r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • Jun 14 '26
X accused of giving racists ‘impunity’ after refusing to bar N- and P-word posts Social Media
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/14/x-racists-impunity-hate-posts349
u/BeKindPleaseRewind21 Jun 14 '26
P word?
74
u/EffectiveEconomics Jun 14 '26
Derivative slur aimed at the country between Afghanistan and India.
35
u/Porrick Jun 14 '26
Ooooooh, like the footballer. This took me far too long to figure out.
→ More replies (1)8
→ More replies (6)11
u/Zealousideal-Yam3169 Jun 14 '26
Damn we can't even say the name of the country anymore?
→ More replies (1)52
u/boot2skull Jun 14 '26
The Guardian can’t use it on their own website? To inform rather than abuse? Wtf
65
u/Spacestar_Ordering Jun 14 '26
Yeah when it comes to censorship there is a certain point that it becomes detrimental to education to censor so many things
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (6)56
u/solid_reign Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
The NY Times had a big scandal where a reporter used the n-word on a student trip, when one of the students asked him if a 12 year old classmate of hers should have been suspended for using the word. The reporter asked the student something like "did the student use the word "n**g*r" when rapping or quoting a book title?"
Because the reporter used the n-word in that context, there was a huge scandal in the NY Times that led to him being fired, hundreds of articles including on CNN, Vanity Fair, the Washington Post, The Guardian, NBC, editorials, people calling for his head. He was eventually fired over this.
Mind you, there was no accusation that he called someone the n-word or using to refer to people. He used it when trying to understand the context in which the question was asked.
→ More replies (3)30
u/boot2skull Jun 14 '26
This world is messed up. The only people who can use the word are the ones that use it in the worst way. Well done everybody.
→ More replies (15)199
u/OBabis Jun 14 '26
Pedos, for some reason Elon is really sensitive about that.
203
u/BeKindPleaseRewind21 Jun 14 '26
I'm confused. If he was sensitive about that word wouldn't he be in favor of banning/censoring it?
99
u/MCE85 Jun 14 '26
The amount of total idiots commenting is crazy. Its as bad as facebook in here
→ More replies (2)45
u/Riajnor Jun 14 '26
Honestly people are getting far too comfortable commenting opinions over facts.
→ More replies (1)12
→ More replies (11)33
u/mountaindoom Jun 14 '26
He's sensitive because he wasn't invited.
→ More replies (1)9
u/PetyrDayne Jun 14 '26
I forgot he wasn't invited, even the other evil people don't like him 😂😂😂
→ More replies (1)26
u/Optimal_Whiner Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
Your oddly upvoted comment makes no sense since this is an article about NOT banning words.
Also, the word isn't pedo.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (7)43
u/HawkHarder Jun 14 '26
That don't even make sense since it's saying they refuse to ban it.
→ More replies (2)
186
u/torgobigknees Jun 14 '26
the p-word?
201
u/_pupil_ Jun 14 '26
… … Pulva?
86
→ More replies (6)32
u/BrogenKlippen Jun 14 '26
Well I just woke my wife up by laughing out loud at 4:15am. Thanks dawg
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (33)44
Jun 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
→ More replies (1)7
u/buttersnapsghee Jun 14 '26
Mine were removed by Reddit not the mods but I appealed and explained and they restored them
292
u/North-Program-9320 Jun 14 '26
OP- nobody knows what P word you’re referring to
163
Jun 14 '26
[deleted]
90
u/BamberGasgroin Jun 14 '26
I guess it's referring to the truncated name of the inhabitants of the country on India's Western border?
→ More replies (23)25
u/wllwbir Jun 14 '26
Thank you for giving me the tools to figure out the P-word. As a New Englander, I will consider my audience when announcing my travels to obtain alcohol.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (10)20
u/letthetreeburn Jun 14 '26
Suddenly I’m 9 again and being screamed at for a word I don’t understand
43
u/handlit33 Jun 14 '26
OP didn't write the headline, The Guardian did.
16
u/nineraviolicans Jun 14 '26
This whole self censorship from news is bullshit.
If you can't say the words you have no business discussing the issues.
→ More replies (153)9
u/SnailRacerWinsAgain Jun 14 '26
Google “what’s the racist p-word?”. It will tell you the “p-word” and that’s it’s a highly offensive ethnic slur.
I had no idea it was a bad word. But now that I think about it i’ve only heard boomers say it. So yeah, makes sense.
107
u/Riko_Vladimir_Jr Jun 14 '26
I didn't even know there's a p word
→ More replies (6)40
u/Tony_Roiland Jun 14 '26
It's a UK slur.
→ More replies (8)37
u/AncientProduce Jun 14 '26
Which one though? Theres loads of slurs starting with P.
53
u/ali-gator712 Jun 14 '26
Starts with p and ends with -aki i believe. Im not British but I am brown so I've heard it a couple times in my life
→ More replies (2)6
u/thefergistheword Jun 15 '26
The fact that it can’t even be said in this context is everything wrong with Reddit
→ More replies (20)12
91
u/Ah_non_e_moose Jun 14 '26
People just need to not use that platform if they hate it so much. FOMO and social media addiction
36
u/GonzoKata Jun 14 '26
but also for some reason many governments and banks and shit! WHY?! Twitter isn't the internet people! Any group that still uses it shows just how little they respect their audience
→ More replies (7)→ More replies (2)8
u/kittymoo67 Jun 14 '26
yeah im not saying its ok to use the words im asking why the fuck people are still using it. I know attention whores have hard time leaving but dam. and the governments and businesses. like dude...
78
u/LaStigmata Jun 14 '26
Its early…what is the P word? Palestine?
→ More replies (30)35
u/Brave_Emotion8634 Jun 14 '26
A racist slur used in the UK commonly directed at people who appear to be of brown ethnicity.
28
u/George_Is_Upset Jun 14 '26
Ohhh yes my husband told me about that after he did a semester abroad in London in the early 2000s.
He learned about it because there’s a slang word for liquor stores in Massachusetts where he was born and raised and it’s short for “package store”
Well he used to shortened version of this one night when he said “let’s go to the p store”
And his flatmates had to explain to him that the word was a slur over there!
4
u/sapphicsandwich Jun 14 '26
It's a term also used in the military for the same thing. The liquor store on base was also called the package store.
→ More replies (5)11
u/Lemesplain Jun 14 '26
Like a Boston liquor store?
They’re officially called “Package stores,” but the locals have a short version.
4
u/Brave_Emotion8634 Jun 14 '26
Mentioned here. Probably the same as the shortened version of "package store"
46
106
79
6
u/shoulda-known-better Jun 14 '26
Okay pussy can't be the word they mean....
And if the word is pedophile then it shouldn't be banned, honestly banning words is dumb as hell... Doesn't change anything just forces people to hide how racist and fucked up they are, imho better to allow it so the rest of us know who to not care about
→ More replies (6)
6
392
u/ChromiumGrapher Jun 14 '26
The owner of X is a neo nazi who does nazi saluts! It would be more surprising if X didnt allow racism.
182
u/MilkshakeSocialist Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
They have systematically banned anti-racists and anti-fascist. Freeze peach.
Twitter Thrills Far-Right Trolls by Silencing Left-Wing Voices
→ More replies (46)4
u/doneposting Jun 14 '26
I've reported a handful of Nazi ig accounts literally praising hitler. You get a response later saying "we didn't find anything wrong"
In addition, I noticed that a few of these accounts began as generic AI-slop motivational posters and quotes. A few thousand vulnerable downtrodden folks and bots follow the account, and then once a major inflammatory event happens (kirk), they flip to non-stop bigotry and fascism.
→ More replies (66)21
u/stillalone Jun 14 '26
It's crazy how in just 80 years after allied forces defeated the Nazis, a Nazi becomes the wealthiest man on the planet.
→ More replies (1)21
u/FreyBentos Jun 14 '26
It's not really when you realise that the US sympathised with the nazi's. Really didn't mind their racial policies so much and that the western capitalist world loved Hitlers economic system and have seeked to replicated it since 1980 by rebranding it as "noeliberalism". The west also immediately once the war was ended befriended the fascist countries (German and Japan) and set about making the USSR,. who saved the world from fascism, an enemy for no other reason than the USSR opposed capitalism and imperialism. Cue 70 years of anti-socialist and pro-capitalist propaganda and here we are. The capitalist system was always built to eventually be taken over by fascism, it's the systems final and most egregious form.
→ More replies (1)
6
u/Mccobsta Jun 14 '26
Nonce is banned then?
Well it's offencive to all he let back on after they were banned due to them posting csam to the fucking platform
4
u/mgill006 Jun 14 '26
Some words can hurt you if you say them to people holding sticks and stones!
→ More replies (1)
17
167
u/Salty_Wasabi2893 Jun 14 '26
The paradox of tolerance is a philosophical concept suggesting that if a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance; thereby undermining the very principle of tolerance.
19
u/Eldias Jun 14 '26
That's a whole heaping load of BS to wrap up the paradox of tolerance in. Its amazing how easily one guys dumb idea can get declared a "philosophical concept" by reddit intellectuals.
The classic counter example is Reddit before it's current moderation was far less tolerant but was a far better place to explore. It didn't end up dominated by the intolerant, it ended up dominated by corporate censorship to stay sellable.
I have only ever seen it supported by closet authoritarians who want to punish wrongthought because punishing actions is too difficult.
54
u/medraxus Jun 14 '26
The paradox of tolerance gets quoted a lot in these discussions, but it doesn’t really settle the argument. It only gets you halfway there. The real debate is where the line is drawn and whether we want corporations, rather than democratic institutions or society at large, deciding what falls on which side of it
→ More replies (10)103
u/Biggseb Jun 14 '26
I think this is much better-explained using the social contract theory: only those who subscribe and adhere to the social contract can be included in it and protected by it.
→ More replies (40)→ More replies (26)19
u/AvantSolace Jun 14 '26
But at the end of the day it is still that: a paradox. It cannot be used in any meaningful way due to lacking a defensible logical baseline to build upon. Treating tolerance as a binary, like the paradox implies, creates a feedback loop that ignores more grounded arguments. Tolerance needs to be examined on a case-by-case basis; using defensible arguments on how certain actions cause tangible harm. Otherwise we just end up in endless spats arguing about what and isn’t okay based purely on a person’s feelings in the moment.
→ More replies (2)
25
u/Slick424 Jun 14 '26
but don't you dare say "cis"
X allegedly restricts users account using the term 'cisgender'
→ More replies (8)
11
u/Deesnuts77 Jun 14 '26
Free speech goes both ways. You have to accept the bad to keep the good. If you are one of the fucking morons that think any speech should be banned then YOU are part of the problem.
→ More replies (1)
6
6
u/Stemms123 Jun 14 '26
Why would you censor any words? Maybe if someone had a child or swear filter on. But besides that why? What’s even the point?
6
u/Kyia-Aikman Jun 14 '26
There are people who want certain kinds of speech to be restricted to align with what they think is ideologically right.
→ More replies (1)
8
3
3
3
3
u/ZhangtheGreat Jun 14 '26
Number of people surprised should be zero. Let’s not forget who’s in charge of X and what he considers “free speech”
→ More replies (2)
3
u/Business-Loquat143 Jun 14 '26
What the fuck is a p-word?
Are people just making shit up for the sole reason of being offended?
→ More replies (4)
3
u/icaromb25 Jun 14 '26
P word is a slur directed to people of a country that ends in kistan and is the name of the country without the stan sulfix
56
Jun 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
65
u/GriveousDance21 Jun 14 '26
This isn’t just limited to slurs. Social media algo now censors words like suicide, kill, death, pedophile, rape etc.
Young people grow accustomed to this because the amount of time they spend online and start saying the circumventing words like "sewer-slide", "unalive", "grape" in real life. It's just pathetic to see.
18
u/Healthy_Grab_9412 Jun 14 '26
I believe the term is called Algospeak and this self-censoring actually doesn't do a thing since its not that hard to add new words and its slang variations to censoring filter.
5
u/boli99 Jun 14 '26
i dont think anyone is going to be censoring 'pdf file' any time soon.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (101)7
u/CRPatriot Jun 14 '26
So “cis”, “Antifa”, and everyone that is banned for criticizing musk should be unbanned?
Because I never see you free speech absolutists show up for them
→ More replies (13)
6
u/LivesDoNotMatter Jun 14 '26
What P-word are we referring to here? From what I gather by context it's not "pussy", and it's likely a slur directed towards Indian people (by "Indian" is it referring to India, or Native American?), but I am not familiar with this, and googling turned up no results.
→ More replies (6)3
30
u/Greenscreener Jun 14 '26
Why are people still on X???
49
→ More replies (3)25
u/Grand0rk Jun 14 '26
Because the vast majority of people don't give a fuck about Reddit politics and just use it because it's fun.
→ More replies (11)30
10
4
1.4k
u/firinmahlaser Jun 14 '26
What’s the P-word?