity thing to say they are worried about accidental swears in algorithms.
 
Kritter said:
Isn't google already pissing about china censoring stuff? lol
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well google isnt coming to your house and arresting your parents or wife for wanting to practice religion, democracy or anything non-communist.

also they arn't putting you in a forced labor camp, forcing an abortion or beating you to death.

other than that, yeah censorship sucks.
 
Since it only applies to the voice recognition feature, I believe them, and also agree with them. You dictate a large amount of text, you may not notice when truck gets replaced with an f-bomb. The hashes make you confirm your word choice by making you *type* it. That isn't unreasonable, and it certainly is not censorship.
 
What I think is awesome is the voice testing that must have gone on to ensure this function works.
 
According to Neil Gaiman (via Twitter) if you follow an expletive with "dot com" the Nexus One will transcribe it.
 
So, what happens if I need to go to Nor#### General Hospital, to get my finger #####ed to test my blood sugar? Might happen if I eat to many ####take mushrooms (allergy), or if somehow my friend #### comes over and plays with my #####cat, since he makes me nervous when he pets it; he tends to har### is a bit, by being too rough. Or maybe I should just s#### this whole train of thought.

Yeah, I know Norfolk is spelled like it should be pronounced "Nor Folk", but it's "Narfuck" to natives.
 
jroe52 said:
well google isnt coming to your house and arresting your parents or wife for wanting to practice religion, democracy or anything non-communist.

also they arn't putting you in a forced labor camp, forcing an abortion or beating you to death.

other than that, yeah censorship sucks.
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Because we haven't given them that power yet. The only reason totalitarian regimes exist is because a people allows them to be such a thing. And yes I do consider myself an expert because I did lived Totalitarianism.
If you want a metaphor here's one. It's a like a stair. If you go down one step you'll end up sunk in Hell. But really I doubt you will ever get it, just because of your post. And probably those who actually get it don't need to read this.
 
The lack of a way to turn this feature off, somewhat irks me. I was highly interested in the nexus one, but the more I read about it the less I am. I don't need or want a company controlling how I use my electronic devices.
 
This world is full of nothing but sandy vagina bitches, you all need insensitivity training. Grow the fuck up, people use curse words to express their dislike about something, if you don't like the curse words being directed at you then stop acting like suck a fucking dick head.
 
Dekoth said:
The lack of a way to turn this feature off, somewhat irks me. I was highly interested in the nexus one, but the more I read about it the less I am. I don't need or want a company controlling how I use my electronic devices.
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Pretty much every voice to text system I've used is like this.
 
This really isn't a deal breaker to me, I <3 my Nexus One, there is a legit reason for this to be in place.
 
Great, now how am I going to have mobile conversations about Nigerian bundles of figs?
 
Is it adapted to the UK?
"Bloody phone!" "The google wankers, messing with my phone!" "This google software is full of shite" "Censorship in my phone? Load of bollocks!"
 
this is all about limiting their liability.

which is extremely responsible from a business perspective.

the last thing they need is some housewife freaking out when she texts her son and asks "what do you want for dinner tonight?" and he accidentally replies "i want to have fuck" instead of "i want to have duck"

voice recognition is FAR from perfect. this decision was just sensible. plain and simple.

try to setup windows 7 voice recognition. even after training it, the fail pretty much flows from then on and from what i understand, the windows 7 voice recognition is just below the tech thats in dragon naturally speaking.

i cant believe people are freaking out about this
 
at least we can all agree, we support curse words.

i don't think the IT community would survive without them.

caller: can i have my password reset
yes this is your password
is that my username?

mutes: wtf would i reset your username when you asked for a password reset

unmutes: no mam thats your password
 
With the music I hear all these teenagers blasting while parked at the gas station I can see why they would feel deprived not being able to haveing every other word profane.

Thank you modern black music, you would have made Motown proud.
 
westrock2000 said:
With the music I hear all these teenagers blasting while parked at the gas station I can see why they would feel deprived not being able to haveing every other word profane.

Thank you modern black music, you would have made Motown proud.
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Yeah because good ol' whitey music has no swears in it and there are no white skanks on MTV.
 
jroe52 said:
Yeah because good ol' whitey music has no swears in it and there are no white skanks on MTV.
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It was a slap in the face
How quickly I was replaced
And are you thinking of me when you f***ed her?


;)
 
This doesnt make any sense at all. Google is saying the phone is erring on the side of caution, but there are many words which also sound similar to curse words. Does this mean all of those non-curse words are being censored too? If not, then that means the phone is capable of distinguishing between the two, thus has no need to censor anything.
 
Thats what i'm thinking... just PR CRAP.

anyone remeber early ultima online? orgina/EA would censor swear words within other words

pass = P#!#
 
What a load of ////

No company, IMHO, has the right to force censorship upon us.

But, I guess these days corporations are more powerful than the government.
 
javijavi said:
This doesnt make any sense at all. Google is saying the phone is erring on the side of caution, but there are many words which also sound similar to curse words. Does this mean all of those non-curse words are being censored too? If not, then that means the phone is capable of distinguishing between the two, thus has no need to censor anything.
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You do realize there are several colors between black and white, right?

And you realize that the word "duck" might be properly read as "duck" 999 times and "fuck" once, right?


The most amusing part of this is all the whiny bitching about censorship. :rolleyes:
 
quixotic said:
Pretty much every voice to text system I've used is like this.
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And pretty much every voice to text system I've used has given me the option to disable it.

christianw said:
this is all about limiting their liability.

which is extremely responsible from a business perspective.

the last thing they need is some housewife freaking out when she texts her son and asks "what do you want for dinner tonight?" and he accidentally replies "i want to have fuck" instead of "i want to have duck"

voice recognition is FAR from perfect. this decision was just sensible. plain and simple.

try to setup windows 7 voice recognition. even after training it, the fail pretty much flows from then on and from what i understand, the windows 7 voice recognition is just below the tech thats in dragon naturally speaking.

i cant believe people are freaking out about this
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I agree, and for that matter they could have defaulted it to on and been just fine. This is more about principle of the matter. I don't really care that the system censors swear words, I care that it does not give me the choice to turn it off should I see fit to do so. I don't mind companies attempting to cater to both sides of the fence, I mind when they decide to cater exclusively to one side at the expense of the other.

It really boils down to me being utterly against the entire "Politically correct, protect idiots from themselves movement".
 
Once again, it isn't censorship. It is only censorship if you cannot enter those words into text at all. This only applies to voice recog. Just type the ####### words in manually.

I love that people scream censorship at EVERYTHING now. All they did was make it harder to use the words accidentally. Fine, be annoyed that you can't turn the feature off, but stop using the censorship word when it ISN'T.
 
Mephisto_kur said:
Once again, it isn't censorship. It is only censorship if you cannot enter those words into text at all. This only applies to voice recog. Just type the ####### words in manually.

I love that people scream censorship at EVERYTHING now. All they did was make it harder to use the words accidentally. Fine, be annoyed that you can't turn the feature off, but stop using the censorship word when it ISN'T.
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Alright then, let's play the discrimination card then. What happens to the people that rely on the voice recognition as their only way for input. Why are they discriminated from being able to put in whatever they want.
 
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