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Microsoft Patents the Censoring of Speech

Posted by Soulskill on from the %$!#-!%-!%!$-##%-$@#! dept.

theodp writes "On Tuesday, the USPTO awarded Microsoft a patent for the Automatic Censorship of Audio Data for Broadcast, an invention that addresses 'producing censored speech that has been altered so that undesired words or phrases are either unintelligible or inaudible.' The patent describes methods for muting offensive words and replacing them with less offensive versions, and 'a third alternative provides for overwriting the undesired word with a masking sound, i.e., "bleeping" the undesired word with a tone.' After all, there's nothing worse than being subjected to offensive speech when you're shooting someone in the head."

5 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Yay! by Kral_Blbec · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So now the parents of kids too young to play dont have to worry about letting them play!!

    Come on, if you're old enough to play the game, you're old enough to either deal with it or tell them to stuff a sock in it. There are so many other options to work with. Why not just mute the stupid player? Or not even use the voip at all? Like the article says, its only really used for trash talk anyway. Unless I know who I'm playing with, I'm not going to try and coordinate anything.

    Stupid idea.

    BTW first post!

  2. Useless by FluffyWithTeeth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Trust me when I say you can come up with new curses faster than you can code them into an automatic censorship proram...

    Nevermind all the fantastic new accents this is going to promote. And if you disagree; well quck you.

    1. Re:Useless by nightfire-unique · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm all in favor of protecting budding young minds from the use of profanity as a substitute for creative expression...

      I know I speak for many of us here when I say:

      Fuck you.

      Keep your intellectual parenting persuits where they belong: in your home. Raise your own fucking kids, and let me raise mine without government interference. We'll let them both compete in 20 years and see who did a better job.

      The moment you get your way with bad language censorship, I get my way with religious censorship.

      --
      A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
  3. Oh come on..... by LibertineR · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Is the heading not a TAD over the top here?

    Broadcasters can be, and have been fined thousands of dollars PER EVENT, through violations of FCC rules. One slip of the tongue should not be the basis for fining a program out of existance.

    A tool to help in that regards DOES NOT equal sensorship, and the title is a ridiculous assertion that hurts credibility around here.

    Hate Microsoft if you want, but Christ, why be stupid about it?

    What is next? "Microsoft wants to eat your babies"?

    As supposedly logic-driven geeks, can we not do better?

  4. Who watches the watcher? by Bones3D_mac · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It'll be interesting to see just how such technology will be abused. Want to prevent speech that might inspire someone to stand up and do something regarding a certain topic, simply filter out keywords in context to the topic itself to help tilt the topic to favor one group's interests over another.

    "Free" speech is long dead and buried. Welcome to the next China.

    --


    8==8 Bones 8==8