I find it outrageous and incredibly offensive how often subtitles are censored.
I've experienced it on broadcast TV. On Amazon. On YouTube. And elsewhere.
Deaf people do not need swear words hidden. Those of us with hearing loss don't suddenly decide, "Ah, yes, because I can't hear fully, I don't want to experience swearing anymore."
Stop censoring our content!
@localzuk @bodhipaksa I often notice this, so infantilising
@purplepadma @localzuk Also this weird American thing of translating British swear words, so that “arsehole” becomes “asshole.” What’s that about?
@bodhipaksa @purplepadma @localzuk I suspect the average American doesn't think of them as separate words.
@linguacaps @bodhipaksa @purplepadma @localzuk They aren't. That is just the British vs American spelling of the same word.
@not2b @linguacaps @purplepadma @localzuk Oh, so when a British person says "arsehole" and the Americans who create the subtitles substitute "asshole" they're not really changing anything?
Thank you, reply guy!
@bodhipaksa @not2b @purplepadma @localzuk Would you get this bent out of shape about color/colour?
@linguacaps @not2b @purplepadma @localzuk Thank you, reply guy!
@bodhipaksa @linguacaps @not2b @purplepadma @localzuk I was hoping that subtitling software would at least have an input to say that someone has US or UK (or Canadian Kiwi or Aussie…) accent and spell the words appropriately - without censorship. Swearwords could be flagged so TV software can bleep/***** them but only if the USER wants that, and configures their own device. For context I write “colour”, and use the OED, not Websters.
@bodhipaksa @purplepadma @localzuk A lot of USians really don't get it, and get pissed off about it. It's more to keep the voicemail boxes clear of ranting messages, I suspect.
@drwho @purplepadma @localzuk I'd be surprised by that. If a British person says "arsehole" I'd expect the subtitles to reflect that, rather than translating it into the US equivalent. I find it hard to imagine a person in the US [clarification: interested in watching British TV shows] getting upset about an accurate representation of what's said.
@bodhipaksa @purplepadma @localzuk I'm from Pennsylvania originally. That's the sort of thing that would cause an angry rant that makes the rest of the family quietly head for the front stoop for a while.
No, I don't know why.
@bodhipaksa @drwho @purplepadma @localzuk
If you can't imagine Americans getting upset about things being done differently than it's done in America....you haven't met enough Americans. If my locals didn't accuse you of "trying to be different just because" they would absolutely accuse you of just being too stupid to spell it correctly with ZERO irony. Nobody ever went broke betting on American ignorance.
@mstrmustache @drwho @purplepadma @localzuk
It's certainly laughable that Americans changed the title of the first Harry Potter novel because "philosopher" sounded too highbrow and dropped the "III" from "The Madness of King George III" in case people thought they'd missed the first two films.
OTOH a lot of Americans lap up Britishness precisely because it's different. This was a big topic of conversation at Thanksgiving yesterday in fact.
@mstrmustache @drwho @purplepadma @localzuk But we're hijacking a thread about disability, and I don't want to do that, so I'm muting the conversation now.
@bodhipaksa @purplepadma @localzuk It's possible that the people (or code, even) that do the transcriptions hear arsehole as asshole. On Black shows, when someone says "Aight" I mostly see "Aight"(not alright).
@purplepadma @localzuk @bodhipaksa
In a 1940s video about B-17 pilot training it was censored a "retarded starter" of the motor ignition 
@localzuk They also do that in Portugal for translations, where they replace the swear words with euphemisms. Not a good idea to use that to learn English 
@localzuk Is this in situations where the audio is not bleeped? If so, that's as offensive as H-E-double-hockey-sticks. 
@linguacaps yup. Uncensored audio, censored captions. Happens a lot.
@localzuk @totalclaireity this reminds me of interpreters I used to know who refused to swear - even if they were interpreting for a Deaf person who was 
@localzuk@ohai.social i'm not deaf and i use subtitles just because i like 'em
it's absurd how apparently my ears are allowed to receive The Bad Words™ but my eyes are not.
@localzuk On YouTube, it's probably misguided attempts to avoid automated detection of swear words which would get the video demonetized. On the others... No excuse.
@localzuk I am a hearing person who uses subtitles, and I agree. It's obnoxious and infantalizes deaf folks.
@localzuk @lisamelton the one that really upset my sister was when he BBC or another broadcaster changed the meaning through omitting words. They did it both ways too, simplifying what sign language users were saying.
@localzuk You know, there was device from the late 1980s or early 1990s which used the closed captions to mute swearwords (during which it'd show the subtitles with a euphemism).
Ironically prudish captions like you're rightly complaining about would break this prudish settop box...
Not that I see any point in this tech, it comes from the same misguided place...
@localzuk Here in the USA, it also violates the FCC's rules on closed captioning. But I guess they don't apply since it's not on broadcast TV?
Sure would be nice if the FCC decided to do something about captioning regulations on the Internet, of which, as far as I know, there are none.
The censoring of swearwords, be it written or spoken, was one of the dumbest ideas ever.
No person ever has taken any kind of psychological damage for reading or hearing a swearword in a book, a film or in any kind of media.
If politicians don't want us to use swearwords, they should help to build a world so sweet and lovely, there's no need for them.
In my "no person's soul has ever been harmed by reading or hearing a swear word in media" I definitely also meant children of any age.
If they're too young, it's only funny to them, and if they're older they're using and hearing them anyway.
It's fucking stupid to not call things by their proper name.
I love the term "performative purity".
@localzuk i'm trying to design a web player that supports profanity in subtitles that can be censored on prompt...
I can tolerate this if it's the case that the audio displays a beep to censor that. See Puss In Boots 2 as an example
@localzuk from my european view it always sounded like in the Kindergarten when they beep out swearwords. Like americans are to fragile for the real world. And now they start this shit here also, because youtube.
@localzuk As someone else generally reliant on subtitles, I can usually figure out, contextually, which [bleeping] word has been excised by those [bleeps]
@localzuk I agree. The explanation given to me a while back was to protect the children. Like, what?
@localzuk
It's really galling how often people with disabilities are infantilized.
@localzuk One thing I’d be curious about is how often the censored subtitles correspond to when spoken dialogue is bleeped out. In the content I watch, unbleeped cursewords are relatively rare—and I’d have thought that “f**k” and “s**t” and the like would just be the most accurate way of transcribing the listening experience.
(I don’t intend to sound dismissive of this issue, to clarify! I’m just curious about what sorts of things would censor subtitles but *not* also audio.)
@localzuk I have a vague memory that US TDD operators (who type to a hearing-impaired or deaf person and talk to a hearing person on calls between the two) are *strictly* forbidden to edit or censor either side of the conversation for exactly this reason. They must read exactly what is typed and type exactly what is said. Would that captions worked the same way…
@localzuk Down with sensorship. Fuck the FCC!
@localzuk this is an utterly bizarre form of ableism, that I really didn’t register (people in my life need subtitles to follow tv shows for reasons) but you’re absolutely right!
@localzuk if nothing else censorship should be a toggle affecting both audio and subs, but y’know, that’s asking corporations to provide a good experience with their service and we can’t have that
@localzuk are they censored out even when the words aren't beeped out?
I'm Danish so I'm find either kind of censorship crazy.
@borup yep. So audio swearing, captions censored. Can hear the swear but can't see it.
@localzuk it's probably something as dumb as search an replace in text beeing easier than in audio...
@localzuk Even worse, these subtitles are then used to train AI models for audio transcription, and those learn to censor swear words too!
@localzuk
Didn't notice. I'll have to look closer.
Feel the same way about news stories that read like, "Congressman X is reported to have said, 'I told that c********* I'd shove a brick up his f****** a***.'"
Yes, children might read it if it's not behind a paywall. But let's not be naïve. They're reading this stuff a lot of other places already and the ones who know what those words mean are probably using them themselves.
I wish the reporters would just report, not sanitize.
@localzuk earlier this year I was at a glassworks museum where they were doing live presentations on glassmaking and there was an automatic captioning system. I found it *fascinating* how every time the presenter said “glory hole,” the captioning system decided to censor it.
“Glory” on its own, fine. “Hole” on its own, fine. But “glory hole” together? Can’t have that!
Of course glassmakers use the phrase “glory hole” A LOT because that’s what they call the furnace.
@localzuk I always use captions on Netflix - I have difficulty processing all the words without captions - and there are movies I’ve watched recently where the captions notably differed from the audio. This was in movies originally filmed in English then captioned into English. I understand this sort of disparity with dubbed movies, where the captions were obviously translated from the original audio rather than the dubbing, but there’s no excuse for English-to-English captioning to stray.
@localzuk They're often censored on broadcast TV too for hearing folks. That's not exceptional, it's often literally describing the content.
(I use captions but am not hard of hearing, it's a huge ADHD help)
@localzuk That said censoring it where the audio is not censored is just plain fucking awful. I am kinda tired of this censorship too. A curse word never hurt anyone.
@ysotomayor @localzuk I feel like there needs to be a movement that just says “people with disabilities fuck”
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@localzuk *expletive deleted*
@localzuk It just bring me strange question.
Do swear words exist in sign language?
@Bloobz oh yes, a full and varied array of them.
I think this is ASL - https://www.boredpanda.com/sign-language-insults-cut/
But there's variations for different versions of sign language.