The Pitfalls of Auto-Replace

The American Family Association, not known for its tolerance of non-heterosexual folks, loathes the word "gay" so much they routinely rewrite AP wire stories for its OneNewsNow website. Since they use the word "homosexual" as a they-are-different-from-us-so-we-must-hate-and-fear-them tactic, they automatically replace the word "gay" in AP stories with the word "homosexual."

Putting aside such questions as whether they can legally do that, such a practice occasionally causes problems. Hilarious problems, but problems nonetheless. You see, an American runner named Tyson Gay ran in an Olympic trial race yesterday, and the AFA's software dutifully changed the story text:

Tyson Homosexual easily won his semifinal for the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials and seemed to save something for the final later Sunday.

The story quickly spread and caused much mirth until someone at the AFA changed the text back - but a screen capture exists for posterity.

Auto-replace can be a powerful tool, but it sometimes backfires. Like now.