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Strangelovekraf's avatar
4 years ago
Solved

Racial slur widely used in gallery

While browsing the gallery I came across an extremely unpleasant discovery... The word filters that are in place (and at times, even filter completely mundane language) can not filter for a well known racial slur used against Romani people. It appears widely in descriptions of hippie/boho style homes and fetishistic racial caricatures... yikes. 

For those who are not familiar with the Romani people and history, a really brief summary:

Romani people have encountered centuries worth of bigotry and hate in Europe.

This has at times culminated to hate crimes and mass sterilizations, and Roma were one of the groups to be systematically eradicated during the holocaust.

Later on, common examples of racism against them would be, among others, work discrimination, separating families, preventing children from learning their native languages, stereotyping Roma as criminal, hypersexual and/or mystical and fetishizing their clothing, art and history in media made by non-Roma people.

"Gyp*y" is a racial slur that is connected to centuries of racism against Romani people. 

"Gyp*y" is not an architectural style, interior decoration trend or outfit style.

  • EA_Cade's avatar
    EA_Cade
    3 years ago
    Hey all,

    I've merged these threads together to prevent spam. This issue was re-escalated to the Sims team for investigation on Thursday, we are currently evaluating how best to address this issue with the gallery and how content filters and flags are implemented.

    This is one of those things that I may not have updates on for a while as we're dealing with several departments at the moment, but silence ≠ nothing being done.

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  • EA_Cade's avatar
    EA_Cade
    Icon for Community Manager rankCommunity Manager
    3 years ago
    Hey all,

    I've merged these threads together to prevent spam. This issue was re-escalated to the Sims team for investigation on Thursday, we are currently evaluating how best to address this issue with the gallery and how content filters and flags are implemented.

    This is one of those things that I may not have updates on for a while as we're dealing with several departments at the moment, but silence ≠ nothing being done.
  • This is fantastic news, thank you EA_Cade for your update!

    This is no doubt a complex issue to solve, and just hearing it is being investigated is wonderful. 

    As I understand the question, there are at least three factors to this that probably need to be looked into and it would be unreasonable to expect a solution overnight.

    Those would be; 

    1. Finding a balance for automatic systems so they would not let through offensive content but also would not become overzealous towards Sukkah, your neighbour Nigel or Count Vlad's in-game description.

    2. Defining a line between what constitutes "Sims-styled cartoonish stylistic choices" and what is offensive stereotypical representation. And

    3. Finding the guidelines and resources to do the manual labor that no doubt has to be involved with some parts of this process. 

  • I think I know who your friend is and I think we follow each other on Twitter. I hope we do get more Jewish foods. I also saw people asking for a Jewish wedding arch. I can't remember the name. But I wish mws represented more cultures.

  • xochiquetzl_xkvn's avatar
    xochiquetzl_xkvn
    Seasoned Ace
    3 years ago

    @kaiwryplays  If you google for the Judaism Stuff Pack by PandoraSims, she has a chuppah (Jewish wedding canopy) that I used in my Wedding venues. There's also a glass wrapped in a napkin to step on that gives you a happy moodlet! <3

  • kaiwryplays's avatar
    kaiwryplays
    3 years ago

    Yes I think I saw that stuff pack and I thought they could have added the stomping glass as a wedding tradition in mws and just use the animation for playing in puddles. I didn't get the stuff pack tho because I rather get an in game Maxis version but thanks for the recommendation. I'm not Jewish but I love the addition of new cultures because I like having my sims represent a certain culture because I get to try new things lol. 

  • xochiquetzl_xkvn's avatar
    xochiquetzl_xkvn
    Seasoned Ace
    3 years ago

    @kaiwryplays  TBH I’d rather have in-game, official assets myself, even though the CC is awesome, because it would be official and supported. But if I need CC to represent myself, I’ll do it. 

  • nijihitomi's avatar
    nijihitomi
    2 years ago

    I know we're probably not supposed to comment on threads that are over a certain amount of time old, but this is a big problem and continues to be one even now! I STILL cannot search the gallery for respectful representation without having to deal with both the g-slur AND antisemitism, and given that I have family who are both... this is DEEPLY upsetting for me. Two messages of "we're working on it" just don't cut it. This thread was opened almost 3 years ago. Since then we've had several MAJOR updates to the game, including, POC, LGBT, and disability representation, but THIS issue remains. If it's so easy to flag "Sukkah" as an offensive word, WHY isn't the g-slur flagged the same way. Not that Sukkah should be flagged!! But if it really is that easy, to the point of simmers not being able to upload their builds with Sukkah in the name or description, then why isn't it that easy to flag the g-slur to prevent simmers from using it in their uploads? I honestly haven't looked, but I'm sincerely hoping the n-word is flagged in such a way.

    @/Sims I'd like a few answers.

  • simsplayer818's avatar
    simsplayer818
    Hero
    2 years ago
    @nijihitomi I hope this is resolved soon. It really frustrates me that it's still an issue but I'm sure it's really complex to weed through everything. The help thread is here with advice anyway, you've probably already seen in but just incase:
    https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Feedback/How-to-Report-Gallery-Content/m-p/12059892#M68085

    Fingers crossed things get better 🤞, I get so tired of hitting Report when I see it elsewhere too on other sites.

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