Monday, January 05, 2009

Does The NY Times Think "Gay" Is A Beeping Word?

Censorship is generally never a good thing, unless you have some sort of family broadcast and a host inexplicably starts cursing and doing all sorts of inappropriate things. That is besides the point though. "Beep," "beep" and "beep" are good substitutes for "F**k," "s**t" and "a**." But the New York Times has added another beeping word to their mobile service that is either ridiculously careless or just plain stupid, homophobic and ignorant.

From Towleroad:

Nyt4

A bad word?

Text message someone an article with the word "gay" in the title from the New York Times' mobile website, and they may be a bit confused as to what you're sending them.

That's because the service replaces every instance of "gay" in a headline with the word "beep".

My friend Al sent a message to me on New Years Eve containing a link to Frank Rich's recent column about Rick Warren, and it arrived with the headline "You're Likable Enough, 'beep' People."

I wonder if Pastor Warren had anything to do with it? And how could the Times allow that to be censored, or was it the spitefulness of someone that works at their mobile server? Either way, someone in charge needs to do something about it or "beeping" heads will roll.