Microsoft Bans “Offensive Language” from Skype | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft Bans “Offensive Language” from Skype

professional-troublemaker.com

What is up with the sudden intense push for all of this Orwellian censorship lately?

Between this, Facebook, Google, and reddit trying to censor anything they deem to be wrongthink and the very hard push to deny American citizens their Second Amendment rights, I may have to consider purchasing some tin foil headgear.

It's become open season on the Bill of Rights lately.

It's starting to get more than just a little bit scary.

I think it was the election of Trump. Everyone expected Clinton to win. Most people in silicon valley and most costal elites (i.e. journalists) lean more to the left. I think there collective shock at the election result, combined with the fact that their services (i.e. facebook scandal, or how the media reported on trump) may have contributed to it have resulted into a doubling down on purging wrong think.

This is flimsy.

To add to this. More and more people are living in bubbles of ideological similarity[1]. There isn't really an exchange of ideas anymore between people who have divergent views. These days it is between moderates and extremists on the same side, rarely against someone who opposes an idea.

So when something happens that goes so against the grain, that is so shocking it demands a response you see the results like "trump derangement syndrome". Where everything bad the president does is hyped up far more than was under previous presidents, and every effort is made to return to the status quo.

Not to say that Trump is a good president, far from it. But Barack Obama banned people from travelling from the same countries as Trump and there wasn't massive outrage, protest and court challenges.

Societies are becoming more fragmented. Less and less are believing in the American dream or its equivalent and this is the outcome. I hope this isn't the start of the decline and decay and slow slide to irrelevance of the West like it was for so many past civilisations.

[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything...

Even here in Sweden, we have a new law that the goverment is trying to push through that will severely limit free speech.

https://www.thelocal.se/20180313/opinion-proposed-law-change...

A movement trying to stop it:

https://www.stoppagrundlagsandringen.com/ (In swedish)

Its an attempt at shaming and shunning "wrongthink". They can't get much done via laws, or they feel its not enough. So people who think the "wrong" things need to be punished and ostracized from society.

Its not going to go they way they think it is.

Death throes of a dying ideology.

Population control. That's not the hard question. The hard question is: what's the endgame? Why does every country in the western world want their citizens mute and unable to defend themselves?

> When investigating alleged violations of these Terms, Microsoft reserves the right to review Your Content in order to resolve the issue.

This is actually the most scary part of it. Not only you give up your freedom of speech when using their services, but you grant MS the rights to actively review all your data. That includes all your documents, emails, skype calls, etc.

Basically you give up any remaining online privacy regarding MS services.

And anyone who has ever moderated a community knows how frequently people get reporting for having a contrarian or unpopular opinions. This is ripe for abuse and setting a path for MS to castigate thoughtcrime.

Couldn't believe the headline, but wow, it's actually an understatement. Sharing "inappropriate content" including "for example ... offensive language" is banned from all Microsoft services.

But from the context, it seems that by "offensive language" they mean hate speech. Maybe. Or anything they want.

What happens if I am writing a book and save a draft with office online that contains an expletive that might offend someone, would I loose all my content and work?

Article author here. Thanks for posting! Happy to answer any questions, although Microsoft's terms are perhaps self-explanatory.

I thought Skype was now encrypted?

What you want is end-to-end encryption, not just encryption between Microsoft and the client.

Skype was rolling out end-to-end encryption using the Signal protocol, I don't know if everyone has it now.

In any case, it's only available for voice not video, and you have to know to request a "private conversation" since it's not e2e encrypted by default.

https://www.wired.com/story/skype-end-to-end-encryption-voic...

People are still using Skype?

Yes. Microsoft employees still use Skype

We need to wait and watch. Let us see what official statements come from their spokesperson.

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