CDC gets list of forbidden words | Hacker News Reader

CDC gets list of forbidden words

washingtonpost.com

382 pointsjs2159 comments

If I understand this well, and it's likely I don't, but for the sake of argument assume I do? Then the most important thing to know about this story is that it's about the President's budget document (which is assembled with input from all the Executive Branch departments).

That budget is one of the more elaborate charades in Washington. Congress controls the budget by passing laws allocating funds to departments. The President can't not spend money allocated to those departments. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of the budget goes to stuff that is effectively non-discretionary; for instance, to Medicare and Social Security entitlements spending.

Banning words, and these words in particular, is batshit. I'm probably not alarming many people on HN when I say this is a batshit administration.

But this is about the words the administration is soliciting from a department for an elaborate marketing document. Someone tell me why, apart from the principles and precedents of it all, any of this matters?

>Someone tell me why, apart from the principles and precedents of it all, any of this matters?

Like you, I feel I might not understand this in its entirety, but I think the answer is...face saving. It’s counterintuitive but I believe these words are being banned from the budget to allow both parties to pass a maximum CDC budget which may be controversial politically for the GOP to pass and they might otherwise not support.

For example, if these words were not censored than you would have an electorate/media (more importantly tea party/primary opponents) that would be able to point at the elected GOP and question why they would pass a budget that includes research for transgender issues, research on fetuses, supporting science based research (rather than faith based), etc...

My understanding is the money would still be allocated and budgeted to support all the same issues (which is good). If my interpretation is correct, it might not be so far off from a budget to combat extreme Islam (drones, intelligence, secret courts, etc...) but censoring that phrase publicly because it allows some face saving for political purpose.

This is an interesting use of the term "face saving". I typically understood it to mean trying to maintain perceptions rather than a way to execute an underhanded agenda.

As a person of Chinese descent who grew up in America, face saving has no general negative connotation in Chinese culture -- but the fact that you think it does is very interesting. (EDIT: misread your comment, but this applies to GP)

I've observed that face saving behavior at all levels of society in America, but very few instances of people willing to point it out or discuss it, except sometimes to accuse people of 'covering up bad behavior'.

When you visit someone's house and they serve you food and ask if you liked it, unhesitatingly saying 'yes' is face saving and also just simple good manners.

When your boss makes a bad decision but you don't call them out in the next team meeting, and instead first bring it up in private, that is face saving. You're trying to avoid openly embarrassing someone and reducing their social standing.

In this case, face-saving just makes sense -- let's get a budget deal passed (which is in everyone's best interests), and then mollify the crazies in the base who refuse to see it that way.

I guess pointing out face-saving in the US is itself potentially embarrassing, because it implies that person might actually be worried about their social standing, which can itself negatively affect their social standing?

I think you misread my comment. I was saying that I thought it didn't have negative meaning, but that the person I responded to did.

I didn't actually see a negative connotation in either of your posts.

Your conclusion seems fairly accurate. I think it's weighs more heavily toward a concern about the appearance of weakness rather than social standing though.

My perception is that the appearance of strength is intertwined with social standing in America. (I'm not saying it isn't elsewhere, just that it is here.)

The reason for this cultural paradox is because face-saving is associated with dishonesty. That is that the behavior is not aligned with the spoken motive. This is interesting to see, because this sort of dishonesty is common in American culture where the values are primarily kindness and productivity.

I find it interesting from my perspective as long time military guy where in the military subculture honesty is highly valued and kindness is not (it is just rolled into respect or otherwise ignored in favor of other virtues).

What does either of these words have to do with face saving or combating extreme Islam groups these are words used to describe things such as medical research and cures and programs to help people in need these words have nothing to do with combating extreme Islam groups you make absolutely no sense at all. Vulnerable Entitlement Diversity Transgender Fetus Evidence-based Science-based

> But this is about the words the administration is soliciting from a department for an elaborate marketing document. Someone tell me why, apart from the principles and precedents of it all, any of this matters?

Because there is a real danger of it spreading to other documents.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article1298372...

Its a slippery slope we've seen at the state level.

This administration has a penchant for creating drama. I can’t see any other purpose to this policy.

Also, 7 words[1]. Not 6, not 8. It could be coincidence but I really feel like we’re being trolled.

[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words

I think they'd use 14 if they wanted to troll better.

Pretty much everyone who is not part of the elite ruling class is influenced by the Dunning–Kruger effect. We all think we have it figured out, and that there's no way they could pull the wool over my eyes like they do to those rubes, and don't realize that we are those rubes.

What makes the "elite ruling class" immune to the Dunning-Kruger effect?

I don't know anything about them other than they seem to have control of the masses down to a science, so I did not make a comment about them - only about those who are not a part of them.

Because words and the way we use them change the world. HN is probably mainly a place of realism, but social constructs are playing an increasingly effective part in the world of politics.

On top of that it's another level of bullshit that distracts you from all the other terrible things the US government is currently doing. "They are censoring words???" - mean while the worst tax reform in US history is being passed to increase inequality to revolutionary levels.

>mean while the worst tax reform in US history is being passed to increase inequality to revolutionary levels.

You may be putting too much credence in the hysterical propaganda that sometimes passes as “news”.

Being Scandinavian I think I can safely say that I haven't put too much credence into what Americans pass for news. :)

I have studied history and economics though, and typically you wouldn't want inequality to grow too far unless you want a violent redistribution of wealth. Considering America was already collectively crazy enough to elect Trump, I'd hate to see what happens when things get even worse.

I totally agree with your assessment and it will get much worse if we do not impeach

> HN is probably mainly a place of realism

Not far above that comment is the following:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15937896

Tax policy is generally bad over the past 40 years of very low top tax bracket rates which need to be much higher.

U.S. diverging income inequality trajectory https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BBGK...

Western Europe diverging income inequality trajectory https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BBGK...

Full article. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/this-is-what-happene...

A nitpick. Social Security and Medicare are not entitlements. One is a mandatory pension plan that people pay into and whose benefits are based on what you put in. The other is a mandatory health insurance plan that people pay into. As such it is wrong to call them entitlements.

No, that is the actual definition of the term “entitlement”: people are literally entitled to those things.

If you don’t pay into SS then you don’t get retirement benefits from it. You are wrong on Social Securty. With Medicare you are entitled to enroll in it when you reach a certain age, even if you haven’t ever paid Medicare taxes, but you still have to pay the premiums. Medicaid is the entitlement.

> Social Security and Medicare are not entitlements.

SS and Medicare and the buy-in attached to them is what the term “entitlements” (in terms of government programs) was coined to refer to.

Later, Republican opponents of those programs started using the term for general welfare programs in order to attach negative emotional loading to it and discredit SS and Medicare by association.

Yes. But I use terms as they currently mean in the common political discourse and as such Medicare and Social Security are not entitlements.

In current political discourse, “entitlements” refers to all of the public benefit programs, whether buy-in or means-tested, that are not considered discretionary spending, Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment, Medicaid, and Welfare. You probably mean to say that the first three differ from the last two, which is true; the first three are contributory entitlements (the original sense of the term), the latter two are noncontributory entitlements (which, along with contributory entitlements, are included in the newer, broader definition.)

As I've heard the term used in the vernacular it is synonymous with 'welfare'. I attempt to clarify that there is a huge difference between a mandatory retirement pension plan whose benefits depend on how much you pay into it vs. say food stamps. Therefore I point out that Social Security is not an entitlement since that word has become distorted in the last 30 years to be synonymous with welfare. It connotes getting something without paying for it. Therefore I think it is wrong to call Social Security an entitlement. The meaning of the word has changed or is in the midst of being changed.

Budget documents are about setting and justifying priorities. It may very well be worth mentioning when a finding is backed by experiments in mice fetuses but further trials might be necessary.

This is being done for the sake of political expediency in a Republican-controlled government that has many people in it who do not like the issues that these words represent. It's not "batshit" to try to word things in a way that minimizes political holy wars. In fact, it's somewhat logical, and seems to me to be aimed at ensuring CDC gets all of the funding it needs.

I probably need to preface this comment by making it clear that I'm against banning words and not a fan of Trump.

Banning "fetus" and "transgender" is completely indefensible as they're fairly neutral words with no obvious replacement. But for the rest, imagine that rather than a ban this was a style guide recommending against certain words. The common theme in the rest of them is that they don't convey much useful information but have a strong emotional charge.

You don't need to say something is evidence-based, just show the evidence. Coming right out and saying your position is evidence-based just sounds like a way to shut down any objections, even reasoned discussion, by casting the other side as being against science, evidence, or facts in general. This is similar for science-based, vulnerable, and diversity. If you're seen as being "anti-diversity" your argument doesn't matter because you're a misogynistic racist xenophobe.

Entitlements is charged term because you've cemented your position on social welfare pretty clearly just by referring to them as entitlements. It's not quite as bad as Derry/Londonderry , but it's certainly not neutral.

I don't think any of these words should be banned, but I do think it would be reasonable for government agencies to use neutral language and fully explain their thoughts rather than using emotionally charged buzzwords.

> You don't need to say something is evidence-based, just show the evidence.

No, "evidence-based medicine" is a term of art. Maybe you could argue that it took too generic of a name, but that's the word we have. From Wikipedia:

"Although all medicine based on science has some degree of empirical support, EBM goes further, classifying evidence by its epistemologic strength and requiring that only the strongest types (coming from meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and randomized controlled trials) can yield strong recommendations; weaker types (such as from case-control studies) can yield only weak recommendations."

That's a fair point and a good example of why an outright ban is bad. I don't know if the administration intended to impact the term evidence-based medicine or if it's just collateral damage from a perceived abuse of the prefix evidence-based, but it's only the latter that I would stylistically discourage.

As a doctor, it seems to me that at one time (maybe 10 years ago) it had a very specific meaning, but unfortunately the usage has degraded to the point where everything is "evidence based medicine" now, just like everything in business now is a "disruptor" or a "pivot".

"If only all medicine were evidence based medicine..." Careful what you wish for, I guess.

I just assumed that was the norm and we had terms like "experimental cancer treatment" for when the treatment is so new that we don't have enough evidence to back it up.

Yeah, I find myself having to clarify every time I use that phrase that I'm using it in the "pre-buzzword" sense...

"Diversity" may be an emotionally charged word, but also is a useful and common word in the biological sciences for a number of purposes. Of note especially is its common usage in ecology relevant to the CDC's goals of cataloging diverse bacterial and viral infections from clinical samples.

I would argue that in a biological context the primary problem with neutral uses of "diversity" is vagueness. If a report indicates that they "collected a diverse range of bacteria for study", what is it that's different about them? Why not say "collected bacteria with various tolerances to extracellular ethanol concentration across three genera"? But like I said, an outright ban is silly, there are certainly places where it's the right word to use.

It is a problem, but a technical problem thats well understood within the relevant communities. A quantification of "various tolerances" is one notion of diversity, but as you have deftly pointed out there are many other quantifiable notions that are endlessly debated (some links in the context of ecology: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C48&q=%22...). Usually "diversity" is reported in terms of well defined quantitative metrics so that even if the umbrella term "diversity" is ambiguous it typically has well defined meaning(s) in the context of any particular study. All of which is to say, I would wager that the vast majority of scientific reports (and perhaps also those coming from the CDC) use the term "diversity" to introduce a general concept of a measure of heterogeneity which is quickly made precise within the study.

> Banning "fetus" and "transgender" is completely indefensible as they're fairly neutral words with no obvious replacement.

There's always "transexual", the older word for exactly the same concept.

Maybe I'm letting my own bias seep in now, but I consider "transgender" fairly neutral and "transsexual" overtly negative and likely intentionally used to agitate.

The main trouble with -sexual as a catch-all is it's too narrow. Gender and sex have been conflated for a long time in the English-speaking world, but people are becoming more aware of the great variety in both.

If you research the etymology of the word gender you discover that the word gender, up until the 1970's in academia, and up until the 2010's in the general populace, had an identical meaning to sex. Gender meant sex. Gender was used in writing and conversation in preference to the word sex, because sex also meant sexual intercourse. So to prevent confusion and so as to not evoke the thought of sex, the word gender was used. Gender meant "sex and I don't mean fucking". This meaning of gender originated back in the 17th century if I recall correctly.

In the 1970s, certain non-scientific branches of academia invented an entirely new concept and attached the label "gender" to it. The concept was that the way one presents themselves in society is "gender". This historically has never been the meaning of gender. The public at large continued to use gender in the original meaning (as you will see with official forms asking for 'gender'. If they asked for 'sex', people would add a box with "yes please" on it and tick it).

In the 2010s this new meaning of gender leaked out of academic circles and into the general vernacular. But it is a concept that is entirely the invention of left-leaning academics, cross citing each other repeatedly in echo chamber journals.

You say there is "great variety in both", but this is not true. There is great variety in "gender as a social construct", that is, the cosmetic way people dress, do their hair etc. But there is not great variety in "sex and I don't mean fucking". Disorders of sex development (DSDs) are extremely rare and do not constitute a new sex and are recognised medically as disorders. For example, XXYY occurs in 1 in 18,000 to 40,000 male births. XXXXY occurs in 1 in 85,000 to 100,000 male births. Compare that to the "normal" male sex characteristics, or the "normal" female sex characteristics, that each occur in about 1 in 2 births.

People erroneously make the claim that other conditions, like triple X syndrome, constitute a DSD (occurs in 1 in 1000 females), but because it causes no health issues or abnormal development it is not considered a DSD by the medical community. The DSD Guideline documents [http://www.dsdguidelines.org] are a trustworthy source of information and definitions.

Gender literally means "kind" (from the Latin "genus"), and it was originally a linguistic term. Its use as an alternative to "sex" dates from 1955, and is contemporaneous with the academic distinction between "gender" as the societal roles of males and females vs. "sex" as the biological distinction between males and females. Before then it was barely used outside of linguistics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender#Etymology_and_usage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=gender%2Csex&c...

https://www.etymonline.com/word/gender

"The "male-or-female sex" sense is attested in English from early 15c."

So 15th century, not 17th.

"As sex (n.) took on erotic qualities in 20c., gender came to be the usual English word for "sex of a human being," in which use it was at first regarded as colloquial or humorous. Later often in feminist writing with reference to social attributes as much as biological qualities; this sense first attested 1963. Gender-bender is from 1977, popularized from 1980, with reference to pop star David Bowie."

And from your own wikipedia links (which I'm assuming didn't fully read)

"In the last two decades of the 20th century, the use of gender in academia has increased greatly, outnumbering uses of sex in the social sciences. While the spread of the word in science publications can be attributed to the influence of feminism, its use as a synonym for sex is attributed to the failure to grasp the distinction made in feminist theory, and the distinction has sometimes become blurred with the theory itself; David Haig stated, "Among the reasons that working scientists have given me for choosing gender rather than sex in biological contexts are desires to signal sympathy with feminist goals, to use a more academic term, or to avoid the connotation of copulation."[2]"

Which is exactly what I said.

Your quote supports my timeline: 20th century.

Are you being disingenuous? The word has been used to denote "male-or-female sex" since the 15th century. The quote you say supports your timeline is with reference to "the use of gender in academia" and states "to signal sympathy with feminist goals" and "to avoid the connotation of copulation". What evidence do you have that "Before then (1955) it was barely used outside of linguistics."?

"As sex (n.) took on erotic qualities in 20c., gender came to be the usual English word for "sex of a human being," in which use it was at first regarded as colloquial or humorous"

That's not referring to its use in academia, that's its use in the general population, which was "at first regarded as colloquial or humorous".

You can also take a look at the Google N-Gram viewer link I posted, which quantifies its use within general publications. Before the 1960s, it barely appeared, and then its use shot up to rival "sex".

Why is this being downvoted? This was my exact understanding of the issue as well.

Probably because of "But it is a concept that is entirely the invention of left-leaning academics, cross citing each other repeatedly in echo chamber journals."

While I agree that some scientists are in a kind of echo-chamber, casually accusing everyone who does research involving gender (the social aspect) as politically motivated is uncalled for.

It's factually wrong. Follow his citations and the others posted in this subthread, drop any preconceptions based on how it's used now, and decide for yourself.

> If you research the etymology of the word gender you discover that the word gender, up until the 1970's in academia, and up until the 2010's in the general populace, had an identical meaning to sex.

Actually, “gender” historically referred to a feature of grammar, gender for an ascribed social role in the modern sense (sometimes disambiguated as “ascribed gender”) dates from 1955 by John Money. “Gender identity”, which refers to self-perceived association with a gender role dates from the 1960s; both took off in the 1970s. (And I know from personal experience were in wide use when I was a teenager in the 1980s; they certainly didn't enter the popular lexicon in the 2010s.)

“Gender” being applied to humans or other animals in a way equivalent to “sex” actually became popular in modern use later (though it originated earlier), in the 1980s (driven largely by various organizations becoming squeamish about using the word “sex” and seeking an alternative.)

> But there is not great variety in "sex and I don't mean fucking"

Yes, there is; there are lots of biological sex traits, and while there are two modal clusters, there's considerable variation lying outside of them.

Yes, there's a fairly small number of possible configurations of sex chromosomes, but there are sex-related genetic differences at lower levels than whether a chromosome is an X or Y and how many of each are present, and moreover genetics in any case are causal or contributory factors to traits (sex or otherwise), but not themselves the only biological traits of interest (or even usually traits of particular interest except insofar as their contribution to phenotype.)

(And there appears to be a link between the complexity of biological sex and gender identity, because there's research showing that there are particular ways where transgender individuals tend to be more likely to fall outside the two main clusters of how biological sex traits align.)

Maybe those words were identified as most likely to be used in manipulating others to get bigger budget and moving towards emotional response "one with a good heart" can't deny, so it's a nice playground for sociopaths to force their way through by shaming/guilt/etc.? So commonly used technique, one would laugh if it weren't so dangerous not to play along, risking mob lynching?

Frankly, I'd love to know what is the best defense technique for the scenario I outlined. Any ideas?

Surely this is a transparently motte-and-bailey argument. Obviously no-one would dispute that it's good for government agencies to use clear language, and avoiding certain words might serve that purpose in certain cases. Those points are completely orthogonal to the fact that it's patently terrible for an administration to attempt to tell its own subject matter experts which words they can use.

"a diverse range of bacteria" - might just be a phrase you'd see in a document written by the CDC, now banned because of stupid, puerile "culture warriors".

> Entitlements is charged term because you've cemented your position on social welfare pretty clearly just by referring to them as entitlements.

This may already be a lost battle, but "entitlement" is a policy term of art with absolutely no negative connotations. It simply refers to any government benefit that a person or entity is guaranteed to receive if they meet a certain set of criteria (i.e. falling under a certain income, under or over a particular age, being a citizen, etc.). This is as opposed to grant programs (limited benefits dispensed according to an assessment of merit), lotteries (limited benefits distributed at random), first-come-first-serve, etc.

> You don't need to say something is evidence-based, just show the evidence.

That would make some sense for documents reporting research results, but this is for budget proposal documents.

Censoring the CDC, of all organizations. What a travesty. The entire world looks to the US CDC for guidelines.

Let's be clear: The political right in the US pretends to care about free speech until they get serious political power.

It wasn't too long ago that conservatives were strongly against the depiction of violence and sex in video games.

This is not about free speech. It is perfectly acceptable for an organization to offer guidance and perhaps impose restrictions on how their own employees portray a topic publically in the name of PR and hopefully even compassion for their human audience. In other words the government can agree not to use certain words in public communications. This is very different from policing the general public when say talking about the CDC. That would be unconstitutional.

Do I agree with this personally? I dont know. It's probably better to offer a style guide for reasons other comments have already covered.

Yes, free speech does not apply to private companies. It does apply, somewhat different, to federal organizations. Same with copyright law (federal works cannot be copyright).

This particular issue gets very murky with the CDC and official documentation designed to inform the public.

> Censoring the CDC, of all organizations.

This isn't the first time it's happened. The Dickey Amendment in 1996 forced the CDC to stop research on gun-related injuries because the NRA was upset.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey_Amendment_(1996)

Wow. Holy cow. Why aren't doctors pushing back politically on this?

I suspect the sets of actual doctors (I mean, those that work on healing people) and people wanting to use the mantle of CDC to institute gun control regulations have rather small intersection.

They are:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dickey-amendment-gun-vi...

The firearms industry wields a great deal of power in Washington through its lobbying and advocacy organization, the NRA.

Interestingly that seems to be a result of the CDC's own political leanings. They seemed to pursue the research with an explicit political goal, rather than research the effects of gun violence, and then find a goal[1]. Further, the Dickey amendment doesn't actually force the CDC to avoid researching the issue but rather preventing it from using federal money . to promote gun control:

"none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control"[2]

[1]https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/12/why-we-cant-tr... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey_Amendment_(1996)

If you don't understand that barring a conclusion from receiving federal funding is effectively barring the research itself, then you don't understand academic research. Even if you legitimately don't find gun control to be a solution from your research, that you would lose your funding if you did means there is necessarily a financial incentive with no basis in fact to have or not have certain results - invalidating the research. The actual effect is that it bars research into gun violence, even if that is not the letter of the law.

What if it turns out that research suggests gun control is effective in reducing gun violence? Note, I'm not saying that it is effective; I have no dog in this fight and don't know enough. But the law effectively says to the CDC "You're allowed to research this health issue, but if you come to a conclusion that's politically unacceptable, you can't share it."

The result is that the CDC now believes any gun violence research to be likely to result in political reprisal against them come budget time.[1]

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2015/01/14/...

[1] is an unsourced op-ed by a representative of the NRA's lobbying arm, who advocated for the amendment in the first place. Here's an opposing view:

http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun-violence.as...

>conservatives were strongly against the depiction of violence and sex in video games.

Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh and Jay Rockefeller were all Democrats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Entertainment_Protectio...

I just wanted to say one thing and I will be quiet because I think the ban on these words is totally uncalled for period but the use of wikipedia for an example is not a credible source as it is written by anyone and may not be factual at some point I would look for more evidence-based material LOL

If i remember my history right it was Hillary Clinton that championed the attempts to ban Mortal Kombat during Bills presidency.

Nope. There was never any concerted effort to ban Mortal Kombat in the US, and Hillary Clinton was not involved with it. You may be thinking about Tipper Gore, who was part of the campaign in the '80s that resulted in the infamous "Parental Advisory - Explicit Content" label on records.

> It wasn't too long ago that conservatives were strongly against the depiction of violence and sex in video games.

You might be thinking of Hilary Clinton?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Entertainment_Protect...

Comments saying some of these words could be used inappropriately are missing the point.

Fuck, rat bastard, and many other words may not be appropriate for use either. We don’t start surgically censoring non-elected, non-party affiliated, government staff for theoretical transgressions.

Let’s be evidenced based (sorry), and ask how many times in the past this approach would have helped a CDC situation? At least, a situation that does not divide along political lines.

>Fuck

Not the best example. The government censors this word for non government employees (radio, TV).

No no no. Fuck is not censored by the US Government. TV and Movie studios censor words themselves with their own Standard and Practices. The idea that there are seven dirty words is a total myth.

There are some FCC standards around TV programming before prime time and safe harbour laws, but in general the reason we don't see tits and hear 'fuck' is more to do with the industry than the government.

>Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1464, prohibits the utterance of any obscene, indecent or profane language by means of radio communication. Consistent with a subsequent statute and court case, the Commission's rules prohibit the broadcast of indecent material during the period of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. FCC decisions also prohibit the broadcast of profane material between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. Civil enforcement of these requirements rests with the FCC, and is an important part of the FCC's overall responsibilities. At the same time, the FCC must be mindful of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Section 326 of the Communications Act, which prohibit the FCC from censoring program material, or interfering with broadcasters' free speech rights.

>Obscene speech is not protected by the First Amendment and broadcasters are prohibited, by statute and regulation, from airing obscene programming at any time.

>The safe harbor refers to the time period between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., local time. During this time period, a station may air indecent and/or profane material. In contrast, there is no safe harbor for the broadcast of obscene material. Obscene material is entitled to no First Amendment protection, and may not be broadcast at any time.

To your point:

>Are there certain words that are always unlawful? No.

https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/guides/obscenity-indece...

> how many times in the past this approach would have helped a CDC situation

Has it been tried before? If it hasn't been tried, we can't have evidence whether it has helped until it is tried.

That's an unusual way to fight for "free speech" and against "political correctness".

6 months ago:

"Liberal snowflakes on college campuses need safe spaces, what babies! Haha"

Today:

"Hey, so don't use these words specifically, it may upset some people"

The bald-faced hypocrisy is staggering, not surprising, yet still it makes me trip.

How can anybody actually support the current administration if this sort of thing is what is being pushed. how is this improving the world? how is this better? how is this good?

anyone?

You are aware that many people said pretty much the same thing about many of Obama's initiatives and policies.

What's your point? Does that somehow give all future administrations carte blanche?

My point is that anyone can cherry pick something and turn it into a general "how can anyone support this administration" when of course the reality is more complicated. People who didn't like Obama did exactly the same thing.

so you are ok with the cdc not being allowed to use those words?

Your missing the point, and based on your other posts, your probably missing it on purpose.

i see the point of your statement. but it is not an answer to the original questions.

You have been judged guilty of thought crime.

If I answer truthfully I'm going to be down voted and shamed, so I won't answer.

Instead, I'm going to continue to be part of the silent majority that supports him, but doesn't speak out because we are often falsely labeled as deplorables or worse.

Edit: people like me are what you get when society stifles free speech: unwilling to engage and so continuing in our beliefs silently. maybe you coastal elitists should stop shaming people for having different opinions and mental models of how the world works.

And if you dummies think that speech isn't being stifled, look no further than James Demore being fired for trying to figure out root cause analysis of why there aren't more women in tech

Edit 2: someone is going through my post history and downvoting. Good job, ladies, you're proving my point.

Edit 3: and now I'm not allowed to respond to people because I'm posting "too fast". Great.

I'm downvoting you anyway, not for supporting him, but for the faux martyrdom that contributes nothing to the discussion. We actually really need to hear from thoughtful people who support Trump if they're out there, because 99% of the vocal supporters I hear are batshit crazy. That could just be my bias, of course :)

Also, "majority"? He lost the popular vote and I believe he has the lowest 1-year approval rating of any modern President? What majority are you referring to?

The "majority" that believe voter fraud is massive and the deep state is real. Have you seen the comments on Trump's facebook posts?

You're going to be downvoted either way, because a post that just complains about theoretical downvotes gets downvoted on this site. So you might as well take the opportunity to explain.

It's also worth mentioning that the question GP is asking isn't really "how can people support the administration", as there's many, many answers to it. The real question is "how can people support this?".

And frankly, enlighten me. Do you support this?

Edit: I should also remind you that Trump is not supported by a "silent majority". Quite the opposite: Trump is supported and was elected by a vocal minority. His approval rating today is the lowest it's ever been according to 538's aggregations. It's time americans get their head out of the sand on this topic.

so you are willing to publicly support demore but not answer the original question?

Yes I support Demore.

It's not my fault you are purposely misunderstanding my comment in order to paint me as an idiot. You've obviously got an agenda.

i do not misunderstand what you wrote. and you still haven't answered the original question.

>silent majority that supports him

To be clear, Trump lost the popular vote (which is conducted with closed ballots so the silent majority can voice their opinion); and by all available measures has gotten less popular since then.

>And if you dummies think that speech isn't being stifled, look no further than James Demore being fired for trying to figure out root cause analysis of why there aren't more women in tech

Were you around HN when this happened. In my reccolection, there was a significant portion of HN that disagreed with the firing; and even many of those who defended the firing argued not that Damore was wrong, but that the PR against him justified the firing.

I am certain that my comments against the firing were well received (eg. upvoted) here.

Having said that, you are certainly correct that the left has its own anti-intellectual movement. It just hasn't penetrated into the political party as badly as it has on the right.

> were you around HN when this happened

Dude I've been around HN for almost 9 years.

And in that time this site went from pro free speech to downvote anything that isn't super left-wing progressive

HN is still pro free speech. Downvoting comments does not curtail free speech. Flagging them does (unless your definition of "free speech" stops at the First Amendment), but only for those who don't have "showdead" on. Maybe HN's way of highlighting downvoted comments encourages conformist behavior, but you can still write anything you want. You just might not find anybody willing to listen and agree.

>Edit 2: someone is going through my post history and downvoting. Good job, ladies, you're proving my point.

I just checked your post history. The only comments still eligible to be downvoted are in this thread.

Would you please stop violating the site guidelines and posting ideological rants to HN? We've asked you several times, like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15023452 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14334771.

If you can't control yourself we're going to ban you, not because of your views but simply because you didn't control yourself. Please control yourself.

It might help to re-read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

If your position is righteous and based on facts why would such measures be required? Can someone explain to me how these are actions of well intention and intelligent people?

Well, because their position is none of those things.

yep, more like a puerile attempt to win the culture wars.

For fuck sake. What is this? Is there a precedent for this? Have words been banned like this before? If this is legal, I am completely baffled. If it was the standard list of "7 words", I could understand, but this is nuts.

Yes, on the state level. Florida banned climate change.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article1298372...

Useless bureaucracy and admin making up their own rules to shove down an agenda down our throats. Right or left, this is wrong and I hope the conservatives and libertarians on this board oppose this. I understand excluding diversity because it gets paraded around everywhere and perhaps is not related to the CDC's budget proposals but the rest are very science based and I'm 90% sure diversity is the most accurate term to describe a lot of health related information.

Linguistics is important, words are important and there is a culture war happening around words politically from both left and right. The left has been far more aggressive, but the last year the right has been doing the same. Diversity, feminism, multiculturalism, globalism, transgenderism have now turned from something neutral/positive to something negative now and synonymous with a negative connotation.

That being said, I'll wait and see why the CDC is doing this. The only word that seems glaringly alarming to me is fetus. Pro or anti-abortion, being able to describe a fetus is mandatory and excluding that might force the CDC to not discuss that aspect with as much detail or even a more nefarious purpose.

Transfenderism is something the left has completely banned any debate about and the right have coined with mockery and derision. Gender dysphoria may be a better word to use, but I wouldn't know because of the extremely politically charged environment. This is also pushing an agenda, but might be the correct term, at least historically in the medical sense, but I'm almost certain it's still pushing down political agenda even if transgenderism is not the correct term to use.

Entitlement, evidence and science based don't make sense to me. Maybe it's too vague sounding and leads to credibility to the layman when there is little? I guess you could make anything sound factually true by using those words but it doesn't make sense why they'd exclude them.

Basically, freedom of speech isn't a left or right issue. Both are guilty and we as Americans should call out any bullshit on both sides because it's a very, very dangerous, slippery slope and I'm glad tbere's an uproar rightfully for this

You don't think being able to describe diversity in bacteria cultures is something the CDC might want to do?

"I'm 90% sure diversity is the most accurate term to describe a lot of health related information."

I was just posturing on possible reasons for this insanity and that's the best I could come up with which is why I call this BS and completely unacceptable. If anyone had any doubts that this is a "libtard conspiracy" or whatever they say these days, then I outlined possible reasons to support this and then hopefully emphatically repudiated that.

And here I was under the impression that Silicon Valley was the real threat to free speech.

They're many fronts attacking the first amendment, both government and corporations. Silicon Valley does not share the idology it once did.

Undoing Net Neutrality is a clear sign of this. It will hurt startups that try and compete in the spaces that Google/Netflix/Spotify occupy before it really hurts consumers. NN cements the current leaders in their position as they can pay the tolls and blocking them would be mass outrage. But gives very little room for a newcomer to compete.

Someone alert Sam Altman!

Free speech is big, can have more than one threat at a time.

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.” ― George Orwell, 1984

Turns out this is all a complete fiction, as far as "forbidden" goes: https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2017/12/19/fake-news...

There was no ban coming from the administration, but a strategy coming from inside CDC to avoid these words so that their proposals would go more smoothly with Republican congressmen.

I think what strikes me most about this is how incredibly dumb it is. This is clearly meant to be a strike in the culture wars, but has really awful repercussions. Imagine not being able to use phrases like "experiments done in mice fetuses", "effects of entitlements on disease propagation", or "diversity of bacteria found in culture samples". This is ridiculous and borders on inhibiting the CDC from being able to do its job.

Banning a word like "evidence-based" implies - don't look at the evidence - just believe what I say. Thats the Trump method. It's not the scientific method. This ban goes against freedom of speech.

Wow. Another ever-more-crazy story out of the US. As the page was loading, I first thought the story's title was "Democracy Dies in Darkness" but then realized that's the Washington Post's motto...

The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

This administration is using 1984 as a how-to manual.

With no explanation as yet offered, I note that some of these words are cliche or "checkbox" words in certain advocacy lexicons. The word "sustainable" is another example, and I'm somewhat surprised it wasn't included.

We've been in 1984 for much longer than this administration and the previous and the one before that. We've been in Orwell's world longer than I've been alive and longer than my parents have been alive.

Obama spent ever day of his tenure at war and bombing people with drones. Bill Clinton was very anti-immigration. Web and Rupert revealed how the CIA was funneling cocaine into the US from South and Central America.

This has been happening a long time. President Twitter's idiocy is just batshit insane enough that people yell about it now, but it's all there to make us angry and mad at one another. This is just another thing to make us angry. We are in the 24/7 hate.

Yes, but those are 'war words'.

For example - some people view borders as an institutional immorality. Nancy Pelosi has said that America goes from the 'Rocky Mountains down the Andes' and Hillary Clinton as openly called for a borderless North American society.

This represents an absolute and fundamental shift in view of citizenry, nationalism and identity.

Such views should be allowed in America surely - but should we allow people with 'extremist' agendas to integrate them subtly into our government documents etc.?

Those words are banned because they might be used to further a specific political agenda.

One could argue it's 'defence' instead of 'offence'.

Anyhow - I don't like it and I don't want to defend Trump ... but I do prefer efforts to keep things generally neutral.

Today is there a word more inane and overused as "diversity"? It probably shouldn't be used in government reports.

But no word should be banned and attempting to do so is dangerous.

Wow.

Scientific censorship in the US.

I'm speechless.

This gives me ungood bellyfeel.

FTA: "Instead of 'science-based' or 'evidence-based,' the suggested phrase is 'CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with [sic] community standards and wishes,' the person said." [Emphasis added.]

Assuming this is accurate, we should contact the Nobel Prize committee, because clearly the Trump administration has figured out how to make viruses and bacteria also take "community standards and wishes" into account.

All that I can see as a result is that people will just get out the thesaurus and find equivalents/"euphemisms" -- not exactly the same, but "close enough for government work" (no pun intended)... I see mentions of 1984 in the comments, but realistically, if you look at history it seems that attempts at controlling what thoughts people can express have only been met with opposing creativity to great success.

Which does not slim the imbecility of this ban in any way.

If only George Carlin were still alive. I’m sure he’d have seven words to use to respond to this...

Announcing moon missions and starting to ban reasoning with science within one week...

Haha! I’d appreciate such regulations for startup pitches by blacklisting phrases like “deep learning”, “blockchain-based”, “disruptive”, “fast-moving”, “lean”.

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