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The naughty username checking system used by Twitch

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Re: The naughty username checking system used by Twitch

#221
post #141
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to make sure random base64 didn't contain profanity I would have said "why bother" until this happened to us. A customer rang us up in a fury because some demo/ random data that we generated happened to have the word "penis" in it. They were convinced we must have put it there because we thought he was a cock. It was very difficult to defuse the situation.

I have a bus ticket from Stockholm with the serial of F4CK. Totally made my day back then to be honest.

A guy at my school(in Poland) got in serious trouble because of his hoodie with the huge FCUK logo on it. It took actually showing the principal that this is a legit company[0] and not just a play on "FUCK".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Connection_(clothing)

Re: The naughty username checking system used by Twitch

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Language is very often used as a way to include and exclude people in and from various social groups. You're right in that there's never any direct harm in the sound of the words themselves. But you can say the same thing about verbally threatening physical harm (or even psychological harm) to someone, and would be very wrong in your assumption.

> But you can say the same thing about verbally threatening physical harm No, verbally threatening physical harm induces reasonable fear and affects your logical reasoning because now you have to consider real risk.

Trying to hurt someone with words also induces a reasonable assumption of that person wishing you ill. You don't know how far they will go in either case.

Re: The naughty username checking system used by Twitch

#224
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should just be taught (I would consider this is an essential skill which should be put in basic school curriculum to psychologically prepare people for the life, many support/sales professionals learn it quickly but the rest of the people don't) words are just words and they don't have to take them seriously. No word is rude until you consider it rude. No word can actually harm you directly. It's you who is in…

I'm quite a feminine guy and I was always called various homophobic slurs at school. Even though I wasn't gay I didn't understand why it would matter if I was so I would just say "ok". Even when the insults could be considered objectively offensive I'm still generally okay with it. I've been called names quite a bit in the workplace over the years and I'm okay with it if makes them happy. Being autistic I don't reall…

> High EQ individuals have told me this is wrong and the appropriate reaction would be to take offence and try to make them feel bad, but I've argued this would just result in an objective reduction in happiness in the world so it wouldn't make sense.

As the sibling comment eluded to, you definitely seem to be the "High EQ individual" in this story!

Re: The naughty username checking system used by Twitch

#225
post #213

We used to call this the "Scunthorpe problem" - how do you filter for obviously rude names while still allowing people to have their actual names? Bearing in mind that some people's names are actually rude. I worked on the application form processing for the Nectar card launch in the UK back in the early 2000's, and we had several cases. Luckily we had human data-entry clerks in the loop, so all we had to do was flag…

> We used to call this the "Scunthorpe problem" Fwiw, it's well-known as such, after relatively high-profile incidents involving people with that address: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem

Is that just well-known in the UK though? I've mentioned this to people outside the UK and only occasionally have they known it.

Re: The naughty username checking system used by Twitch

#226
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should just be taught (I would consider this is an essential skill which should be put in basic school curriculum to psychologically prepare people for the life, many support/sales professionals learn it quickly but the rest of the people don't) words are just words and they don't have to take them seriously. No word is rude until you consider it rude. No word can actually harm you directly. It's you who is in…

I'm quite a feminine guy and I was always called various homophobic slurs at school. Even though I wasn't gay I didn't understand why it would matter if I was so I would just say "ok". Even when the insults could be considered objectively offensive I'm still generally okay with it. I've been called names quite a bit in the workplace over the years and I'm okay with it if makes them happy. Being autistic I don't reall…

neurotypical people seem to get enjoyment calling people names

I'm of two minds about this, because of the generality of this blanket statement. Why should we accept this as the norm? I would classify these people ("enjoy calling people names") as abusive, and think that classifying this behaviour as neurotypical effectively legitimizes it.

That said, nicknames are also an expression of affection and inclusivity, and derogatory nicknames are not necessarily meant as an insult. Still, they're just as easily used to demean, belittle or dehumanize the target, so it depends a lot on context. I understand what you mean, but I disagree with your general statement.

Re: The naughty username checking system used by Twitch

#228
post #11
post #5

I have a hard time believing this was / is the real version used. It doesn't seem broad enough. More likely it was a kind of smoketest that made sure that a more automated keyword checker was working. It does remind me of the XKEYSCORE (Snowden leaks) that used keywords to bubble up potential threats from emails etc https://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-prism-keywords-for-domes... .

It also mostly checks for English naughty words and not much else. People can have fun in lots of other languages, so it would seem this is a small sample.

You can't do all of them. Here is an example: in my native language Pula is a slur for male genitalia (way worse than D*ick in English) but at the same time it's the name of Botswana currency (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botswana_pula) and also a city in Croatia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botswana_pula).

Re: The naughty username checking system used by Twitch

#229
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should just be taught (I would consider this is an essential skill which should be put in basic school curriculum to psychologically prepare people for the life, many support/sales professionals learn it quickly but the rest of the people don't) words are just words and they don't have to take them seriously. No word is rude until you consider it rude. No word can actually harm you directly. It's you who is in…

I'm quite a feminine guy and I was always called various homophobic slurs at school. Even though I wasn't gay I didn't understand why it would matter if I was so I would just say "ok". Even when the insults could be considered objectively offensive I'm still generally okay with it. I've been called names quite a bit in the workplace over the years and I'm okay with it if makes them happy. Being autistic I don't reall…

"Being autistic I don't really care and neurotypical people seem to get enjoyment calling people names so it's win-win."

Not sure how you win exactly, but others in a similar position but sensitive to name calling certainly don't.

Re: The naughty username checking system used by Twitch

#230
post #93

We had to do this for a link shortening system (to make sure random base64 didn't contain profanity). It was a pretty fun problem. Not just the implementation, but doing the math to make sure it didn't make our shortened links easily enumerable. The implementation wasn't too bad, but we set up logging initially to spit out any random strings it decided to block. I demo'd this in front of the whole company and live ta…

> to make sure random base64 didn't contain profanity I would have said "why bother" until this happened to us. A customer rang us up in a fury because some demo/ random data that we generated happened to have the word "penis" in it. They were convinced we must have put it there because we thought he was a cock. It was very difficult to defuse the situation.

I got a CAPTCHA variant not long ago that was along the lines of "U2KYS". Pretty toxic!
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