Google Chrome Extension ‘Reword’ flags Hateful Online Messages

[steve2470]

http://theusbport.com/google-chrome-extension-reword-flags-hateful-online-messages/6734

A new Google Chrome extension has been released helping the battle against negative and hateful messages posted on the web.

“Once an insult is read, the damage is done.”

That’s from the website for Reword, a new Google Chrome extension designed to combat cyberbullying. The tool identifies insulting words in online posts and messages and then crosses them out with a red line.

This extension has been developed in Australia by Headspace, which is Australia’s National Youth Mental Health Foundation, and ad agency Leo Burnett Melbourne, Reword aims to address online abuse by preventing hateful messages before they’re even posted.

[hobbit709]

1. Pretty soon Bowdlerization will be everywhere.

[IDemo]

2. My complaint with such extensions

Not that they perform their advertised function, which in this case sounds like a good cause. But there are umpteen such extensions, all with the same fundamental skeleton - identify objectionable words on web pages and delete, change or line-through them. There are similar extensions specifically to delete 'Trump', for instance. But why not allow the user to specify their own choice of objectionable words on a blacklist instead of hard-coding them? Add a right-click/"Hide this word" function and it's instantly much more usable.