On site censorship and what can be done about it?

After the debacle on a recent thread, when one of my posts got censored, or rather a word did, I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions that we could collectively put forward to site management to try and resolve this very annoying problem satisfactorily?

To me it seems ridiculous that so many words are taken out of context and censored, we have problems taking about ornithology, animals, poetry and I dread to think what would occur if we were talking about food and a certain F word was used when talking about a dish made of meat and wrapped in caul fat and baked. Surely an algorythum can be made to sort out some context rather than a blanket ban?

Also this is a British site and yet it seems that many of the words deemed offensive are mainly used in America, is this fair? I know nobody want to cause needless offence, but I actually feel discriminated against, my native language is being taken over and certain words and phrases taken out of context and banned often by what seems to be a foreign influenced power. here are certain words that may have been common, but were never anything but offensive and discriminatory, but surely not in the catagories that I've mentioned above?

I think context is all in this as in many things, but this in particular, how long before we're censored from talking about other things like our bodies and certain parts of them, I know we're rightly not allowed to give medical advice, but we might still want to talk from personal experience and give advice to a parent on how to broach subjects like puberty with an ASC child. To me this sort of thing is really important and I'd hate to think of people struggling and not only not being able to talk about it, but maybe not being allowed a language with which to discuss it.

  • look at this highly offencive filth!

  • Well we can infer what's in the list by seeing what's being censored (when we use it in a purely inocent way)

  • The current problem started because we were censored from describing a photo of a cat as a "p u s s y" cat.

  • There are lots or words in that filter that aren't swear words

    You don't know what is in that filter.  Nobody does, we've not been issued a list. 

    I don't think it helps anyone to be deliberately provocative in the manner you're currently employing.  Nor do I see how it serves the cause of any autistic person.

    I start to feel that some here think their 'rights' to use whatever words they want are more important than the purpose of the forum itself.    

  • Of course what it won't do is stop you being put in the moderator review sin bin for all your posts like I have just been. No doubt because too many of my posts were reported (looking at no one in particular <_<). Again if you want this nonsence to stop people have to stop using that report button every time they get offended.

    (no idea when this post will appear)

  • And I'll point out using 1337 and so on will also confuse the filter that flags your posts for modderator review if they are on controversial topics.

  • There are lots or words in that filter that aren't swear words. Or are only swear words in a given context. Your filter can't tell that if I say "my βιτςн has had puppies" I'm probably not swearing. It doesn't know that "I'm going to chop some ƒαggοτs for the fire" is probably refering to wood. Where exactly did you get this mystical list of words. Many of them aren't swear words at all just word that tend to be associated with controversial topics. For example is the word нαςκεя on this list? What about βяεαsĎ„s? We couldn't very well talk about worries about βяεαsĎ„ cancer with out using the words βяεαsĎ„s or βοοβs or βοοβιεs. For that matter βοοβιεs are also birds which we might want to discuss in that context. The term βοοβιεs is not a swear word. I hope it must be very self evident how farcical this all is. Are people from 僃ιη and ςοςκεямομτн going to be banned from talking about those places?

  • Thank you for sharing your thoughts on moderation and content filtering. We appreciate your feedback and understand that some aspects of how posts are handled can be frustrating.  

    When joining the Online Community, all users agree to follow the rules, which include the moderation team’s ability to edit or remove content when necessary. https://community.autism.org.uk/p/rules "By joining the Online Community, you agree to be bound by the following fifteen rules, which apply to public posts, profile information, private messages and your communications with the moderation team. "

    Our moderation policies are in place to ensure the Online Community remains a safe and respectful space. These policies apply equally to all users, and the forum must also comply with the UK Online Safety Act 2023, which places additional duties on us. 

    One of our community rules prohibits the use of swear words. The platform software automatically detects and replaces common swear words with asterisks, regardless of context. This system is not AI-driven; it is a simple word filter that applies equally across all posts. We trust that users can find ways to express their thoughts without using words on the banned list.  

    Additionally, we have an ongoing issue with the spam filter, which we have provided updates on previously. This filter occasionally prevents posts from appearing immediately. Our staff moderators review the moderation queue twice each working day and approve any posts that were mistakenly flagged as spam. While this issue has not been fully resolved for all users, we continue to work with our technical team to address it.  

    If you have specific concerns or suggestions regarding moderation, we encourage you to email the Community Manager mailbox communitymanager@nas.org.uk so we can review them directly. We appreciate your patience and continued contributions to the Online Community.  

    Kind Regards,
    The Moderation Team
  • Well a few things come to mind:

    1 Become a 1337 |-|4XOR:

    In the pre internet days of dial up bulitin boards administrators would ban certain words. The tech savy users would get around this by confusing the filters by replacing letters with numbers / symbols. The more word varients they banned the more exotic the substitutions became. H became |-|, S became 5, E became 3. so 1337 is LEET, short for elite. You might say this is very anoying but is it more anoying than the censorship?

    2 Use W*ldcards.

    Using wildcards is hard to get around with a simple word filter. After all if the wildacard is carefully placed it could be several difrent words. And you can use difrent wildcards to get around filters. For example if the filter bans s*x you can use s§x or s~x or s-x.

    3 Stop using the report button, you are feeding the AI

    It's not just calling a human moderator any more. Not in the first instance. The first thing that will see that report is the AI and it will use that data to update it's filter in much the same way an email spam filter works after you've trained it by marking certain emails as spam. If you think a post needs moderation PM a moderator or @ them in the thread instead.

    -------

    Also bare in mind if you have a post you think may trigger the spam filter and put your post into the content moderation queue using obfusticating text may also help prevent this. It will confuse the AI.

    -------

    Isn't it a shame that there isn't you know, another uk autism forum without censorship like this. Wouldn't know where to find somewhere like that. <_<

  • And this is why I've been very much against the online safty act. It tends to make website owners feel they have to turn their websites into walled gardens where everything is micro managed.

  • Some clarification would be good, so would some sort of input from us that was actually listened too and acted upon. I feel a bit infantalised by all th things that can't be said, like when talking about birds, lots of countries around the world have birds with the banned word in their name. I'm also pretty sure that most ASC people wherever they're from and whatever their mental age will have heard far worse words than any we would consider using on here. I still think that many of the words deemed offensive are more offensive to the "adult" carers and parents than they are to the ASC person who maybe reading a post.

    Presumably some one sat down and compiled a list of "offensive" words or words that could cause offence, who was that person, where are they and why are we listening to them?

  • Boobs. Sorry, couldn't resist the temptation to write something like that just to see if it would appear. I've got a silly sense of humour.

  • Hi I sperg, good to see you posting. I for one can say I've never seen a post of yours that I felt was offensive. But I'm rather "broad minded" and for example, I have no problems with the humorous British seaside postcards we used to see in resort gift shops, but I expect they have all been banned now.

    Also, it seems that we are not able to understand what this site deems offensive due to lack of information - just having a message from a mod posted on a thread reminding us not to swear or use offensive language when we don't understand what was termed offensive, or why, is really not helping.

    I don't know what you used to do to make your film night reminders "pop up" but can't you just start a thread and add to it each week? Or is that what you were doing and it's now been "disappeared" ?

  • But why? This is the NATIONAL Autistic Society, of the UK, not the International Autistic Society

    This is my opinion as to why, not the reason why.  We are in danger of going off at a tangent here anyway, because nobody has actually said that words that are offensive in other parts of the world are being banned here, it is just an assumption, albeit a likely conclusion.

    We are all sat here using something called the 'World Wide Web' and speaking a language called 'English' for starters.  We should remember that there are Autistic people all over the world too, and many of them may well come here for advice & support because there's none available in their home country.  There's members here originally from the UK who now live abroad.  

    I'd argue strongly that (we) should do whatever (we) can to support all persons with ASD who are often marginalised far more in other countries than here - and its bad enough here.  I don't see changing a few words here & there to make the site more inclusive, and to potentially help more Autistic people is a bad thing - I think it is forward-thinking and decent.  

    What is more offensive to you?  That Autistic people are not treated fairly in other parts of the world, or that you can't moderate your words?  

    If someone in another country comes here, and reads something they might get an entirely different meaning to something you'd posted.  Don't we want things to mean the same to everyone?   

    Don't we want to help and support all those with ASD?   I know I do.  


    Here's another thing.  IF AI has been programmed to remove offensive words, the same will apply the world over.  This will therefore mean that people in other countries using words that WE would find offensive would find their words redacted by AI also.   

  • I have no time for that. I really believe the internet is more stressful than real life.

  • It's not just this site.  I've been in trouble on other sites because I was a bit careless,   on one site I received an email that I was being investigated,  then eventually a final written warning to behave myself.  The injustice on that site was that I was only quoting what some else had said to me.

  • Oh, so my reply to a post about censorship might be being censored!!??

  • But why? This is the NATIONAL Autistic Society, of the UK, not the International Autistic Society, so why should it's forum pander to the different concerns of another country if what is written is not deemed offensive in the UK?

  • I don't know for sure.

    I'd presume that if it were AI then you'd not be able to post certain words in the first place. 

    The fact that that they seem to get posted, then get withdrawn - would suggest someone human is overseeing the process, or has the power to flag posts for moderation.

    As I say, I can't say in all certainty.  It makes little sense, and is illogical. 

  • So does AI pull it then a human looks over it to decide if it's posted? I had one response disappear only to reappear two days later!

1 2 3