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I posted this yesterday, it was flagged.
Today, I am posting it again because I believe the HN readers will benefit from it. Why? The majority of HN readers work in IT or adjacent information fields; we communicate information with strings aka words.
It has been flagged again after being #1 on frontpage.
Falsehoods programmers believe about strings: All strings are words.
More seriously: While I find the topic appropriate for HN, connecting the topicality to the use of strings in IT is weird. If the ban only applied to audio or sign language, the topic wouldn’t be any less appropriate.
I flagged it because it is hyper-partisan hyperbole. Censorship is when the government prevents others from speaking. When the government decides what the government itself will or will not say, that is not censorship, and—from a First Amendment perspective—it is perfectly appropriate. See Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, 576 U.S. 200, 115 S.Ct. 2239 (2015).
Yes, it definitely is censorship, because scientists employed by the government may not report findings, existing government information is being erased, and the public cannot access it. So studies about racial concerns are cancelled, programs measuring the rate of climate change are being cancelled and the data and even the data collecting instrumentation is destroyed. This list of banned words is just one aspect of the censorship ... taken as a whole, this is an unconstitutional censorship of data that has public health and public safety implications. Does it qualify as Hacker News? Well, does Hacker News even exist when we no longer have access to critical data? Is that not topical? And does this kind of post suddenly become relevant when the government starts censoring the website directly? And how would we know when that starts to happen? Are you going to magically send us all letters in the mail? Or will you just silently acquiesce?
Flatly incorrect in all respects. Justice Breyer had an extreme minority concurrence in Summum that might have been sympathetic to your view—he would have used a balancing test even in government speech cases—but it quite simply is not the law.
And that is flat ignorance of all the other context of destruction of data going on right now. Ignoring that research data is being maintained by private citizens to protect it doesn't support your point. Censorship of government websites is just a small piece of this, ignoring it doesn't help anyone but a rank partisan, which you clearly are.
the mention of which can now result in research grants or other agreements with the federal government getting nixed.
That sounds like censorship to me.
That's definitionally unsound. Again. The government deciding what government speech will be is not censorship.
No it's the government deciding what you are and are not allowed to say in your grant.
That string of words is nonsensical. Literally nothing in the OP is talking about "your grant."
If you want to start your own grant, either personally or through a foundation you start, nothing in the OP pertains to you.
The OP is only about whether the government will endorse speech contained in your application for a government grant, which—again—is categorically different from what you said and fundamentally not censorship.
There is not simply one government in the US.
It seems the federal executive admin is censoring government websites of all levels and branches of government.
Also, it's just clearly not true, even for the government? For example, here is the CDC mentioning Opioids, which are ostensibly "banned:" https://www.cdc.gov/overdose-prevention/about/understanding-... . Similarly, "female:" https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/images/databriefs/451-500/db491-fig...
Many of the rest are clearly editorial or phrasing preferences (e.g., "Latinx" in place of "Latino/a"), which are reasonable to have; I'm sure any mainstream publication like the NYT also has its own preferred language and style guidelines.
True. And a lot of examples from the previous administration, for example, where you weren't allowed to say "gay" or "equality" or "equal opportunity."
Even still, this list is passed around at my university where researchers are censoring their proposals to not include these words. That's called a chilling effect, and it's against the ideals of free speech.
This is a decent point but still falls flat for now. Their proposals are just that: proposals for government-funded speech.
That said, it's plausible it could have a chilling effect on their independent research, which is of concern.
> proposals for government-funded speech
No, these are public proposals for public money to do public research. There shouldn't be restrictions on want can be funded based on the President's own personal morality. This isn't the "government's" money or Republican money or the Trump administration's money; it's our money, allocated for research that American public decided that scientists and academic institutions, who by dedicating their life to these pursuits and demonstrating excellence in the process, earned the right to conduct. Although the executive branch has the power, they do not have the mandate to impose its own morality on the entire country, that's what Congress is for.
I'm not saying every proposal deserves to be funded, but I'm saying proposals should not be denied funding on the basis of capricious, political, partisan, myopic moral crusades.
> That said, it's plausible it could have a chilling effect on their independent research, which is of concern.
This is more than plausible, it's actually happening at my workplace at least. Very anti free-speech for a party that said they were pro free-speech.
Surely you are not so stupid to misunderstand and ignore the chilling effects of this?
Sounds like the Republican party would really support the adoption Newspeak.
> It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc — should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.
This is ungood.
Diesel, Ethanol, Pyrolysis? Haha, odd. I know this is supposed to be “not allowed in government documents” and so on but I think it would be useful to have a list of “words that are not permitted to be used in the US”.
It could be a convenience list that one could refer to to ensure that they’re not about to say a banned word. E.g. obviously the n word and r word are on it, but is homeless on it? Gay? A single source of truth to know what you’re not allowed to say would be good.
"Black"? Being a black man I am more interested in the context in which this list is applied and hope just the list/words in the abstract are not being simply used as rage bait.
Edit: I no longer think me being a black male is relevant in this context because after looking further into the list it basically covers multiple terms that apply to everyone; thus I think context of application is even more important and the list in itself is fairly irrelevant.
Not an American but, if I had to guess, it would be 'Black' with a capital letter (as in the list of words) and not 'black' all in lowercase. It is likely to align the use of capital letters with other races in the US (white and black, for example, instead of white and Black).
In the context of "anti-woke" ideology. Many people currently in power believe that if we do not talk about race, by literally not using the words, that longstanding societal issues will simply disappear. Same too with many scientific principals. In power or not, these people are idiots.
Agreed, but I and obviously you are not and we do not have to pretend to be by becoming enraged at their idiotic behavior if it has no material impact.
Secondly, I do not agree that they think issues will "disappear"; I believe that they simply think this gives them license to impose their will on the groups that identify with said banned terms.
Imposing one's will upon other people is the primary driver of modern politics. Live and let live is gone.
"anti-woke" is also an unhelpful label, given top Dems (who were pushing woke 1.0) are now re-branding to woke 2.0.
It's an ostrich worldview, it occurs in other contexts well:
Trump on COVID: "If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any"
Or more recently, Trump March EO from March: "Rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame"
So they see efforts so shed light on America's dark history as deepinging social devide and fostering national shame. What's the proposed solution? Make everything right? Bring accountability? No, it's ostrich time! The order:
“ensure that all public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties … do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living … and instead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/rest...
(Also hilarious that these days whitehouse.gov deploys more dark patterns than whitehouse.com)
Here's an incomplete list of what they've done so far:
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/trump-administratio...
A court-ordered inventory showed that the Park Service had removed at least 51 exhibits from 37 parks and monuments. The removed or targeted material involved slavery, civil rights, Indigenous history, womens rights, Japanese American incarceration, LGBTQ history, and climate change.
They do the opposite as well: saying things and insisting that alone makes them true.
e.g. Renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Claiming the 2020 election was rigged. Deciding they have the unilateral right to invade countries.
For context on PEN America, from Wikipedia[1]
> PEN America (formerly PEN American Center), founded in 1922, and headquartered in New York City, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
> whose goal is to raise awareness for the protection of free expression in the United States and worldwide through the advancement of
> literature and human rights.
While laudable, first amendment protections don’t apply to government institutions.
It has reached beyond government institutions. From the linked article:
"These policies’ tentacles already extend beyond government websites... Reports say scientists are self-censoring in hopes of improving their chances of getting government grants."
In regards to government institutions, limiting speech in this way will cause people to die.
For example, banning the phrase "air pollution" will curtail efforts to address air pollution, e.g. scientists not submitting research proposals addressing air pollution, causing people to die as a result[1].
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/climate-health/php/effects/air-pollution...
Their CEO was in the Obama admin, and they didn't really press Biden/Obama to the same extent with high profile advocacy on whistleblowers, Assange, Espionage Act, etc.
This is a left wing think tank.
Edit: article flagged presumably for bias.
Can that list be real? If so, it's absolutely crazy. A lot of very common words are blocked.
~200 of the 350 come from a suit brought against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The rest are probably true in a sense but not written down like those are.
Yes. The page cites numerous sources. It may vary by agency.
Example: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/07/us/trump-fede...
Years ago I worked inside Akismet - https://akismet.com - which is an Automattic product.
Akismet, along with user chosen comment moderated lists in 'Comments > Discussion' would not publish certain comment content.
For example, you put 'bad' in to your moderation list and if someone wrote 'badger' your comment was moderated, and probably deleted.
Various sites had "Copy this Bad Words List"
There was/is a medication called cialis
Lots of spam - email, web, comment, used those 6 letters
There was a HUGE amount of comments caught that used socialist, socialism in the US elections.
I don't understand. Is "woman" not allowed to appear in any govt. website? What??
I think they'd prefer it replaced with female in every and all cases :(
female is also on that list...
The approved term is “Axlotl tank”
I think our priorities are so effed right now smh
It clearly can.
America 250