Kentucky and Louisville have banned athletes from using hundreds of words on social media, according to a report in the Louisville Courier-Journal. The flagged words are those the universities fear could embarrass their programs. If such a word is used, special software sends an email alert to coaches.
Among the banned words:
While it’s understandable that universities want to protect their images, this system isn’t going to work. By the time a software program picks up a flagged word and sends an email alert to a coach, a controversial or offensive tweet will be retweeted 100 times. A thousand times by the time the coach checks his email and contacts the player.
Plus, the banned words limit student-athletes from being able to write things like this:
"Is rubbing ALCOHOL a good disinfecting AGENT?"
"Hard work will PAYOFF. It’s time to take the field and FIGHT for a win."
"My grandfather uses words like DOOBIE and GAZONGAS. What do they mean?"
But if Kentucky and Louisville are going to practice censorship, they at least need to have a comprehensive list of words on the banned list:
Coach/coaching -- What coach wouldn’t want a high-tech software program to alert him when players are talking about him behind his back?
Class/classes -- There are six things that can come out of athletes attending classes and five of them are bad. An athlete can pass a class and stay eligible. Good. An athlete can also skip class, flunk a class, cheat, get illegal help from a tutor or be funneled into a sham class. All bad things that can hurt a team. It’s best to keep an eye on these “classes.” Good things rarely come out of them.
Girl/female -- These people are 51 percent of the population and a major distraction to the average male athlete.
The -- “The” is a gateway word. The alcohol. The benjamins. The doobie. The gazongas. Wherever “the” is, bad things often follow.
Who/whom -- How are athletes using who and whom? Are they using them correctly? If so, maybe they could get three credits for it. Who/Whom Usage on Social Media. Sounds as legit as most any other college course.
Censorship -- Want to know a good way to enforce censorship? Prevent anyone from using the word “censorship.”