Quick Thought: How Soon Before ‘Autocorrect’ Causes a Political Scandal?

Inspired by an amusing autocorrect moment on a listserv last week (“hashtags” converted to “hostages,” in the context of a discussion of online activism around marriage equality and the Supreme Court) it’s a serious question — all it takes is for someone to take a tweet, text or email that’s been automatically “corrected” to a politically embarrassing state and make a big deal out of it. You’d expect the sender to explain what happened, but sometimes that can be lost in the explosion…or ignored.

I’m being a little tongue-in-cheek, since you’d expect it to be obvious when someone sent “poo” when they meant “ppo”, but you never know…some folks have no sense of humor. Or proportion. For an idea of what CAN go wrong, check out more from the ever-amusing “Damn You Autocorrect” site.

cpd

Written by
Colin Delany
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