Repugnant and deleted blog posts: AI and the Justice Stewart test

 As someone who sometimes writes and speaks about repugnant transactions and controversial markets, I'm aware that people may object not only to the things I write about, but also to the fact that I write about them. So I was surprised but not shocked when I got a notice earlier this week that two of my blog posts had been deleted by Google, which runs the site that hosts this blog.  And another two were put behind a warning that readers have to acknowledge before being allowed to read them.

The emails had a link at which I could request that the deletions be reviewed, and my two deleted posts were promptly restored.  But which posts were deleted, by what I assume was an algorithm?

Here are the subject lines from the two emails about deleted posts (and the now restored posts themselves):

Your post titled "NY Times debate: Is Prostitution Safer when It's Legal?" has been deleted

Sunday, May 20, 2012

NY Times debate: Is Prostitution Safer when It's Legal?

and

Your post titled "Legal prostitution and crime in the Netherlands" has been deleted

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Legal prostitution and crime in the Netherlands

So I guess the word "prostitution" plays a role in the decision to delete these two posts, but that can't be the whole story, since I now have about 80 posts that I labeled as concerning prostitution, at least in part. (To put things in perspective, I have well over a thousand posts labeled as concerning 'repugnance'.) Also, the algorithm that deleted them is probably new, since the posts themselves were old but were only deleted and then restored this week.

The two  (also old) posts  that were put behind an "adult" warning screen also seem to have now been released from this distinction: here are the email headings and posts, which you can once again see without certifying your adult status:

Your post titled "Ethnic dating sites" has been put behind a warning for readers

Friday, September 3, 2010

Ethnic dating sites

and

Your post titled "Markets for adult entertainments" has been put behind a warning for readers

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Markets for adult entertainments

So algorithms searching for inappropriate content (even those employed by the leader in algorithmic search) still fall short of Justice Stewart's famous 1964 declaration about pornography, that it was difficult to define, but "I know it when I see it." 

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Earlier related post:

Monday, October 19, 2020

Censoring repugnant words by algorithm

Censoring repugnant words by algorithm

 Some people like to say things that other people think they shouldn't say.  In the age of the internet, politeness can be (somewhat) automated, by banning certain words.  But of course, words have contexts. Here's a funny story from the Guardian:

Overzealous profanity filter bans paleontologists from talking about bones--A virtual conference was thrown into confusion when the platform hosting the event came with a pre-packaged ‘naughty word’ censor by Poppy Noor.

"Participants in a virtual paleontology session found themselves caught between a rock and a hard place last week, when a profanity filter prevented them from using certain words – such as bone, pubic, stream and, er, beaver – during an online conference.

"The US-based Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) held its annual meeting virtually this year due to the pandemic, but soon found its audience stifled when they tried to use particular words.

"Convey Services, which was was handling the conference, used a “naughty-word filter,” for the conference, outlawing a pre-selected list of words.

"“Words like ‘bone’, ‘pubic’, and ‘stream’ are frankly ridiculous to ban in a field where we regularly find pubic bones in streams,” said Brigid Christison, a master’s student in biology attending the event

...

"Some discovered bias in the algorithm, too. Jack Tseng, a vertebrate paleontologist from the University of Berkley pointed out that the filter had banned the common surname Wang but not Johnson – even though both are frequently used as slang words to describe a man’s genitals."

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Here's Dr. Tseng's tweet:

Z. Jack Tseng, @Tseng_ZJ

"Wang" is banned but not "Johnson" (both used as slangs). This western-centric filter erasing the surname of 90+ million Chinese but not <2 million people of European descent is unexpectedly on brand for 2020,  ! My PhD advisor is X. **** by the way. "

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Previous related posts:

Monday, September 12, 2016 Repugnant language: some reflections on profanity

 

Friday, August 7, 2015 You can't say that! Repugnant words

HT: Muriel Niederle