How Social Media Algorithms Are Changing the Way People Talk
News Source : Scientific American
News Summary
- Algorithmic social media is driving the creation of new slang at a breakneck pace.
- Linguist Adam Aleksic, also known as the Etymology Nerd, explains how.
- “Algospeak” refers to the words used to get around censorship imposed by the algorithms that determine what ends up on our feeds.
- For example, “kill” has become “unalive” in many online (and even offline) spaces.
- In many ways, [these are] the same patterns that humans have always relied on to communicate with one another but shaped uniquely by this new medium and its constraints and its advantages.
Every time a new slang word gets coined on the Internet, linguist Adam Aleksic is thrilled. Its definitely good for me in that I stay in business, says Aleksic, who studies the origins of words an [+12477 chars]
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