algospeak

I remember when as an editor for Macquarie Dictionary, located at that time at Macquarie University, I was researching a taboo word for inclusion in the dictionary. Up popped a box on my screen to say that I should cease and desist or be banned from the university system.  That was a surprise.  I see myself as an unusual example of the people who do need to deal with subjects online and in social media that the rest of the world would regard as taboo or offensive. 

There are algorithms set up to sift through the mass of text in these platforms and weed out posts and sites that are offensive or inappropriate, and we all applaud efforts to keep the social media free of problematic material. To get around these algorithms the people who do need to communicate with each for legitimate reasons are using coded language, given the name algospeak, to avoid detection.  Unalive, a word that I posted recently, is a term used to replace suicide or kill.  You can make an unalive attempt, or you can unalive the bad boys.  There is some humour in the coded words.  Accountant takes the place of sex worker and corn stands for porn. The codes are constantly changing as the people in charge of monitoring the platforms catch on.