Censorship? They’ve got an app for that

Apple has been awarded a patent in the US for a device to filter out ‘inappropriate’ language from text messages (otherwise known as ‘sexting’, apparently). Essentially, it is a way for parents to monitor and manage the content of their children’s texting. After all – as the patent tells us – ‘children may send or receive messages (intentionally or not) with parentally objectionable language.’

Messages containing words deemed unsuitable will be deleted or won’t send until the offending words are replaced.

But is this really likely to work? Is there an algorithm out there that can keep up with language’s adaptability?

One of the joys of English is how well it lends itself to puns and innuendo. Slang has an ever-changing vocabulary. And texting itself has spawned a virtual language of its own – one that parents already probably struggle to keep up with.

Hopeful parents may find that they’re not so much laying down the law as laying down a challenge. ‘Those interested in “sexting” will probably find some clever workaround,’ says technology website TechCrunch. Without being indelicate, we can probably all think of some words with provocative double meanings that wouldn’t ‘immediately set off the censorship sensors.’

Now Apple have (intentionally or not) thrown down a gauntlet, is NE1 w8ing 2 C jst hw cre8iv da msgs R gonna B?

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Author: Catie Holdridge

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Catie joined Emphasis with an English literature and creative writing degree and a keen interest in what makes language work. Having researched, written, commissioned and edited dozens of articles for the Emphasis blog, she now knows more about the intricacies of effective professional writing than she ever thought possible.

She produced and co-wrote our online training programme, The Complete Business Writer, and these days oversees all the Emphasis marketing efforts. And she keeps office repartee at a suitably literary level.