Tag Archives: smartphones

Rape: Just Another Four-Letter Word?

The other day, I was texting a friend while driving. Well, I wasn’t actually texting in the conventional sense (that is illegal); I was speaking into my phone’s voice recorder, which takes what I say and transcribes it into text. So there I was in the middle of a heavy text conversation — as heavy as a text conversation can get — talking about how I was raped. I looked down at my phone and noticed that one of the words read “r****” in place of “raped.” “R****?” Really?

Not often is anyone daring enough to censor me, least of all my cell phone. In the past, I’ve noticed that the voice recorder has blocked certain words and changed them from their original form into a more symbolic “f***,” “b****,” and “s***.” That I can understand- well, no, not really, but I do know that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) blocks many of those words on open channels, so in the conventional sense, I am familiar with those “swear” words being censored, but “rape?”

The rest of the article can be found here at The Huffington Post

1 Comment

Filed under News, Sexual Assault

I Was R****

The other day, I was texting a friend while driving. Since that is illegal- I wasn’t actually texting in the conventional sense- but I was speaking into my phone’s voice recorder -which takes what I say and transcribes it into a text. So there I was in the middle of a heavy text conversation- as heavy as a text conversation can get- talking about how I was r****. I looked down at my phone. R****? Not often is anyone daring enough to censor me, least of all my cell phone. In the past, I’ve noticed the voice recorder had blocked a few words from being transcribed and changed certain words from their original form to words like f***, b****, and s***. That I can understand- well no not really, but I do know that the FCC also blocks out many of those words on open channels, so in the conventional sense it is common in the US for those typical “swears” to be censored, but rape?

Continue reading

3 Comments

Filed under News, Sexual Assault