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Comment by jeffwask | Hacker News Reader

Take a community with AI moderation like Reddit, I've been a participant for years. With the recent push to AI autocorrect and moderation, you can see the changes in language. New words, new ways of speaking, unconsciously editing yourself because you don't want to draw the eye of the bot. It doesn't feel subtle. It feels Orwellian.

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It's particularly egregious on youtube, where people frequently use words like "unalived" or "self-deleted" instead of murder or suicide, lest they incur the wrath of the almighty algorithm.

That seems to me to be an example where the language is forced to change but the thoughts remain the same. Sure, people are using the "safe" terms, but they're using them to continue to subvert the rules, not to bow to them.

The problem is when that vernacular extends into regular life. I haven’t noticed it yet with unalive, but I’m sure there will come a day. Eventually if the censors continue suppressing the word suicide, we will end up with unalive taking suicide’s place both online and offline. Then, the censors will censor unalive, and a new word will be coined, and the cycle continues.

I'm not fully comfortable with the shift in language either, but my point is that, even if the language is changed, the thoughts will remain. To use 1984 (is there a Godwin's law equivalent for this now?), the party taught that 2 + 2 = 5, which is changing thought. Social media is trying to do that, but failing. The danger is if it's one day effective, but to date it hasn't been.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2024/08/...

> On Friday, a social media user tweeted an image from the Nirvana exhibit at the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle. A placard dedicated to the “27 Club” read, “Kurt Cobain un-alived himself at 27.”

This was the first change that came to mind and one of the more drastic changes.

Youtube comments is a separate genre itself. Due to youtube moderation policy - music video comments are all the same, same tired jokes, patterns. Not an AI slop per se, but feels the same.

Slop is slop - whether artisanal or AI generated.

I recently had a comment removed by reddit. It wasn’t even against the rules. It was anti establishment is all. I insulted the billionaire class in that comment. Class division style comments are now banned. Wouldn’t want revolution on a for profit forum now would we?

That's surprising because reddit moderation usually tends the other way and any objection to some part of the omnicause gets you banned.

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