
Dictionary + algorithm + PoD t-shirt printer + meme = rape t-shirts on Amazon - blaze33
http://iam.peteashton.com/keep-calm-rape-tshirt-amazon/
======
jerrya
[http://uk.news.yahoo.com/keep-calm-rape-t-shirts-
mistake-041...](http://uk.news.yahoo.com/keep-calm-rape-t-shirts-
mistake-041926992.html)

 _When Solid Gold Bomb withdrew the 'rape' garment it also posted a statement
on its website which said: "We have been informed of the fact that we were
selling an offensive T-shirt primarily in the UK._

 _"This has been immediately deleted as it was and had been automatically
generated using a scripted computer process running against 100s of thousands
of dictionary words."_

Not on sale: computer generated t shirt advocating rape.

Still on sale: human authored book advocating throwing rocks at boys.
[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Boys-Stupid-Throw-Rocks-
Them/dp/0761...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Boys-Stupid-Throw-Rocks-
Them/dp/0761135936) human authored 2013 calendar, boys are stupid:
[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Boys-Are-
Stupid-2013-Calendar/dp/184...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Boys-Are-
Stupid-2013-Calendar/dp/1847573932/ref=pd_cp_b_0)

Also on sale: bunny suicides: [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bunny-Suicides-Grid-
Calendar-teNeues...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bunny-Suicides-Grid-Calendar-
teNeues/dp/3832757368/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_2)

And Nuns having fun: [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nuns-Having-
Calendar-2013-Wall/dp/07...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nuns-Having-
Calendar-2013-Wall/dp/0761167013/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_6)

~~~
will_brown
>Not on sale: computer generated t shirt advocating rape.

Assuming this is a computer generated t-shirt as you and OP suggest, how can
anyone be certain that the shirt refers to rape as in forced intercourse?

More often than not when I hear someone use the word rape, they are not
talking about forced intercourse. Rather they are using the word rape as a
synonym for "debellatio", having nothing to do with a sex.

Examples:

1\. I just took my final exam and I raped it.

2\. Did you see the superbowl? SF was getting raped until the second half,
then they made it a good game.

If the rape t-shirt was not made by a human, but an algorithm, can anyone say
for certain that the algorithm intended to mean rape as in forced intercourse
or rape as in debellatio or any other definition whether it comes from
urbandictionary or Websters?

~~~
beering
a) Does it matter what the "intent" was, if the result is very offensive and
advocates rape? Edit: Intent matters, but knowing the computer meant something
else doesn't change the meaning of this item for a lot of people.

b) Your examples are offensive, and I don't appreciate people who carelessly
use the word "rape" like that. You might think it's OK in some twisted way,
but it's probably worse than calling random things "gay" even though they have
nothing to do with homosexuality.

~~~
will_brown
>You might think it's OK in some twisted way, but it's probably worse than
calling random things "gay" even though they have nothing to do with
homosexuality.

I never said it was OK - I simply asked how does anyone know which definition
an algorithm selected and does it matter? I thought you gave an insightful
answer noting intent matters, but in this case you feel it does not because
either use is offensive.

I did give the examples of how I have heard rape used in non-sexual contexts,
and I am sorry if you were offended - but more importantly it is you who
personally gets offensive by saying I am OK with that usage in some "twisted
way". Did I ever say I was OK with it? No. In fact I go out of my way to
explain that is how I have heard it used, but that is not enough you go on to
say my being OK with using the word rape in a non-sexual context (which I
don't) is worse than some form of homophobia where one calls things "gay".

Please do not make up behvior I do NOT engage in and then compare it to other
forms of behavior I do not engage in.

Finally, you may have unknowingly brought up real insight to who you are,
because even if I or others were to call something "gay" who is not to say it
is being done using the traditional definition of gay meaning "happy or
joyous"? Are you offended the same way when people use "gay" to describe
something as "happy or joyous" having nothing to do with homosexuality, the
same way you get offended when others use "rape" in a non-sexual context?

~~~
mlent
Rape does not have a non-sexual context.

~~~
angersock
I suspect that the English "rape" has its roots in the Latin "rapio", which is
very much not about sexual conduct--though the meaning clearly could be
mutated over time (as it seems to have been) to mean forced intercourse.

<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rapio>

EDIT: For a further stack trace, consider "enrapture", derived from "rapture",
itself derived from the future form of "rapio":
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rapture> .

And people say that a classical education and liberal arts is useless. :)

~~~
KC8ZKF
"The rape of the Sabine women", to give an example.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women>

------
vy8vWJlco
I think it's socially pathological to appeal to Amazon (the tweets shown) to
remove something offensive or distateful. Demanding intervention by random
intermediaries simply sets the precedent that Amazon's role is to censor,
which everyone hates the rest of the year. I think it's more responsible and
effective to financially boycott something like this, assuming of course that
you don't find this ironic, if dark (the original "keep calm and carry on"
could be seen as promoting sheepish obedience, which I personally find
_genuinely_ offensive rather than merely distasteful...).

~~~
arrrg
Wha…?

Sorry, if Amazon does disgusting shit like sell this (and it is disgusting
shit, no matter how it was created) Amazon deserves to be scolded for it.
Nothing to do with censorship.

Boycotts are ineffective and most certainly wouldn’t work here. What’s wrong
with making clear that something someone does is disgusting and they should
stop it? That’s quite simple.

~~~
vy8vWJlco
Amazon is a retail interface for the original seller. If we pull Amazon's
levers, causing them to filter (as opposed to directing criticism at the
origin), Amazon, a vast-reaching intermediary, becomes an explicit and
expected tool for anyone who has the influence (social, monetary, etc) to
manipulate it, and it can quickly become the norm in the same way that ISPs
are quick to become copyright/content police in the absence of effective safe-
harbor rights. In not liking something, it's OK to be loud about it, but
Amazon is the wrong target IMHO, and by directly targeting/shaming Amazon, the
long-term result is, in addition to the immediate effect of cutting off the
originator, a warping of accountability in ways that seem to me to increase
the probability of censorship (and anti-competition, etc).

For example, a likely next step for Amazon would be to implement pre-
screening, by a human, of all products before listing.

Net neutrality, and good government, and fair markets, all depend on the most
direct forms of accountability available, IMHO. Again, I can certainly
understand how the shirt could be offensive.

------
will_brown
People are offended because an Amazon user is selling "rape t-shirt" on
Amazon's website. People are so offended they will boycott Amazon?

Would it be hypocritical for the offended to not also boycott: Twitter because
they permit their users to Tweet rape jokes (I have seen them); YouTube
because their users can upload videos that recorded people telling rape jokes;
for a long period of time Facebook allowed "pro-rape" pages; and finally do
not forget to boycott Google because they have indexed every rape joke on the
web, they even indexed the "rape t-shirt" permitting such things to be
searched in an instant, plus Google makes money when you search for rape
jokes.

~~~
bjourne
The difference, of course, is that Amazon takes a cut when any of these "Keep
calm and rape her" t-shirts gets sold. Twitter doesn't.

~~~
will_brown
How does Twitter make money? Ads and "sponsored" tweets; therefore, it is
entirely concivable if someone is reading tweets that include rape jokes
Twitter is profiting because ads or sponsored Tweets appear on the same page.
This would be similar to Google search, YouTube and Facebook - I am not making
the arguement, but I could see people take the position the ad companies are
even more culpable than Amazon because they are using advertiser dollars to
include ads with content about rape - how happy would you be as an advertiser
to place ads for keywords like "jokes" or "comedy" and come to find out you
website/product ads appear next to searches for "rape jokes"?

------
jiggy2011
T shirts like this aren't new, neither are rape jokes. Stand up comedians like
Jimmy Carr are known for making jokes of this type quite frequently.

The joke isn't to "promote rape", the joke is the absurdity of putting a
statement like that in a context where it doesn't really fit. In this case the
"keep calm" meme.

~~~
arithma
I don't understand a lot of the oversensitivity in the Western-culture. It's
as if the whole thing is a large field of booby-traps. If you make a joke
about rape, it does not mean you're promoting rape. It just means you're
raising a sensitive subject. Sensitive subjects are not allowed in open-minded
societies? Even as jokes? Contrast with the uproar that Islamists have against
pictures they feel offensive about their religion.

~~~
unimpressive
The reasoning is that it's misogynistic because it normalizes rape. Of course,
men are effected too.

See: Prison rape jokes.

~~~
netrus
The prison rape jokes are especially noteworthy, as many people now seem to
assume that getting raped as an inmate is indeed normal.

~~~
jiggy2011
As far as I'm aware prison rape is actually pretty rare outside of a handful
of mainly US institutions.

~~~
antoko
Yes it is mainly in the US, but I think calling it "pretty rare" isn't
helpful.

 _For 2008, for example, the government had previously tallied 935 confirmed
instances of sexual abuse. After asking around, and performing some
calculations, the Justice Department came up with a new number: 216,000.
That’s 216,000 victims, not instances. These victims are often assaulted
multiple times over the course of the year. The Justice Department now seems
to be saying that prison rape accounted for the majority of all rapes
committed in the US in 2008, likely making the United States the first country
in the history of the world to count more rapes for men than for women._

<http://nplusonemag.com/raise-the-crime-rate>

~~~
jiggy2011
Interestingly (in the UK) sometimes minors are actually glad to get sent to
youth offenders institutes because they can get away from the sexual abuse
that they had on the outside.

------
jballanc
I like the author's conclusion. It brings to mind Clarke's Third Law. Applied
to independent individuals, though, there is a somewhat disturbing conclusion:
if you allow technology to progress without correspondingly advancing your own
knowledge, you will increasingly find yourself living in a magical realm.

~~~
paol
This is already true for most people in the modern world.

------
jacalata
Really, this guys conclusion is that the problem here is people who don't
understand automation on the customer side, not (if he's even correct about
the system) people creating automated systems without thinking about possible
failures in the system? Yea, they're all holding it wrong, its their fault for
not being technically literate enough.

~~~
throwaway125
That's not how I read it. I see him saying they should have checked their verb
list (thought about possible failures, as you said.) He also says that if
people are more aware of the algorithmic nature of these things that they are
less likely to get offended.

Quite honestly, I think he's right. If people were informed about amazon not
being the ones who are selling the t-shirts and the algorithmic nature of the
t-shirt generation then people would probably react completely different to
encountering that t-shirt.

~~~
arrrg
No, the content is the same disgusting shit. Algorithms are not some sort of
magic excuse that frees you from responsibility.

Ok, so there was no bad intent. That’s alright. But the bottom line still is
that Amazon is selling disgusting crap and nothing can change that. People
criticizing that led to the removal of said disgusting crap. This played out
quite nicely, actually.

~~~
jlgreco
If you attach a markov chain bot to a bunch of IRC channels, and a few days
later it starts spewing racial slurs, would you be _offended_ and accuse the
author of wrongdoing?

That's not a silly hypothetical, it happens all the time. Even cleverbot is
racist as hell.

~~~
Steuard
Of course I'd be offended. Racist slurs cause actual harm (by supporting a
longstanding environment of racist thought and action, and by causing distress
in those who are targeted). To paraphrase a blog post I've recently read,
_impact_ is what defines harm, not intent.
([http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-harvey/its-not-
about-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-harvey/its-not-about-the-
onion-i_b_2786840.html))

If you write a bot and let it participate on IRC, you are ultimately
responsible for what it does there. If there's a bug that makes it spew random
ASCII text twenty times per second that clogs the channel and makes it
unusable, that's your fault. If it spews racist hatred and makes minorities
unwilling to participate (or makes bigots feel emboldened and at home), that's
your fault too.

When your nanobots go haywire and start converting the entire planet into grey
goo, _I will blame you_. (For all the good it'll do me.)

~~~
jlgreco
If I am made aware of what my IRC bot is doing, and refuse to sanitize its
corpus, then it would be reasonable to call me a jackass. I see no such
refusal in this instance.

Otherwise though? It would be plainly irrational to become angry at me for
writing a bot that, during the course of it's remixing, reveals or highlights
racism on IRC.

To put a finer point on it, if I make a twitter bot that immediately echos
anything you tweet it, and one day someone says something offensive to it, am
_I_ to blame? Of course not, that is absurd. A markov chain bot is different
in no way relevant to this discussion.

------
hkmurakami
Reminds me of this story: "Programmer creates 800,000 books algorithmically
and starts selling them on Amazon"

[http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/143382-programmer-
creates...](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/143382-programmer-
creates-800000-books-algorithmically-starts-selling-them-on-amazon)

------
rcavezza
The key takeaway for me is that when marketing products to non programmers,
you can still create a very believable personal touch with emails and all
correspondence. Using first names, sending emails at non scheduled times, and
even potentially adding "Sent From my iPhone" at the bottom can turn marketing
emails into unbelievable personal notes to the eyes of a "typical user".

------
pgroves
Fascinating to see Automated Design (optimization software applied to product
development) in the wild. Some of the more interesting applications deal with
situations where the definition of 'optimal' is based on a changing data set,
like trending topics on Twitter.

Obviously, this went horribly wrong in this case, which brings us to the
lesson:

Optimization technology can generate lots of designs that score well against
some set of metrics. You still need someone with decent 'taste' to select
which solutions you'll put into production. It doesn't matter if you're
optimizing stock trading strategies, jet engines, or t-shirts.

Creating a decent UI for selecting good designs from a giant batch of
autogenerated designs is a hard and interesting problem, and almost always
needs to be custom built for the domain. Picking the best jet engine needs a
totally different UI than picking the best stock trading strategy.

------
Bryan22
Keep calm and don't buy their merchandise if you're offended. Telling the
world about this company and trying to crucify them for it is the wrong way of
going after them. The shit storm that followed the 2 minutes the shirt was for
sale is probably the best publicity the company could have ever asked for.

I for one am glad amazon is not in the business of censoring what's for sale
or not. Their company provides an online market place to sell goods, period.
Blaming amazon for something that 1) offended you and 2) was a mistake is
incredibly short sighted.

Ever make a mistake in your life? They did, it happened, they apologized.

------
milfot
More to the point, algorithms aren't buying these shirts.. what kind of sick
fuck is?

~~~
rkuykendall-com
Read the article. You are making an incorrect assumption that anybody has
purchased these shirts, or that they even exist.

~~~
milfot
Cool, thanks.. faith in humanity restored.

I am in the bad habit of reading HN on my old phone (CM7). The comments load
much quicker than the articles, and sometimes they lead me astray.

~~~
rkuykendall-com
I understand. I am guilty of only reading the comments when I feel an article
is meant to address a single very interesting question, and then fails to go
anywhere near it in the first two paragraphs.

------
kevingadd
The idea of an algorithm actually automatically generating and submitting
shirt designs to Amazon is pretty much ridiculous. Yes, you could do it. But
would you really? Who would actually invest that much engineering time into
saving yourself the few minutes it would take to cobble that stuff together by
hand? The author links to the company's catalog on Amazon and if you scroll
through it, there is a lot of variety there - they aren't all just shirts
created by a single algorithm playing mad libs.

I'm sure lots of automated scripts are involved in a product going up onto
Amazon, but to suggest that no humans were ever involved in the creation of
those shirts is probably nonsense, unless you have evidence to show that it
actually is the case. The most obvious explanation is that a human made them,
and it's not particularly difficult to believe that someone out there would
make that shirt design. I've met people like that.

~~~
waterlesscloud
How much engineering time do you imagine was involved in this?

~~~
itsprofitbaron
You can generate the sentences with something like this:

<?php

$sentence = "Keep Calm And Carry On";

$replacements = array('Carry' => 'Other', 'Dictionary', 'Words', 'On' => 'A
Lot', 'Off', 'Them', 'Us');

echo strtr($sentence, $replacements);

?>

Once you've done that, simply use a Macro to add it to Amazon.

