I think the main thing that bothers me about this specific set of euphemisms is that they originally developed in response to external pressures on our linguistic practices that were never fully understood, and even now are so opaque that it's unclear whether any of the changes actually serve their stated purpose or are necessary at all. A lot of traditional slang can be grating, but it at least has the pretense of having developed organically as an authentic expression of the way people speak. But here, it feels more like a top-down imposition that isn't even really justified (or at least hasn't been shown to be justified). So I agree the censorship criticism and the disrespect criticism are, by themselves, not convincing. But I think there's a legitimately unpleasant reality somewhere between the two - something like "It bothers me when people alter the way they speak about important topics so willingly solely to avoid arbitrary rules they don't fully understand."
I haven't heard that objection before - I think you're onto something there. The arbitrariness of it does feel grating (although I previously attributed that to an aesthetic flaw). I don't have a good sense of how well savvy TikTok users understand the algorithm. I've seen lists of banned words floating around, so they know that certain words get them punished, at least.
Hypothetically, what if we took away the ambiguity and ignorance? Say, TikTok's algorithm has its exact decision making procedure - even its source code - leaked in a hack, while simultaneously a strict new federal rule prevents it from developing a new algorithm or changing its existing one. So now we have a permanent perfect understanding of the rules that govern TikTok content moderation. Would "unalive", or whatever other slang terms develop post-reveal, seem less objectionable to you then?
This has me convinced. You could even say it's in the rich tradition of thieves cant and Polari, which also allowed people to talk about forbidden topics.
I think a lot of the criticism of algospeak comes from people who don't realize that the purpose of it is to avoid censorship. The criticism that it's disrespectful is the one I see most often, and usually people who make it seem like they think that words like "unalive" and "grape" are supposed to be jokes or at the very least are "goofy zoomer slang" rather than code words to talk about serious topics.
I think the main thing that bothers me about this specific set of euphemisms is that they originally developed in response to external pressures on our linguistic practices that were never fully understood, and even now are so opaque that it's unclear whether any of the changes actually serve their stated purpose or are necessary at all. A lot of traditional slang can be grating, but it at least has the pretense of having developed organically as an authentic expression of the way people speak. But here, it feels more like a top-down imposition that isn't even really justified (or at least hasn't been shown to be justified). So I agree the censorship criticism and the disrespect criticism are, by themselves, not convincing. But I think there's a legitimately unpleasant reality somewhere between the two - something like "It bothers me when people alter the way they speak about important topics so willingly solely to avoid arbitrary rules they don't fully understand."
I haven't heard that objection before - I think you're onto something there. The arbitrariness of it does feel grating (although I previously attributed that to an aesthetic flaw). I don't have a good sense of how well savvy TikTok users understand the algorithm. I've seen lists of banned words floating around, so they know that certain words get them punished, at least.
Hypothetically, what if we took away the ambiguity and ignorance? Say, TikTok's algorithm has its exact decision making procedure - even its source code - leaked in a hack, while simultaneously a strict new federal rule prevents it from developing a new algorithm or changing its existing one. So now we have a permanent perfect understanding of the rules that govern TikTok content moderation. Would "unalive", or whatever other slang terms develop post-reveal, seem less objectionable to you then?
This has me convinced. You could even say it's in the rich tradition of thieves cant and Polari, which also allowed people to talk about forbidden topics.
I think a lot of the criticism of algospeak comes from people who don't realize that the purpose of it is to avoid censorship. The criticism that it's disrespectful is the one I see most often, and usually people who make it seem like they think that words like "unalive" and "grape" are supposed to be jokes or at the very least are "goofy zoomer slang" rather than code words to talk about serious topics.