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A Custom Objectionable Word List Ate My Homework
theodp writes "Among the first three schools using Chromebooks for Education is the Merton Community School District, which decided to go Chromebook after the Wisconsin Dept. of Public Instruction (WDPI) issued a news release (created using PDFMaker for Word) announcing that all Wisconsin schools can have access to Google Apps for Education by simply downloading a Google Consent Form (Microsoft Word format, oddly) from the WDPI website, completing & signing it, and submitting it to Google. And to help get the schools going, a separate Wisconsin Google Apps for Education website aims to jumpstart things with weekly webinars, the first of which — Getting started with the Google Apps for Education Control Panel — shows school officials how they can sandbox 'Naughty Students' and filter objectionable content. While Google illustrates how a list of 'custom objectionable words' can be used to flag and/or block students' e-mail with some cute examples — different spellings of 'booger' and a regex to block variants like 'b00g3r' — things get considerably nastier in the real world, as this NSFW custom objectionable word list used by the North Canton City Schools shows."
Can someone cut the extraneous crap and useless hyperlinks of this story and also re-edit so this is actually readable? I have no idea what the story is here.
I tried to type but after the f and 2 * and K it disappeared. Dam
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
It's ok - they censored the word censorship so you censored from emailing about censorship. I think there should be a 'Yo Dawg' in there somewhere...
Why in the world would you want to teach children this is OK to do to citizens?
So that they'll grow up fully accommodated to a world where censorship is normal and expected. Why else?
...what was the actual point here? I kinda lost it sometime after clicking the tenth link.
Too bad. The last link was the potentially most interesting, but it's behind a login.
Worked for me. Shows a list of banned words:
anal anus arse ass asses asshole assholes asskisser asswipe ballsack bastard beastiality biatch bitch bitches bitchin bitching blowjob blowjobs boner boob boobies boobs bullshit bunghole buttface buttfuck buttfucker butthole buttplug circlejerk clit clitoris cock cocks cocksuck cocksucker cocksucking cum cumming cums cumshot cunilingus cunillingus cunnilingus cunt cuntlick cuntlicker cuntlicking cunts damn dick dike dildo dildos dipshit douchebag dumbass dyke ejaculate ejaculated ejaculates ejaculating ejaculation fag fagget fagging faggit faggot faggs fagot fagots fags fatass fatso felatio fellatio fingerfuck fingerfucked fingerfucker fingerfuckers fingerfucking fingerfucks fistfuck fistfucked fistfucker fistfuckers fistfucking fistfuckings fistfucks fuck fucked fucker fuckers fuckin fucking fuckings fuckme fucks fudgepacker gangbang gangbanged gangbangs gaysex goddamn gonads hardon hardcoresex hell homo hooker horniest horny hotsex hussy jackass jackingoff jackoff jack-off jerk-off jism jiz jizm jizz lesbo mothafuck mothafucka mothafuckas mothafuckaz mothafucked mothafucker mothafuckers mothafuckin mothafucking mothafuckings mothafucks motherfuck motherfucked motherfucker motherfuckers motherfuckin motherfucking motherfuckings motherfucks muff nig nigga nigger niggers orgasm orgasms pecker penis phonesex pissoff prick pricks pube pussies pussy pussys queer rape raped retard screw scrotum shit shited shitfull shiting shits shitted shitter shitters shitting shitty sleaze slut sluts smut spunk tit titties titty twat vagina wank whore
Theres also a list of "concern words":
gun shoot stab knife kill hurt fight murder attack punch hate suicide cutting drug drugs pot weed marijuana grass blunt toke stoned beer alcohol booze drunk gay lesbian porn sex molest molested molesting naked nude
If in doubt, do not use Google Censor.
But this is just beyond stupid I must say.
Took me a while to decode the original article because it manages to wander all over the place.
Synopsis: The Scunthorpe Problem all over again
Probably worked for you because you are already logged in to google.
Use this link to avoid logging in.
Life is wet, then you dry.
"Nasty word" lists have, do and will never work. It's to easy to push new memes that look totally innocent - see subject :)
Thanks! Hmm, so if I'm a kid in school, I can't do a report about blue-footed boobies, call a stupid person a "boob", even in fictional dialogue. Discuss smoking a fag or taking a faggot off my saddle and throwing it on the fire. Or write about homo sapiens. Or jackasses (the donkey, not the human variety), Discuss the dikes' roles in New Orleans flood. Horny toads. Hell (no Dante's Inferno?). Roosters. Wood peckers. Cats. Queer (unusual). Retardation (slowing of growth). Carpentry (screw). Twitter (twat; past tense of tweet).
The unintended use of this list to auto-censor is to remove non-offensive definitions of these words from common use, thus solidifying the newer, offensive definitions. A net loss for the English language.
Just wait for it to fail the breast cancer test and who will take the blame then?
The objectional word list is hilarious if you imagine it being read by Porky Pig.
"No matter where you go, there you probably are." -- Buckaroo Heisenberg
Oh, "freedom" is just a marketing slogan here in the U.S. It gets us lots of immigrants that will work for less pay and fewer benefits. The illegal ones are especially beneficial, since they'll work for next to nothing with no benefits.
When politicians use the word, they mean economic freedom - e.g., the right to screw other people out of their money.
Hmm, so if I'm a kid in school, I can't do a report about blue-footed boobies, call a stupid person a "boob", even in fictional dialogue.
They really have it in for the Audubon society, because you mustn't say tit, cock or pecker.
I also thought that fudgepacker was a honest profession.
They blocked 'scrotum', 'screw', and 'gonads'? This ought to make the science and engineering classes interesting.
gun shoot stab knife kill hurt fight murder attack punch hate suicide cutting drug drugs pot weed marijuana grass blunt toke stoned beer alcohol booze drunk gay lesbian porn sex molest molested molesting naked nude
Based on the site, admins are forwarded messages with those terms but they are still delivered. If I was a parent I would not let my kids play in this sandbox...
I know, it's Sunday, traffic is low, and Google has more servers than anyone. But, I'm watching "Anonymous user xxxx has opened this document" pop up, repeatedly. And, I'm just wondering if we could ever slashdot Google to death. It would be fun to try!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
So, I guess there's no talking about Tricky Dick in History class. Or about Dick Clark or Dick van Dyke (banned on two counts). Or any Richard in class whose parents used the nickname Dick and it stuck (not that I've seen any of those recently)
Seeing how many people actually read TFA is more interesting than the topic. 2,157 annon viewers and counting.
Twitter (twat; past tense of tweet)..
No. There are at least 2 towns called Twatt though.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
I guess it could be worse. They could have used the regular expression functionality. I wonder how many legitimate words would be caught by .*fuck.* ?
This doesn't look like a case of censoring the Venus de Milo, or blocking email from someone named Scunthorpe, or anything like that. Nor are there obvious political or religious overtones.
Context matters--what happens to a student who actually uses a "bad" word in an innocent context--"It was a bitch and she had the purtiest coat. I said to the feller owned her, ' When she finds pups,' says I, 'I'd like one.'"--Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, "The Yearling." Or someone who quotes the F-word passage from "The Catcher in the Rye." Or someone who just barely crosses the line in, let's say, a creative writing piece that too-accurately reports the colloquial language of her peers. The actions the school takes matter. But the list itself, as a trigger for action, seems pretty sensible.
One could easily write an essay on eroticism in Walt Whitman ("I sing the body electric,") or Shakespeare playing to the groundlings ("Spake ye of country matters?"), without violating the list.
This list doesn't look like ludicrous overreaching to me. I enjoyed my giggles from reading it as much as anyone else, and am amused by its being available in an open Google Docs document. But it doesn't reflect poorly on North Canton schools.
Any high school student who uses these words in a piece of schoolwork is either committed a mistake--a mistake that could potentially cost them a job if their adult life--or they're engaged in a breaching experiment. Either way, it is perfectly appropriate for the school to take some kind of action.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
.
And why would a school block .jobs and .museum? It's as if the school district doesn't want their students to find a job or be educated outside the school.
AH yes, I was.
All the words in this list focus on swearing and swearing only. The words that can actually cause harm to people, words that can be used to utter threats of violence are left out. There's no blocks on murder, stabbing, pipebomb.
The only thing I can conclude from their fine list is they don't care if the student's hurt or kill each other or express their desire to do so. They just don't want them to make love.
Made senseless things begin to do them wrong; For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch; Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all things catch. I led them on in this distracted fear, And left sweet Pyramus translated there: When in that moment, so it came to pass, Titania waked and straightway loved an ass.
Heck, half the comedy in the play revolves around the double meaning of the word ass.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Well done on the consent form. Love the way it just drops reference to the real agreement:
https://sites.google.com/site/wiscgapps/wisconsin-google-apps-announcements/consentformandagreementavailable
Some of the confidentiality agreement is below. Love the way they name Google as "School Official" to mitigate FERPA. I also linked Wikipedia below for CIPA, COPPA, and FERPA. These are federal, not sure what the state laws and guidelines are in Wisconsin.
Maybe I'm paranoid, and it's okay for targeted ads for tutoring services to follow little Johnny around for a few years. I do feel bad for Wisconsin K-12 IT. I'm sure they've worked hard over the years to provide systems and AAA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAAA_protocol) to help students, teachers and school officials protect information and student record data as required. Kiss that goodbye when managed AAA is replaced with self-managed peer-to-peer document security on a per-document basis. What's this "make public" checkbox? Looks cool! How many Wisconsin teachers and administrators are being trained to manage their own data governance in this environment?
---
5. Confidential Information.
5.1 Obligations.
Each party will: (a) protect the other party’s Confidential Information with the same standard of care, but no less than a reasonable standard of care, it uses to protect its own Confidential Information; and (b) subject to applicable law, not disclose the Confidential Information, except to Affiliates, employees and agents who have a reasonable need to know it and who have agreed in writing to keep it confidential. Each party (and any Affiliates, employees and agents to whom it has disclosed Confidential Information) may use Confidential Information only to exercise rights and fulfill its obligations under this Agreement, while using reasonable care to protect it. Each party is responsible for any actions of its Affiliates, employees and agents in violation of this Section.
5.2 Exceptions.
Confidential Information does not include information that: (a) the recipient of the Confidential Information already knew; (b) becomes public through no fault of the recipient (in the case of Google, without Google’s reference to Customer Data); (c) was independently developed by the recipient; or (d) was rightfully given to the recipient by another party.
5.3 Required Disclosure.
Each party may disclose the other party’s Confidential Information when required by law but only after it, if legally permissible: (a) uses commercially reasonable efforts to notify the other party; and (b) gives the other party the chance to challenge the disclosure.
5.4 FERPA.
The parties acknowledge that (a) Customer Data may include personally identifiable information from education records that are subject to FERPA (“FERPA Records”); and (b) to the extent that Customer Data includes FERPA Records, Google will be considered a “School Official” (as that term is used in FERPA and its implementing regulations) and will comply with FERPA.
---
FERPA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FERPA
CIPA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Internet_Protection_Act
COPPA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act
There was a 2000% uptick in talk about barriers designed to impound water.
Any high school student who uses these words in a piece of schoolwork is either committed a mistake
Oh yeah? How about an essay that contains something like this:
Although it is less relevant in the modern world, the Bible does contain a prohibition on beastiality (sic, the list doesn't spell this word correctly), which indicates that such practices were known among ancient near-east cultures...
Yeah, it is really a stretch to think that a student would use one of the words on the list in their schoolwork. Many of the words on that list could easily be used in an academic context even at the high school level. A student might be talking about dog breeding and use the word "bitch" appropriately, or might write a report about the history of the gay rights movement which contains various slang words.
The actions the school takes matter. But the list itself, as a trigger for action, seems pretty sensible.
It is sensible if your goal is to condition students to believe that censorship is normal and that if you are going to discuss certain topics it must be under the supervision of an authority figure. What do you think reaches students at a deeper level: a class about the US government which happens to cover the bill of rights, or a censorship system that the students must submit to every day? How much respect for freedom of speech do you think these students will have, after spending years dealing with this sort of censorship?
On the one hand, we criticize the Chinese for doing these sorts of things, we criticize Cisco for providing the necessary equipment, and we encourage people to run proxies and Tor exits. On the other hand, we engage in exactly the same behavior when it comes to our schools and students, we use the same equipment, the same sort of policies, and we discourage students from circumventing the censorship apparatus. What are teachers supposed to say when they teach about current events?
Palm trees and 8
So are no students going to graduate cum laude?
Hey everyone, I am the author of the "bad word" spreadsheet being discussed. I got an email from a slashdot users letting me know about the discussion, so I wanted to share what I can from my perspective on this topic. As usual, there is always a lot more to the story than you will get from just looking at one piece of information (the spreadsheet) and hopefully I can help explain that. You certainly may not agree with what our school is doing (that is fine) but I at least want to make sure you have the full story. Note: In posting this I am not speaking officially for my school district, but am simply trying to explain the situation from my personal perspective. First, it is important to realize that the spreadsheet you see is a work in progress. Up until January 2011 our students did not have school-issued email accounts. This is still a brand new venture for us, and we have been and will continue to modify our policies. I really appreciate the feedback many of you have provided. You have lots of good points that I believe will help us as we continue to develop this. So, first question... how did we come up with this list? We wanted to give students email accounts to help increase communication and collaboration. However, this was something new for our district so we had to be careful when rolling it out. We developed the student email guidelines through meeting, surveys, and discussions with teachers, administrators, guidance counselors, students, parents, community members, and our board of education. The list of what resulted. For the launch of our email system the consensus was to have some sort of word filter, and to keep email sending with out district. Over time I hope we can open up email so students can send outside of our domain as there are obvious benefits for them to be able to communicate with people in businesses and other schools around the world. However, we felt it was best to start out more restrictive, and the work toward more openness over time. Change in a public school system is like steering a large ship with a little rudder. It takes time. There are a lot of people involved and we need to help people along with these changes. Anyway, we made the actual list of "bad words" by working off several other lists provided to us from other schools and organizations that have been doing this themselves for years. We combined their lists and edited it down to what you see. We removed loads of words that did not seem reasonable to filter (you would be amazed at what was on the original lists). We continue to revise the list (again we have only had this for about 8 months) and will certainly run through the suggestion many of the posts here have brought up. Yes, we realize that a filter list is not going to stop inappropriate words. Students can use all sorts of variations. However as a school providing email to children, the consensus of our community to to provide some level of filtering. More than that though, we have added the topic of responsible use of technology to our curriculum so we can help our children work through this topic. Again, thanks for your feedback, and feel free to ask me additional questions. Eric
They really should. 'Yo' and 'Dawg' are clearly gang-related language.
The real story here is: never ever EVER farm your software tools out to "the cloud" . It's URL filtering all over again. :-)
Feel free to reply with your remote-control-of-your-car analogies
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
While I think the whole thing is ignorant, it's not at all surprising. This is how high school administrators and school boards think. "If we can just block out all the bad stuff, it won't happen on campus, and it's not our problem." See no evil, hear no evil, file no lengthy reports.
Still, one thing about the list really bothers me--by blocking the word "rape," they are making it impossible for students who are rape victims to discuss their attack through email. I know from experience that it can be much easier to share things through email than in person, so it's not hard to fathom a rape victim finally deciding to come forward, and wishing to email a favorite teacher or her guidance counselor--and that email disappearing into the tubes forever. Not good.
Related and always relevant: the famous Lenny Bruce "Nigger routine".
As someone that worked for a company that produced an IPS that devolved into a content filter system, Google has been the thorn in the side of every company competing for the K12 market. Because they have become so strong in the education document system, and everything is allowed over https (searches, youtube, etc...), monitoring traffic for content required ssl MiM attacks. Now they've really fucked themselves into restricting content themselves. It is going to be interesting to watch the gurus at Google (Googlerus?) deal with Johny looking at girls in bikinis and deciding if he is in a school that prohibits it, blocking access to specific streaming videos for schools that don't want Johny listing to "hate music", allowing streaming videos but restricting the amount of bandwidth determined by a directory services policy (Active Directory, Open Directory), and basically every annoying policy one school or another wants to implement. When schools start to insist the Google control panel is integrated in with their Active Directory schemes, then Google will realize just how bad things are going to get. btw. That word list is either an example or it will not work. It doesn't have any of the variations to allow words containing words. ie. ass has [^ass$|^ass\s|\sass\s] so it doesn't block bass or class or asset or...
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I tried not to use their email system, but I had an email rejected for using the word "Assignment"
"We learned when to use a screw instead of a nail in woodwork class."
"The shelf fell off because I used the wrong screw."
The blocked word list also includes perfectly acceptable non-smutty words such as "hell". Without being able to use the common term for Hades, even the most prim and proper Bible-thumping students would get devout messages blocked (not necessarily a bad thing, but stupidity should not be fought with stupidity).
But students will just code around it with a little creativity. The term fucking cunt would be blocked, but calling someone a copulating vulva would breeze past the filter (and adds a certain panache to the epithet). The religious types will even learn of the many synonyms for hell. It might even improve a typical student's vocabulary to the point that instead of calling someone a motherfucking jerk-off, they would use a term such as oedipal masturbator.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
retard : can't speak of something getting slower , like a wave (the primary meaning is to slow). This is truly retarded.
screw : can't speak of making furniture, self made stuff, special type of motor , mechanical stuff. Way to go to screw people.
smut : can't do a critical report on porn.
scrotum : ha , biology is out too.
rape : ha , so now the kid can't even report on real crime.
orgasm orgasms penis : biology folk. Those have a perfect valid usage for kids. When I was 11/12 we had a report to do on mammals.
homo : can't report on homosapiens, homosexual, HOMO/LUMO (highiest Occupied Molecular Orbita) and so on.
Hell : wehat the hell , hell is to be censored ? Can't even speak of "heaven and hell" (vangelis) ? or even religion ?
gonads : ho come on ! biology ! You wanna censor brain>/b> too ?
ejaculation : this is a normal term for pity sake.
damn : can be used in a lot of normal litterature too.
This is beyond retarded. I can understand wanting to censor *some* term, although I think it is a useless job as people will always find work around it until a good AI come up : bon-er b_o_n_e_r, BO*NER, O-B-ner, "The Big B to the ONER" etc.... But much worst is the censoring of utterly innocuous word. Whoever drew that list as example shozuld have his name put on big billboard and publicly ashamed.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The law require a filter, it does not pürescribe innocuous word to be filtered. Like "Hell", "damn", "screw", "retard", various biology word , as they are clearly not obscene. The only reason to go that far *above* the requirement is misplaced puritanism.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I think it should help the discourse.
Blocked: grl, i want 2 eat ur pussy
Not blocked: Oh, how I long to pleasure your loins using naught but my mouth.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Essentially, all these words are just rude.
I'm sure when young Dick wants to submit an article about cavemen such as homo erectus, or about the time he saw a horny toad while riding on a donkey (ass) he'll be delighted to be told what a rude little boy he is....
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
VGhhdCBpcyBhbGwgSSBoYXZlIHRvIHNheS4=
Open Standards Portal
Don't forget the boobies.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
See my comments about the drug-related words above:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2401570&cid=37238182
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The word list will exclude any works related to description of the human body - like what can be written in biology classes. Or if the student is writing an article about street language.
Someone has to be very stuffed in the brain with "dirty" words to come up with that list.
Some people needs to get banned from even thinking of word filters.
Fitta - Ancient scandinavian word for weat meadow. (Today it has a completely different meaning, and I suspect that most of you can figure out what the wet meadow is...)
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
This is allegedly a filter list for a school pupils, operating form their school, So the block outbound messages that match : 6 Block to other domains Any Rule Recipient matches regex (\.aero|\.asia|\.biz|\.cat|\.com|\.coop|\.edu|\.gov|\.info|\.int|\.jobs|\.me|\.mil|\.mobi|\.museum|\.name|\.net|\.pro|\.tel|\.travel|\.tv) Bounce
I take it the US high school students are not expected
Oh, I've got bored. I'm not 100% sure that's a blacklist ; it might be a whitelist, in which case they're expected to be networking COMmercially or NETworkily, but not ORGanisationally, and they're still not expected to have any international contacts outside Tuvalu.
Madness!
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I have hard time posting about our species, homo sapiens, on many bbses because 'homo' is an excluded word.
Why don't we just leave it up to the teachers to deal with spelling, word usage, and student behavior?
Someone needs to break in and add 'the' to the list.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.