How a new language code is being used online to beat the algorithm

Did you hear about ldquoleg bootyrdquo ldquoseggsrdquo ldquocornucopiardquo or ldquobeing unaliverdquo during the ldquopanoramicrdquo or ldquopanini pressrdquo This is not gibberish bizarre though these words may be and the sentence itself incomprehensible The literal translation is Did you hear about LGBTQ sex homophobia or being dead during the pandemicBut why not say it out straightAlgospeak derived from lsquoalgorithmrsquo and lsquospeakrsquo is the mangled spelling of words that would otherwise raise red flags on the Internet and risk censorship of content Using a code of symbols emojis and words that sound alike these words evade algorithms that filter contentArunima JldquoIn 201718rdquo says 21yearold Manas Mishra ldquowhen I joined Twitter I observed people tweaking words to say something problematic or make fun of someone You canrsquot directly tell someone to go lsquokill yourselfrsquo as a joke so instead you say lsquokysrsquo or lsquoKll yourselfrsquordquoWhile Algospeak is seen more on TikTok globally in India Twitter and Instagram speak it primarily A cybersecurity consultant who plays an integral part in developing Artificial Intelligence AI and algorithms to detect emotions on social media explains ldquoAlgospeak is mainly used by content creators who want to reach a larger audience Take for instance a gamer who wants to say lsquoI killed that guyrsquo or lsquolook at this headshotrsquo To the AI this would be promoting violencerdquoSome outliers are sticking to their grammar such as Bengalurubased illustrator Akshara Ashok She makes comics supporting body positivity and sex education and doesnrsquot shy away from writing sex penis vagina vulva as the dictionary intended instead of ldquoseggsrdquo ldquoexrdquo or ldquoS3xrdquo like her peers ldquoMy whole stand is that I wonrsquot censor anythingrdquo she says Ashok who has over two lakh followers on Instagram admits that her posts have been removed and she has been shadowbanned but she has ldquostopped caring how many people see my workrdquo ldquoMany people donrsquot understand the difference between sex education and eroticardquo she shrugs Conversely Mansi Pandey uses ldquoseggsrdquo instead of sex while texting because itrsquos cute and less awkward ldquoIt makes the conversation lightheartedrdquo says the 22yearold social media marketer and content creatorMansi Pandey Akshara Ashok Yash Agrawal and Brijesh SinghMishra who just graduated in mass media tweaks words when he wants to have fun or say something sarcastic without being direct He replaces lsquoarsquo with ldquordquo or lsquoIrsquo with ldquordquo ldquoPeople only use such words either in a problematic context or while being lighthearted On Discord a social media platform for communication and streaming music many words are bannedrdquo he says ldquoso people use Algospeak when a new person joins and it is usually taken in good spiritrdquo The words also come in handy while sharing spoilers ldquoIf I want to comment on a trending topic but donrsquot want my tweets to be grouped together and highlighted under hashtags to avoid being targeted by fan groups I use keywords and symbolsrdquo For example when fan accounts dedicated to Korean boy band BTS began reporting accounts that tweeted negatively Mishra ldquowould type BTrdquoJuhubased Arunima J replaces the words lsquosuicidersquo and lsquokill myselfrsquo with ldquoSudokurdquo and ldquokmsrdquo on Twitter ldquoSad or depressed people vent on Twitter without worrying about judgementrdquo she explains ldquoBut they can be reported out of concern Sudoku wouldnrsquot ring a bell and they would continue scrollingrdquoYash Agrawal a data scientist at Jio believes this hack is shortlived ldquoIf programmers are smart enough to build such astute algorithms they are smart enough to detect these changesrdquo he says Agrawal helps build fundamental NLP Natural Language Processing models a branch of computer science and AI that gives computers the ability to understand text and spoken words the way humans do Itrsquos simply a matter of adding these coded words to the dataset he says ldquoAt the border of evolution these models may fail but as more and more people start using such words they will become mainstreamrdquoIn fact he says that lately a lot of people are working on models where AI considers the context as well and not a particular word to define hate speech Itrsquos called sentence modeling and the AI also quantifies the probability saying it has a high probable percentage of being hate speech or a lower percentage ldquoSo if it sees kll it wonrsquot label it as hate speech but admit a much smaller percentage of confidence that it isnrsquotrdquo he says ldquoThe systems are in tandem with a human who tracks these unique terms The framework is called active learning and a human can feed lsquokllrsquo into the data set to train the model to pick at itrdquoHate mongering online is the elemental crux of this issue and screenwriter of Scam 1992 and Inside Edge Vaibhav Vishal has been on the receiving end He believes that virulent elements adapt vernacular abuses to use them effectively ldquoWhenever I write something against mainstream ideologies the hatred is spewed in the form of these random spellings that cannot be reportedrdquo He holds that moderation isnrsquot working at all ldquoAI and the algorithm have to be smarterrdquo he says ldquoDevelopers have to be one step aheadrdquoThese words mask dark and illegal intentions too ldquoCheese pizzardquo are accounts that trade in pornographic pictures of children ldquotouch the ceilingrdquo is coaxing young girls to share explicitly sexual photographs ldquoPDF filerdquo stands for paedophile and the corn emoji or ldquopronrdquo means porn Additional Director General of Police Brijesh Singh agrees that such terms slip under the radar and honest conversation between parents and children can help ldquoAnything illegal offline is illegal online as wellrdquo he reminds us and says methods beyond keyword and symbol detection will have to be enlisted ldquoIt is time to build appropriate safe protocols for Internet and social media usagerdquoA senior cyber security consultant believes that there is no real way to clean up the everevolving Internet ldquoPolicy makers should draft censorship and moderation policies such that they allow both pro and anti factions to express themselves freelyrdquo he saysSexexSeggsS3xDeadDed UnaliveSuicideSudokuLesbianLebian