Banned Words List(pen.org) |
Banned Words List(pen.org) |
Today, I am posting it again because I believe the HN readers will benefit from it. Why? The majority of HN readers work in IT or adjacent information fields; we communicate information with strings aka words.
More seriously: While I find the topic appropriate for HN, connecting the topicality to the use of strings in IT is weird. If the ban only applied to audio or sign language, the topic wouldn’t be any less appropriate.
That sounds like censorship to me.
Many of the rest are clearly editorial or phrasing preferences (e.g., "Latinx" in place of "Latino/a"), which are reasonable to have; I'm sure any mainstream publication like the NYT also has its own preferred language and style guidelines.
It seems the federal executive admin is censoring government websites of all levels and branches of government.
> It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc — should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.
It could be a convenience list that one could refer to to ensure that they’re not about to say a banned word. E.g. obviously the n word and r word are on it, but is homeless on it? Gay? A single source of truth to know what you’re not allowed to say would be good.
Edit: I no longer think me being a black male is relevant in this context because after looking further into the list it basically covers multiple terms that apply to everyone; thus I think context of application is even more important and the list in itself is fairly irrelevant.
Secondly, I do not agree that they think issues will "disappear"; I believe that they simply think this gives them license to impose their will on the groups that identify with said banned terms.
The rest are probably true in a sense but not written down like those are.
Example: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/07/us/trump-fede...
> PEN America (formerly PEN American Center), founded in 1922, and headquartered in New York City, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
> whose goal is to raise awareness for the protection of free expression in the United States and worldwide through the advancement of
> literature and human rights.
"These policies’ tentacles already extend beyond government websites... Reports say scientists are self-censoring in hopes of improving their chances of getting government grants."
In regards to government institutions, limiting speech in this way will cause people to die.
For example, banning the phrase "air pollution" will curtail efforts to address air pollution, e.g. scientists not submitting research proposals addressing air pollution, causing people to die as a result[1].
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/climate-health/php/effects/air-pollution...
This is a left wing think tank.
Edit: article flagged presumably for bias.
You don't need to think about it anymore, just crawl back into the hole, cover yourself with that nice big rock.
If you want to start your own grant, either personally or through a foundation you start, nothing in the OP pertains to you.
The OP is only about whether the government will endorse speech contained in your application for a government grant, which—again—is categorically different from what you said and fundamentally not censorship.
