“Censorship is bad” yeah, sure, I agree. But the fact that you still know it’s a curse word means it’s not really censoring anything.
Curse words are so common now that they’ve lost a bit of their oomph. They’re supposed to convey intensity, but they’re used so casually that they’re basically lazy filler.
A strike through line, or a box that doesn’t quite cover, reintroduces a bit of the taboo. This is a bad, naughty word, you shouldn’t be reading it. You know what it is, but attempting to cover it draws attention to the fact that it’s something some people want to cover, which reintroduces some of the oomph.
It’s kinda like sequined pasties at a nudist colony; it turns something that was once taboo, but had since been normalized, back to taboo again to reclaim some of the intensity.
I only hate it because most of the time the reason for censoring them is monetization, and that reminds me that the Internet nowadays is not authentic but driven by that and algorithms (not here thankfully).
One stupid trend word that I see on social media (LATAM) that replaced the word “sex” is “detonate” I feel like everyone is talking like a stupid LMAO.