Google Play Bans Video App For Standard '.ass' Subtitle Support (arstechnica.com) 80
Google Play's crazy automated app review process strikes again. From a report: This time, the puritan robot overlords that run the Play Store briefly decided that listing support for common subtitle files is enough to get your app banned. The developer for Just (Video) Player wrote in the app's bug tracker, "After a tiny unrelated description update, Just Player got suspended from the Google Play Store for "Sexual Content and Profanity policy". Google finds issues with following: Full description (en_US): "* Subtitles: SRT, SSA, ASS, TTML, VTT."" Yes, just listing standard video player features like support for the "ASS" subtitle format was apparently enough to temporarily earn a suspension. The developer says they "immediately filed an appeal" and today, the app is back up with the ASS subtitle listing still in the description.
Darn It (Score:5, Funny)
There goes my plan to offer an app with Fully Automated Resonance Tracking.
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No mod points to spare. But have a +1 Kek.
Re: Darn It (Score:2)
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I don't get it. Is ass rude?
Hence "puritan robots".
Re: Darn It (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd imagine it's a matter of context, but how dumb that we give words that much power.
My wife says "piss" isn't a swear word, and a lady I work with who is very much against swearing dropped it into a conversation last week and also insists it's not a swear word. It's on George Carlin's "7 Words You Can't Say on Television" - if I had said it as a kid, I would have been reprimanded. Again, it's likely a matter of context, but she wasn't talking about urinating, she was saying she was angry about something.
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Give the word cunt a try and see how far you get with them....
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No problem in Australia.
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No problem in Australia.
It's a cunt of a problem, but I'm sure some cunt will sort it out.
Re: Darn It (Score:4, Funny)
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At most it would be a vulgarity. Piss is onomatopoeia (think stone wall).
Re: Darn It (Score:1)
"Piss" is considered vulgar because it is one of those Germanic words in English that the French-speaking rulers of England didn't use by virtue of being French speakers. Shit is another such word. Proper people don't shit, they defecate. They also eat, "poultry," "beef" and "venison." Peasants eat bird, cow and deer.
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Peasants eat bird, cow and deer.
And dung [bbc.co.uk]. Which I'm sure the French nobility never did, at least knowingly.
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Re: Darn It (Score:5, Funny)
I don't get it. Is ass rude?
For many it is, the kids-friendly alternative being "butt". And then we have all those clbuttic misconfigured profanity filters adding to the hilarity.
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That's what happens when you add Smart Hacking Interface Technology.
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South Harmon Institute of Technology
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More like time to woke ban Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org], ohh my god how insulting a Mongolian Wild Ass, the mind boggles.
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There goes my plan to offer an app with Fully Automated Resonance Tracking.
...or my Self Healing Infrastructure Technology.
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...or Reentrant External Time Assisted Reticulation Device
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There goes my plan to offer an app with Fully Automated Resonance Tracking.
...or my Self Healing Infrastructure Technology.
I can assure you, buried in many chips from my employer, there is a circuit called the Secure Hardware Integrity Test. Nobody seemed to mind.
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I hate our culture (Score:5, Insightful)
We are not ruled by cowards. We are ruled by robots that worship cowards.
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Re:I hate our culture (Score:4, Insightful)
American English is the main problem in this case. An ass is a donkey. The anatomical part is an arse, like it should be in a Germanic language.
Re: I hate our culture (Score:3)
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American English is the main problem in this case. An ass is a donkey. The anatomical part is an arse, like it should be in a Germanic language.
Arse is UK English.
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"American English" is cute. As if British English is more "authentic".
The origin of the use of ASS for "buttocks" is prior to the 12th Century (i.e. before America) (According to Webster Dictionary), as is Arse meaning the same thing.
I love language evolution. It is a convoluted mess.
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Arse comes from proto-Germanic. It is the same in other Germanic languages - Arsch in German, arsel in Swedish, aars in Dutch. So yes, it is more authentic in this case.
For those who don't know (Score:1)
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Next up: the TP4B format!
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It wasn't Apple who screwed up, it was Google.
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ASS stands for Sub Station Alpha. No joke. The guys who invented apparently chose that name and the use of the reverse acronym because they have senses of humor like Beavis and Butthead. Yeah, Apple screwed up here for sure, but the name and abbreviation were chosen in the first place so they could say ASS because they thought it was hilarious! Sigh.
How exactly did apple screw up here?
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> How exactly did apple screw up here?
By existing. Brings google down to their level ;-)
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"Ass" isn't inherently sexual. Even when referring to the butt it's not. It can also refer to donkeys, Arsenic Sulfide, a german playing card manufacturer [spielkarten.com], or a bunch of other things easily found in Wikipedia's disambiguation page.
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By having an algorithm that was so dumb it doesn't understand context, and auto censors based on a 3 character string. "Ass" isn't inherently sexual. Even when referring to the butt it's not. It can also refer to donkeys, Arsenic Sulfide, a german playing card manufacturer, or a bunch of other things easily found in Wikipedia's disambiguation page.
Yes, but how exactly did APPLE screw up here?
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ASS stands for Sub Station Alpha. No joke. The guys who invented apparently chose that name and the use of the reverse acronym because they have senses of humor like Beavis and Butthead. Yeah, Apple screwed up here for sure, but the name and abbreviation were chosen in the first place so they could say ASS because they thought it was hilarious! Sigh.
(Some Butthead Coder) Uhhhh, heh, heh...technically the name is accurate."
"Advanced SubStation Alpha (ASS) is a script for more advanced subtitles than SSA..."
Re:For those who don't know (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to blame something for the ASS abbreviation, blame the continued use of 3-letter file extensions to maintain compatibility with flash drives formatted as FAT (which only supports 8.3 filenames). We're stuck with 8.3 because Microsoft owns the patent on newer revisions of FAT which support long filenames. Those expired within the last few years, so we should gradually start to see more sanity in filename extensions.
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Can I blame the widespread use of arcane, abbreviated UNIX commands on technical limitations? I recall that happened because people are lazy at typing and hate readability.
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I object to your calling the filesystem FAT. I believe "gravitationally challenged" is a better fitting term.
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I think Image-Line has them beat with BooBass [image-line.com].
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No, ASS stands for Advanced SubStation Alpha.
Re:OK (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the world's largest companies made a tiny mistake and corrected it quickly after being notified. This might be an interesting tidbit to share over a morning coffee if it happened to you personally. News, it is not.
On the contrary, the fact that Google (A) acknowledged their mistake and (B) fixed it in a timely manner is definitely newsworthy. Historically, it hasn't happened very often.
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One of the world's largest companies has little to no QA processes in place and leaves it to users to find bugs an misfeatures.
(Still not news, sadly, but a better way to describe the situation)
"Do no evil" (Score:2)
... indeed
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That's not evil, merely silly.
Easy solution! (Score:3)
They should rename the file extension to, say, ".butt"? As in Borland Universal Translated Text, of course.
"AI" my "ASS" (Score:2)
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is the state of "AI" today.
And they want to put self-driving cars on the roads. God have mercy on our souls.
Doesn't hurt Google (Score:2)
Google don't give a damn.
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And now I have to go look up the "Honey badger don't give a shit" video again.
well, there goes my next movie title (Score:1)
Thepenismightierthanthesword
You'll have to watch the film to find out what "the s word" is.
Artificial Stupidity strikes again (Score:2)
Google's attempts to automate these things will continue to result in such ridiculous 'decisions'.
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Yeah. But the alternative is to do nothing. Or expect humans to keep up with the flood of online content. If you slip up the wrong way and allow 'objectionable' content online, some self appointed network cop will clutch pearls and make a bundle in a settlement.
Catch it all with AI and let the human moderators sort it out after the fact.
The list of naughty words (Score:4, Insightful)
is constantly shifting, which makes the whole thing inevitably arbitrary and unpredictable.
What's wrong with supporting asses? (Score:2)
When google has a (Score:1)
Research Enhanced Computer Technology for Advanced Linguistics problem, everyone suffers.
Heh Heh Heh, he said ASpirin, Heh Heh (Score:3)
So Google is now run by Beavis and Butt-head.
Well slap my ASS and color me surprised!
It's a complex word, ass (Score:2)
https://classic.teamcoco.com/v... [teamcoco.com]
Cowboy Neal (Score:2)
Is my robot overlord
Oh! Thats why my app is still not approved.... (Score:3)
Somehow it never got approved. Now I think I know why.
Clbuttic (Score:2)
hee hee (Score:2)
so they are into anal? (Score:2)
The Angry Video Game Nerd Says (Score:2)
Ass!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]