Nick Jr. Blocks Christmas
My son was playing on Nick Jr.'s Free Draw making a Christmas
tree and when he went to write 'merry Christmas' The program would not allow her to type the word Christmas on her drawing. The error message was "Word Blocked" (also blocked where the words and phrases: Savior, Pope, Blessed virgin Mary, St. Nick, Hark the herald angels sing, Silent night, Away in the manger, no crib for his head, and even 'Obama is the AntiChrist', but I think it was because of the word Christ, not Obama, because I was able to write his name alone.)
I was able to type in muhammed, Hanukkah, Eid and Kwanzaa and anything pagan like Yule, Beltaine, Samhain etc. So it seems that only the Christian celebration of this season is unacceptable. I quickly sent emails to Nick Jr. and Viacom Inc. which owns the brand as well as TV Land,Paramount Pictures, CMT and many others.
I don't know why this still shocks and angers me. Maybe it was my children's reactions. As soon as they understood what the error message meant they sat and stared, stunned. I think their feelings were actually hurt, they don't understand why Christianity is being singled out.
When I told my children we will no longer be allowing NickJr in our home, they didn't argue at all. Hopefully by next year, my DH will agree with me and toss the cable all together. One can only hope.
I think this should be sent around, far and wide.
If any of you feel the same as I do you can email Viacom here
http://www.viacom.com/contact/Pages/default.aspx
D~
6 comments:
This kind of thing never ceases to amaze me. Though I imagine the execs at Nick Jr. and Viacom aren't of the Christian persuasion, I would still expect them to be "inclusive." But than I have to remind myself that "inclusion" really means getting rid of all that they hate.
http://feedyourahd.blogspot.com
We turned off TV in 1993, cutting the cable, and moving the set to the office. Believe me, you DON'T need or want it. It CAN be done. We missed nothing. I don't even know what Nick, Jr. is, but I don't think my life is deficient from not knowing it.
Saw your blog from www.black-and-right.com
Merry Christmas.
D.
I thought you might like to know a few friends of mine were interested in what you found, have verified your findings by the hundreds, and will be registering their complaints with Viacom, et al.
Here's the link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2149738/posts?page=80
http://feedyouradhd.blogspot.com
Dr. Dave, I did go to your link and read some of the comments. I found it amusing that George Bush and Dick Cheney are also blocked.
??? Crazy???or what?...like some 5 year old is going to write 'George Bush' on his little picture.
Budda is blocked too, which I find sad too because Buddhists are very peaceful people and don't bother anyone, they suffer a great deal at the hands of muslims and communists
d.
I'm only responding to this as someone who has had to try to do filters - and I've only done it for adults, not kids. I'm not condoning what this does, but it boils down more to laziness mostly and not ill intent. They're matching substrings and not whole words... so, the word "mass" contains the word "ass", so it's blocked. And if ANYTHING that you type matches a word in their "bad word list", the whole thing gets blocked.
Quote:
Christmas - root "Christ", probably on 'swear' list.
Jesus - probably on 'swear' list.
Pope - no clue.
Mass - root 'ass'
President Bush -contains 'bush', slang for female crotch. Crotch blocked as wel laughing
George Washington - contains 'wash' which is for some reason blocked.
Tax cut - the word 'cut' is blocked.
Talk Radio - the word 'alk' is blocked. No clue.
pro-life - anything with a dash in it seems to be blocked and for the record 'english-only' is blocked too
George - 'org' is blocked.
They most likely have 2 lists, a 'bad word' list and a 'protect the children' list. It's for kids. They're lazy. They don't think anyone will notice. To prove it, their own NAME is blocked, because 'nick' is blocked, similar to cut. I just don't want to set a bad precedent with them, as it's easy to write stuff off as "oh, those crazy Catholics!" (or Christians), especially when they get all this backlash from something silly. Then when something really IS wrong, we'll be ignored.
My 2 cents.
Nate,
Thanks very much for your input and there is probably something to your reasoning, but I still think there is something biased in Nick Jr's blocking program mainly because the word F*CK is not blocked, and neither is the word '*SS'.
However, Nick JR has since unblocked "Jesus' and 'Merry Christmas', and since children are not likely to put bad words in their pictures, I think they are safe.
d.
Post a Comment