Google’s document editor will begin to correct the language of what people type to be more ‘inclusive’, according to a report in the Telegraph.
The article, headlined Big Brother (sorry, Big Person) is correcting you on Google, outlines how the company is to implement ‘inclusive warnings’ on Google Docs, suggesting that users refrain from using terms such as ‘policeman’ or ‘landlord’, because they are gendered.
The warnings will alert users that what they have typed “may not be inclusive to all readers,” while suggesting users should “Consider using different words,” offering woke corrections like ‘police officer’ or ‘property owner’.
The report notes, however, that even technical terms like ‘motherboard’ fall prey to Google’s woke correction.
When Googling John F. Kennedy’s inauguration speech, Google suggests that it should be corrected to ‘for all humankind’ instead of ‘for all mankind’.
Critics hit out at Google attempting to police and change language, with Silkie Carlo, the director of rights group Big Brother Watch, calling it “deeply intrusive.”
“With Google’s new assistive writing tool, the company is not only reading every word you type but telling you what to type,” she noted.
“This speech-policing is profoundly clumsy, creepy and wrong, often reinforcing bias. Invasive tech like this undermines privacy, freedom of expression and increasingly freedom of thought,” Carlo added.
Lazar Radic, a senior scholar in economic policy at the International Centre for Law and Economics, noted that “Not only is this incredibly conceited and patronising – it can also serve to stifle individuality, self-expression, experimentation, and – from a purely utilitarian perspective – progress.”
Radic explained, “What if ‘landlord’ is the better choice because it makes more sense, narratively, in a novel? What if ‘house owner’ sounds wooden and fails to invoke the same sense of poignancy? What if the defendant really was a ‘housewife’ – and refers to herself as such? Should all written pieces – including written forms of art, such as novels, lyrics, and poetry – follow the same, boring template?”
The feature on Google Docs, which could easily be shifted over to its search engine, is now on by default for what the company has termed ‘enterprise-level users’.
Google has stated that “Assisted writing uses language understanding models, which rely on millions of common phrases and sentences to automatically learn how people communicate. This also means they can reflect some human cognitive biases.”
So here we have Google literally taking on the role of the Ministry of Truth from Orwell’s 1984, policing language and making sure that its Newspeak is implemented whenever necessary.
That novel was a dystopian warning, not an instructional manual.
The French Open tennis tournament has warned Russian players not to make political statements in support of President Vladimir Putin if they wish to take part in the grand slam.
Unlike Wimbledon, where they will be banned altogether, Russian and Belarusian players will be allowed to compete at Roland-Garros, but only under strictly neutral status.
However, Russian stars have been cautioned that they will face sanctions if they express anything other than pro-Ukraine opinions in the media in the run up to the event.
Roland-Garros Tournament Director Amelie Mauresmo made the tournament organizer’s position clear in a statement given to the press.
“We keep the line of what all the European governments – and other governments – decided in March, i.e. national teams of Russia and Belarus banned, but not the athletes as individuals, as long as they play under strict neutrality,” said Mauresmo.
“We will be very meticulous on that,” Mauresmo vowed. “[But] if any of them should have pro-Putin statements in the media, there will be sanctions for sure,” he added.
This obviously sets a dangerous precedent in terms of the free speech of prominent public figures.
Today, they’re mandated to support the NATO-aligned narrative about the Ukraine to be able to properly pursue their careers.
Next year, it could be something completely different, and indeed it was when Novak Djokavic was punished by Australian authorities for refusing to take a COVID-19 vaccine.
Who knows – sports athletes, actors, musicians could all in future be forced to sign up to some kind of ideological purity test that codifies their inability to challenge regime narratives lest they be hit with instant cancellation and career suicide.
As we highlighted last month, Ukrainian tennis star Elina Svitolina demanded that Russian and Belarusian players be subjected to ideological purity tests before they are allowed to compete in international tournaments.
Before Wimbledon slapped a total ban on all Russian players, then world number one Daniil Medvedev was told he would have to publicly denounce Vladimir Putin to be able to compete.
Billionaire Elon Musk announced that his deal to buy Twitter is “temporarily on hold” over questions about whether fake and spam accounts really do represent less than 5 per cent of users.
“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” Musk tweeted.
Despite Musk last week securing $7 billion from new investors for his $44billion takeover, Twitter shares fell 20 per cent in premarket trading in response to the news.
The Tesla founder has made it one of his priorities to eliminate “spam bots” form the platform, which Twitter claims represent fewer than 5% of its monetisable daily active users.
Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn
Media reports circulated earlier in the week suggesting Musk could still pull out of the deal and pay a $1 billion dollar compensation fee, but that may be waived if Twitter hasn’t been honest about the scale of its bot problem.
Blue checkmarks on Twitter are likely to welcome the news that the deal is on hold given that they have been panicking for the last several weeks about being unable to further entrench their censorship agenda if Musk takes over the platform.
Earlier this week, Musk asserted that the decision to permanently suspend President Donald Trump was “foolish” and that Trump would be allowed to re-instate his account after Musk’s takeover.
The billionaire added that under his stewardship, permanent bans would become a thing of the past, aside from when they’re applied to fake accounts.