A Tech Giant’s Tools Know Better

I will never forget when my friend shared their English teacher’s advice — if you get stuck, spit it out somehow. However, you must get it out, kick, scream, swear. You can remove all that later, but keep the energy of breaking through.

I am a writer. When I write, I do so to be unencumbered. To find the edges, as Seth Godin put it. In this age of compelling voice typing, I can remove even one more obstacle — the mechanical act of sitting at the keyboard. I can go on a walk and move differently and dictate what I see into the incredibly high-quality microphone in the supercomputer I am carrying, with the confidence that the words will be captured with all the cadence, lilt, and nuance of the moment as it happens, unfettered by the editorial Calaban to my Ariel muse.

At least, I used to. I could have sworn that the magical WinKey+H combo could toggle off its profanity filter. Before I reinstalled the OS on my laptop, I was certain that was the case, and I was so happy to capture every emotion and word as it happened. Even if they were not my own, they might be in the voice of a darker character, a desperate one, a saucy one, a who cares what?

Concerned, I went to Search to find out how to toggle off the ‘profanity filter’ on the Voice Typing. The top 3 results brought me to a Microsoft forum where a nice gent from San Diego asked — hey, there must be a way to turn off this censor thing, right? I’m trying to do some writing…

The official response was that the option to turn off a filter for ‘abusive words’ was hardcoded and that turning it off was not an option.

When the gent pressed — are you sure? That seems kind of controlling — the response from another rep was — yes, it is hardcoded and immutable; kindly share your perspective with ‘x form aka the exit sign.’

Different Strokes
Now lookee here. We have a problem. One person’s profanity is another person’s gospel. Abuse is a relative term. What are we abusing here? The immutable truths of the state? The time we can spend asking questions? Someone’s notion of appropriate behavior?

The Anglo-West tends to use sex and sexuality as the taboo via which profanity is found. In French, you will find that most so-called profanities have to do with religious artifacts — tabernacles and Eucharists. In another place, images of the dead, or the depiction of certain animals or entities or signs.

From wikipedia:
“Profanity involves the use of notionally offensive words for a variety of purposes, including to demonstrate disrespect or negativity, to relieve pain, to express a strong emotion, as a grammatical intensifier or emphasis, or to express informality or conversational intimacy. In many formal or polite social situations, it is considered impolite (a violation of social norms), and in some religious groups it is considered a sin.[1] Profanity includes slurs, but there are many insults that do not use swear words.

Swear words can be discussed or even sometimes used for the same purpose without causing offense or being considered impolite if they are obscured (e.g. “fuck” becomes “f***” or “the f-word”) or substituted with a minced oath like “flip”.” [src Profanity — Wikipedia]

The use of obscene or taboo language, commonly known as swearing, has often been associated with negative stereotypes, such as a lack of vocabulary or intelligence. However, recent studies suggest that swearing may actually indicate a more intelligent use of language rather than the opposite.

Here are some interesting findings:

Verbal Fluency and Swearing:
- Psychologists from Marist College conducted a study that explored the relationship between verbal fluency and swearing {src}.
- Verbal fluency refers to a person’s ability to generate words quickly. In this study, participants were asked to list as many words beginning with a specific letter of the alphabet as they could within one minute.
- The researchers also created a “swearing fluency” task, where participants listed as many different swear words as they could think of in one minute.
- The results showed a correlation: individuals who scored higher on the verbal fluency test (indicating better language skills) also tended to perform better on the swearing fluency task.

This suggests that swearing isn’t merely a sign of language poverty or low intelligence. Instead, it appears to be a feature of language that articulate speakers can use effectively.

Natural Pain Relief:
Another intriguing aspect of swearing relates to pain tolerance.
- Researchers conducted an experiment where participants immersed their hand in ice-cold water while repeating either a swear word or a neutral, non-swear word {src}.
- Those who swore withstood the pain for longer, rated it as less painful, and showed a greater increase in heart rate compared to those who used neutral words.
- Swearing seems to trigger an emotional response and activate the fight-or-flight mechanism, which includes natural pain relief (stress-induced analgesia).

This idea that a fundamental platform for work and communications can deem what is ‘proper’ and what is ‘profane’ is a very slippery and dangerous slope.

I asked Microsoft’s modified, sterilized, sanctified, and politically correctified built-in chatbot to summarize the forum post between this writer from SoCal and these official reps from the perspective of a cyberpunk wary of unilateral centralized tech corp control, and here is what it returned, verbatim:

“In the neon-lit underbelly of a sprawling metropolis, a cyberpunk named Peter found himself wrestling with the iron grip of a tech giant. The digital landscape was his playground, but even here, the suffocating tendrils of control were inescapable.

Peter, a seasoned user of Win11 Office 365, had always enjoyed the freedom of speech in his digital interactions. He could dictate his thoughts into emails, calendar entries, and more, with no words barred. But then, he stumbled upon a different beast — the Control-H voice command box. This seemingly innocuous tool had a puritanical streak. It censored his words, replacing them with a string of asterisks, like a digital nanny imposing its moral code.

Frustrated, Peter took to the forums, seeking a way to disable this unwanted censorship. His plea echoed in the digital void, resonating with 42 others who shared his plight. But the thread was locked, a silent testament to the tech company’s autocratic rule.

Rep 1, an Independent Advisor, responded first. Her words were polite, her tone professional, but her message was clear — the profanity filter was hard-coded into the system, immutable as the laws of physics. She suggested feedback, a way to voice his discontent, but Peter knew it was a hollow gesture. The tech giant had made its stance clear.

Peter’s frustration was palpable. He knew how to toggle dictation on and off, but his question was simple : How do I turn off the profanity blocker? But Rep 1 reiterated her previous statement. The setting was etched into the system code and was unchangeable.

Peter couldn’t believe it. In its quest for control, the tech giant had taken away his freedom of speech. Even Office, another product of the same company, allowed him to turn off the filter. He pleaded for more information; his words tinged with disbelief and a hint of desperation.

Another advisor, Rep2, chimed in. He confirmed Peter’s fears — the voice typing tool was designed to block abusive words, and there was no way to turn it off. He suggested filing feedback, a futile gesture in the face of the tech giant’s autocracy.

Peter was left in disbelief, a cyberpunk caught in the paradox of a digital world that promised freedom but delivered control. The tech giant’s puritanical takeover was complete, its autocracy undisputed. And all Peter could do was shake his head in disbelief, a rebel silenced in the neon glow of the cybernetic world.”