Swear filter

A swear filter, also known as a profanity filter, is a part of some internet programs which modifies a user's text to remove words deemed offensive by the administrator or community related to these programs. Swear filters are common in custom-programmed chat rooms and online video games, primarily MMORPGs. This is not to be confused with content filtering, which is usually built into internet browsing programs by third parties to filter or block specific websites or types of websites. Swear filters are created or implemented by the developers of the internet service.

Function

Swear filters typically take advantage of string swapping functions, almost always built into the programming language used to create the program, to swap out a list of inappropriate words and phrases with a variety of alternatives. Alternatives can include:

• A sequence of shift-number characters, such as !@#$%^&*
• Asterisks (*) of either a set length, or the length of the original word being filtered
• Family friendly words or phrases, like "LOVE" or "I LOVE YOU", or completely different words which have nothing to do with the original word.
• Nothing at all. So if the word "you" were filtered, "Are you there?" would become "Are there?"

Some swear filters do a simple search for a string. Others have measures that ignore whitespace, and still others go as far as ignoring all non-alphanumeric characters and then filtering the plain text. This means that if the word "you" was set to be filtered, "y o u" or "y.o!u" would also be filtered.

Unexpected consequences

A common quirk with swear filters, often considered either comical or annoying by users, is that they often affect words that are not intended to be filtered. This is a typical problem when short words are filtered. For example, if the word "ass" is filtered, so may "glass", "molasses", "assassin", and other words which contain the sequence "ass". Multiple words may also be filtered if whitespace is ignored, often resulting in sequences such as "As suspected" becoming "****uspected". Filters with this issue are commonly razzed by members of the community where these filters are implemented, especially when there is no option to turn the filter off.

In the Justin.tv chat, "cock" was automatically replaced by "willy", so discussions about Alfred Hitchcock quickly turned to discussions about "Alfred Hitchwilly."

Some words that have been filtered accidentally can become replacements for profane words. One example of this is found on the Myst forum Mystcommunity. There, the word 'manuscript' was accidentally censored for containing the word 'anus', which resulted in 'm****cript'. The word was adopted as a replacement swear and carried over when the forum moved, and many substitutes, such as " 'scripting ", are used (though mostly by the older community members).

Sometimes, swear filters can miss out duplicated words. For example, if the word "fuck" was entered twice, the second "fuck" may show up. File:Faulty swear filter.gif

Implementation

Many games, such as World of Warcraft, and more recently, Habbo Hotel allow the user to turn the filters off. Other games, especially free MMOs, such as Knight Online and Virtual Magic Kingdom, do not have such an option.

See also

• Medireview
• Scunthorpe Problem

External links

• CDYNE Profanity Filter - Free XML Web Service for developers
• WebPurify - Swear filter API for web developers