Another great article from 404 Media highlighting the power that the tech giants have amassed over how how we use the internet.
This brings me, I think, to the elephant in the room, which is the fact that Google has its hands on quite literally every aspect of this entire saga as a vertically integrated adtech giant.
This extreme power over the adtech and online advertising ecosystem is one of the subjects of an FTC antitrust suit against Google.
It was changed a long while ago because of race. Grow up. Stop being outraged and melodramatic over a fucking word change to be more inclusive.
Blacklist = blocked
Whitelist = allowed
Calling things slave/master
Not to mention allow list and block list just make sense.
Master/slave was understandable, but c’mon, blacklist/whitelist? You can’t convince me that has racist connotations to it; the black = bad, white = good thing has been around for an extremely long time. Quite honestly, it’s very easy to guess where it might have come from: black is dark, darkness is where nasties hide. White is bright, like a bright light, which illuminates the darkness and allows you to see where it’s safe.
Or we can be happy they changed it to something easier to understand.
If you’re angry about a word change, when it makes it easier to understand, you’re probably racist.
I’m glad it’s easier to understand, and has the added benefit of PoC feeling more inclusive.
You’re angry because… idk? You’re racist? There’s no other reason to be outraged.
I’m not angry, I’m just confused TBH. It was never difficult to understand that a whitelist was good and a blacklist was bad. You whitelist good things, aka things you want, and you blacklist bad things, aka things you don’t want. How is that confusing or difficult to understand?
Secondly, it’s weird for you to jump to accusing someone of being angry and racist because they disagree with your stance. I can think it’s weird and possibly virtue signalling that they’d change it from whitelist/blacklist to allowlist/blocklist. Like, how many people actually got upset about whitelist/blacklist?
It’s like if I started getting mad at car people for shortening “transmission” to “trans” or “tr*nny”. They’re clearly talking about a car, not a person, so why do I care?
How was white and black descriptive?
I remember making a Minecraft server in 2009 and not understanding what whitelist and blacklist meant.
Allow/Block makes sense. White/Black doesn’t.
You’re fucking with me now, right? Had you never heard someone tell you that life isn’t black-or-white? Had you never seen a switch use a black/white, opaque/clear, or smooth/textured to indicate on/off? The only way I could see blacklist/whitelist being confusing is if you’re uncertain about the context that it’s being used in, but allowlist/blocklist is going to be confusing in that regard too. What’s being allowed? What’s being blocked?
Whatever you’re putting in the allow list is being allowed.
Usernames, IPs, etc.
Whatever you’re putting in the block list is being… blocked.
English is easy. Fuck off.
Black and white are English words at least a thousand years old. They’ve taken on numerous positive, negative and neutral connotations over time. But all that heritage and utility doesn’t matter, and must be denied, because in 2023 it doesn’t suit some people’s politics to use ‘black’ in any context besides referring to a black person.
I think that’s a very sad and limiting attitude toward language.
I think calling a block list “black” and an allow list “white” makes no sense.
Allow/block makes sense. White/black makes no sense. Words have meaning, let’s use them properly.
If you’re upset about changing the words to better explain what they do, you’re racist. There’s literally no reason to oppose a word change when it makes it easier to understand.