Commentary: Censorship and Political Correctness

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Given 18-May-19; 10 minutes

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Microsoft's new AI-based software ("Ideas in Word") is designed to make writing not only grammatically but also politically correct. Algorithms enable the software to find "offensive" and "insensitive" usages and suggest modifications consonant with post-modern values. With the implementation of this software, Microsoft is following in the footsteps of Facebook, Twitter, and Google, an unholy trinity which has a track record of flagging and demonizing conservative value and viewpoints, a de facto approach to censoring free speech. The Silicon Valley's self-appointed 'morality' monitors are intensively carrying out Satan's mandate of calling evil good and good evil, putting darkness (error) for light (truth) and light for darkness, bitterness (sin) for sweet (righteousness) and sweet for bitter (Isaiah 5:20).


transcript:

You are familiar with the politically corrected rewording of some rather common phrases and words, such as:

Thief - morally or ethically challenged person
Drug Addict - chemically challenged
Vagrant - displaced homeowner
Insane People - selectively perceptive

Our language is changing, and it is changing very quickly, thanks to academia and also corporations.

Political correctness is a deception that involves images of humanism rather than the truth that all human beings are created in the image of God. The difference between political correctness and truth is that political correctness is based in perception and truth is based on reality.

Truth is expressed by maturity and humility based on common courtesy, holding others in high esteem and genuine respect for all people. Truth is expressed in love.

Political Correctness is a term used to describe language or behavior, which is claimed to be calculated to provide a minimum of offense—it is interesting that we are following up on the sermonette here ["Offenses Must Come"]; it is amazing how God works things out—particularly to the racial, to the cultural, to the perverted, or to other identity groups based on depravity. It is expressed in hate.

When political correctness is forced on society, it becomes a bizarre type of self-censorship that makes us afraid even to name the enemy, let alone fight it. At its core, it is intimidation which ultimately leads to home-grown terrorism and even civil war. Are we afraid to mention Islam in a negative sense? I think almost everyone is today.

The natural fruit produced from this twisted human reasoning is censorship. Censorship is the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, periodicals, films, television and radio programs, news, websites and e-mail, social media, or other speech in its various forms, that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security. Today, most of those politically correct things fall under that "politically unacceptable" category.

In general, there are four major types of censorship: withholding information, destroying information, altering or using selective information, and self-censorship. The purpose of censorship is the supervision and control of the information and ideas circulated within a society. Today, censorship refers to the examination of media and speech for the purpose of altering or suppressing parts thought to be offensive.

Fox News recently carried an article by James Rogers titled: “Microsoft harnesses AI to make Word politically correct.” How do you make a word processing program politically correct, and why would you do that?

James Rogers says,

Microsoft is harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to boost the use of “inclusive language” in its word-processing software “Word.” The feature is part of “Ideas in Word,” a forthcoming AI-powered online tool designed to improve users’ writing.

In addition to “familiar fixes for spelling and grammatical errors,” Ideas in Word will also offer “advice on more concise and inclusive language,” according to John Roach on Microsoft’s AI blog. Roach used the example of “police officer,” instead of “policeman.”

Also, in the May 8, 2019 issue of Fast Company magazine, Mark Sullivan wrote an article titled, “Microsoft Word is getting politically correct”:

Microsoft will soon preview a version of Word that will use artificial intelligence to make your writing not just grammatically, but politically correct.

Microsoft doesn’t call it a “political correctness check,” but that’s essentially what it is.

Microsoft calls it “Ideas in Word,” which refers to a series of AI-driven features that help you format your document and write better.

For instance, Word will … underline words or phrases that sound insensitive; and suggest corrections. Say you write, “We need to get some fresh blood in here.” The AI is likely to underline “fresh blood” and suggest “new employees” instead.

It might underline places where your writing exhibited gender bias. If you tend to say “mailman” or Congressman” in the generic, it might suggest you use “mailperson” or “Congressperson.”

If you use the term “gentlemen’s agreement,” it may suggest you use “unspoken agreement” instead.

If you describe someone as a “disabled person” the AI would suggest “person with a disability.” Person-first terminology is preferred because it portrays the person as more important than the disability.

Which I find very interesting, because that is exactly how Satan works. He makes something look like it is right and good and the right direction to go, and then he twists it at some point to go against God's people and anyone trying to do anything decent.

The “inclusiveness” checks are part of a larger group of “Refine My Writing” tools that also include clarity, conciseness, punctuation, and “sensitive geopolitical terms.” For that last one, the AI’s models look for phrases that may be hard to understand by, or that might be offensive to, someone in another country or culture, Microsoft says.

Spelling and grammar checks check the user’s words against a fairly agreed-upon set of spellings or usage rules. Correcting words for their “correctness” in the cultural or political sense seems like a more subjective and slippery exercise.

For the various new checks, Microsoft assembled a team of linguists and other experts to anticipate the poor word choices people might make, and assemble lists of terms that would work better, Office Intelligence product manager Malavika Rewari tells me.

Microsoft says it will begin offering a preview of Ideas in Word in June 2019.

That sounds innocent enough, doesn't it? We ministers, and those of you who write sermons and articles, use Word (most likely) like most people do. If you are like me, you use something that checks your grammar, like Grammarly, which is very helpful. But that does not change the words in politically correct speech. This Microsoft Word version is going a step further, and they want to censor the speech that we write in those things. They are saying it is going to be optional whether you have it turned on, but how long until it is not optional, and they are just censoring everything we write and say? Its potential to censor Christian teachers and God’s ministers is extremely high, considering the trend today among politicians, academics, fake-news journalists, political hacks and social media is to demonize the free speech of conservatives and Christians at every turn.

You may recognize some of these recent headlines regarding censorship:

» "City of Houston Demands Pastors Turn Over Sermons" (Fox News)

» "Bible Ban? California Fast-Tracks Bill Aimed at Censoring Biblical Christian Teachings" (CBN News)

» "Censoring Christianity: How We’re Being Silenced, and How to Cope" (Illinois Family Institute)

» "Are Facebook, Apple and Google Censoring Christian Speech?" (CharismaNews)

» "Amazon’s Book Banning Crosses a Dangerous Censorship Line" (The Christian Post)

Humanity is so blind in their perverse moral judgment that their false viewpoint of good and evil is the exact opposite of God’s true perspective.

In Isaiah 5:20, the prophet points out an affliction of the wicked:

Isaiah 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

"Darkness" is the symbol of error, ignorance, false doctrine, and sin. “Light” represents truth, knowledge, devotion and righteousness. "Bitter" and "bitterness" are often used to signify sin. So, it is implied in verse 20 that sin is bitter and that righteousness is sweet. Or, in other words, wrongdoing results in painful consequences, and righteousness results in blessings—even in speech.

Political correctness resulting in censorship is accomplished by words. Hiding behind words is, after all, still hiding. Telling the truth as fair persons in consideration of others, even if it is to our own hurt is now, and will always be, an act of bravery and a show of character.

This is just the beginning of what is coming in censorship of what we write, what we say, what we read. It is already happening on Facebook, from what I understand, and other of those social media sites.

MGC/aws/dcg





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