Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language

by Adam Aleksic

The practice of respelling offensive words is a centuries-old tradition known as bowdlerization, named for the Englishman Thomas Bowdler, who is mainly remembered for publishing some egregiously family-safe edits of William Shakespeare’s plays.

Algorithms are the culprits, influencers are the accomplices, language is the weapon, and you, dear reader, are the victim.

In economics and data science, there’s an adage called Goodhart’s law, which warns that “as soon as a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good metric.” By optimizing for engagement to keep viewers online, social media platforms turned engagement into a target, eventually resulting in engagement-maximizing content that nobody actually wanted.