psa

wildehacked:

we all know that if you censor a word with an asterisk, that does the opposite of hiding it for people who might want to avoid the content, right? 

Like, if you censor the word “sex” as “s*x”, this ensures that a blacklist featuring the word “sex” will not catch it. 

Censoring words with asterisks should be for stuff you want people to be able to SEE but not SEARCH for–for example, if you wanted to talk about st*r w*rs on your blog without the post showing up in the star wars tag where people might come kick your kneecaps over liking adam driver, or whatever. 

But I’m seeing a lot of people censoring words that are common trigger warnings with asterisks, and that is the OPPOSITE of helpful. You should always use the actual words in your post, because then they’ll SHOW UP ON PEOPLE’S BLACKLISTS and those who might be triggered by them WILL NOT HAVE TO SEE THEM. 

If you have severe arachnophobia, for example, it’s not going to be less upsetting to see an in-depth discussion of spider eating habits on your dash if the post is talking about sp*ders. It’s not the i that freaks you out, it’s the fucking spider discussion, which is still completely visible? thanks to that asterisk? 

speaking of blacklists, we all know that the tumblr update is slowly going to roll xkit away from us, so if you really rely on yours, it’s a good idea to back that shit up on the native tumblr blacklist.

okay, that’s all, have a nice day!