Well That Should Fix Things: Goldman Sachs Implements Email Filter To Ban Swear Words
from the well-*%#! dept
You may recall the infamous Senate hearings looking into Goldman Sachs a few months back, where Senator Carl Levin repeatedly quoted an email about how something was "a shitty deal." Included during the discussion was this fun exchange between Levin and Goldman Sach's CFO, David Viniar:LEVIN: And when you heard that your employees, in these e-mails, when looking at these deals said, God, what a shitty deal, God what a piece of crap -- when you hear your own employees or read about those in the e-mails, do you feel anything?Well, now it appears that Goldman Sachs has figured out a way to try to prevent that "unfortunate" situation from occurring again. Rather than not selling shitty deals while pretending they're golden, it's putting in place an email filter to block swear words from being sent over email. The filter will apparently even block out **** for those who try to textually bleep their swear words. That'll fix things.
VINIAR: I think that's very unfortunate to have on e-mail.
(The gallery bursts out laughing.)
...
LEVIN: On an e-mail?
VINIAR: Please don't take that the wrong way. I think it's very unfortunate for anyone to have said that in any form.
LEVIN: How about to believe that and sell them?
VINIAR: I think that's unfortunate as well.
LEVIN: That's what you should have started with.
VINIAR: You're correct. It is.
To be fair, the whole "shitty deal" comment did get blown out of proportion. It certainly does look bad, but Goldman Sachs was correct in that it was not acting as an advisor in that situation. Its job was merely to sell the client what they wanted to buy. But, even so, it does seem kind of amusing that the response to this getting publicity is to try to stop the swearing...
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Filed Under: filters, swearing
Companies: goldman sachs
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"God, what a shitty deal" becomes "God, what a deal" changing the meaning entirely!
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",what a deal"
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How many times did the cleaned-up Sopranos substitute "Forget you..." for the real thing?
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The easy route
Cleaning up the language is a lot easier than cleaning up the situation that made the email a matter of public interest in the first place.
Also, there are massive problems with word filters. Sometimes the words being filtered are legitimate words in a certain context, making communication on that topic difficult. Second, people learn where the edges of the filter are and come up with "masked vulgarity" that will slip around the filters. On the positive side, sometimes the masked vulgarity is very funny.
If filters are the "solution" Goldman Sacks implements, I can hardly wait for the next set of hearings five or ten years from now. The fact that GS execs still don't understand that the problem was underlying ethics pretty much guarantees we will be treated to another round of hearings in a few years. Masked vulgarity is often a lot funnier to read than the original vulgarity, so the new batch of emails we see at the next hearings should be even funnier.
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Re: The easy route
No, it's not easier. You have to keep track of the precise details of how you are pretending.
If you actually have, it is much easier; you simply have to be yourself. No need to keep track of anything.
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Re: Re: The easy route
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Re: Jnomics
I am sure you meant that the quote is off, not the testimony; but your slip is indeed the most accurate of the choices you provided.
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Filter This
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Re: Filter This
Either way, anyone can go to http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=d000000085 and see who they were funding.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_NtV6Rptd4
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- BS
"They were not and are not the problem"
- BS.
"and their actions were perfectly legal."
- translation: not ethical ... but not illegal.
"I think it's silly for a site like TechDirt to be commenting on the matter"
- Silly me.
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Re: Umm...JNomics....
So go off and whine about your life somewhere else.
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Re: Re: Umm...JNomics....
On a lighter note, this is just one more amusing-if-it-weren't-so-sad example of the dog and pony shows Congressmen trot out all the time, sounding like absolute dumbshits talking out of their ass. They clearly have no clue what they're talking about and they clearly don't care, just so long as they get their media coverage pretending to be populist as they scream at scapegoats.
Why are people dumb enough to believe it?
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And their compatriots in the media do a wonderful job of accommodating them. Sometimes I think we all need to band together and take out all of the mainstream media outlets so that actual NEWS can reach the unsuspecting people istead of the entertainment schlock that they try to pass off as news.
But i digress...
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Hence my last paragraph. Did you not read that far before complaining?
I just found the whole "response" funny.
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"Oh my god, I accidentally the whole thing!"
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They sound seriously phucqued-upp!
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