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points by noitpmeder 12 hours ago | 0 comments

How the hell can they defend banning “Trayvon Martin” of all things. Are they now the arbiters responsible for quashing social movements?

This is an _insane_ lever for censorship. Does Israel pay them to omit “the occupied territories”? Is that internal Apple policy irrespective of nation state pressure?

It's not just madness that these exist, but that they are hidden, unexposed to the user, and have no justification or rationale.

[–] nsoam 12 hours ago

Interestingly, I didn’t know who that was so I used the “Look up” feature and it said it was a “Murdered” person, but in the Wikipedia entry it says the shooter was acquitted - ie the victim was not found to have been murdered.

I wonder where that summary came from?

[–] eesmith 10 hours ago

Acquitted means that the jury did not find the evidence persuasive enough to decide guilt for the charged person for the charged crime. It does not mean the victim was not found to have been murdered. Juries don't decide that.

Otherwise there would not be things like "List of unsolved murders (2000–present)". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_murders_(2000...

[–] rootusrootus 6 hours ago

IMO Trayvon was murdered. But I don't get the same reading from the acquittal that you do. Nobody disputes that Zimmerman killed Trayvon. But murder is a crime, and the jury decided that Zimmerman did not commit murder. Therefore Trayvon is a victim of homicide, but not a victim of murder. Legally, I mean, which is what the jury is deciding.

The unsolved murders list is probably the same deal, it is colloquial and not legal, and with nobody accused and put to trial, it may yet end up legally murder.

[–] eesmith 56 minutes ago

Which is why, contra nsoam, it makes sense that Martin's name would be on a list of murdered people.

It's the same standard we use for Nicole Brown Simpson, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Nicole_Brown_Simpson... :

> On June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman were murdered outside Brown's condominium in Brentwood, Los Angeles, United States. Brown's ex-husband, retired football player and media personality O. J. Simpson, was charged with the murders and became a fugitive from justice after failing to turn himself in to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) on June 17. ... The subsequent criminal trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court saw Simpson tried and acquitted for the murders.[1] The trial and verdict were divisive. A later civil trial found Simpson liable for the deaths and awarded the Goldman family $33.5 million in damages (equivalent to $67 million in 2025 dollars), though little was paid.

He was acquitted of the crime of murder. A jury determined O. J. Simpson was liable for the killing. People still say she and her friend were murdered.

[–] bawolff 6 hours ago

I feel like you are really picking apart hairs here.

There is not a huge difference between "the victim was not found to have been murdered." and "the jury did not find the evidence persuasive enough to decide guilt for the charged person for the charged crime". If you want to get really nitpicky, just because "the victim was not found to have been murdered", doesn't mean that they weren't murdered. Whether they were found to be murdered is a different statement than if they were actually murdered.

[–] eesmith 42 minutes ago

My reading of nsoam's comment is the implication that they are identical.

Remember, this is someone who never heard of Trayvon Martin, which suggests to me someone who doesn't know much about the US criminal court system.

While I remember that Nicole Brown Simpson and friend Ron Goldman were murdered, and are widely described as being murdered, even after O. J. Simpson was acquitted of that murder, so I have no surprise seeing Martin listed as a '“Murdered” person' even after Zimmerman's acquittal.

[–] bdhe 11 hours ago

You really didn't know who that was, but had to look into the Wikipedia entry in detail enough to read about a jury decision and then frame it in a different way than written in Wikipedia (which rightly talks about the judicial process related to specific charges brought against Zimmerman, not an absolute statement of facts, such as "victim was not found to have been murdered").

I'm flagging that this doesn't sound like a good faith discussion. The green account raises my priors.

Note that I'm not suggesting that Apple's policy on censorship is good, quite the contrary.

[–] bawolff 6 hours ago

The person you replied to wrote "shooter was acquitted"

Wikipedia writes in the second paragraph "...but a jury acquitted him of second-degree murder and manslaughter in July 2013"

How is that framed differently than Wikipedia did?

Or do you mean the part after "i.e.", but i.e. is literally latin for "in other words". So obviously the part after i.e. was reframed, that is what i.e. means.

[–] bdhe 6 hours ago

You alluded to it. Murdered vs. found to have been murdered. There's a conflation going on there and its clear why.

[–] nsoam 6 hours ago

The iOS summary says that he was murdered.

The Wikipedia entry states that a jury found that the person who killed him did not murder him. If what was done to him was not murder, then he was not murdered.

Therefore the iOS summary is wrong.

[–] bawolff 4 hours ago

You accused them of arguing in bad faith, but it seems like the only issue here is that you disagree with them, not that they did anything in bad faith.

Its a reasonable view for someone to think that if a court finds a "not guilty" verdict, and there is no dispute over who the killer is, especially if one of the defenses raised is self defense or lack of intent, then the term murdered is inappropriate. It is also reasonable for someone to disagree with that position. I don't have a dog in that fight, i just object to accusing without further basis, anyone who disagrees as being in bad faith.

[–] bbg2401 12 hours ago

It’s neither censorship nor banning. It’s simply not autocompleted.

[–] noitpmeder 12 hours ago

This is exactly censorship via omission. What could possibly be the intent here other than to discourage use of these phrases across wide swaths of the population.

[–] jerf 12 hours ago

Making it so they aren't in the pool of errors that can be made. I want to be able to type swear words, but I don't want profanity to come out when I try to swipe "duck". Socially, emotionally, and politically loaded phrases make sense to require a bit more care for.

That is a general answer to your question. It is not a specific defense of the particular word list in question. But I can say I've been surprised a few times about what I accidentally swiped on Android. Bitch isn't swipable but I have "bitchiest" readily available, for instance.

[–] Jtarii 11 hours ago

Then have "child friendly mode" be an option and the adults can have "fuck" back. This isn't a difficult design problem.

This is just the type of thing that makes everyone hate modern technology.

[–] wat10000 5 hours ago

I like having a phone that doesn't spontaneously insert "fuck" into my messages because it thought I might mean that. That could lead to some unfortunate situations. When I want to use the word I'm perfectly capable of typing it.

[–] noitpmeder 12 hours ago

I get "fuck" and "duck". I don't get "the occupied territories", "the Hamas movement", and "Trayvon Martin".

[–] sigmar 12 hours ago

>It's simply not autocompleted.

Inaccurate. According to swipeblocked.com it is blocked with both swiping and autocomplete.

[–] akersten 12 hours ago

We're not censoring the book. It's simply not on the shelves. You can ask for it by name if you like. You have to spell it out exactly though, or else the librarian will deny any knowledge of it.