“”G O U ! N E S” will be spelled out on the book,” reassured Maëlle Le Corre on September 10, announcing the release of the collective work. Gouines, which she co-coordinated with Marie Kirschen and which was released on Friday. published by Points.
If she had to make this “small clarification” about “the asterisk planted in the middle of the title” on the cover posted on Instagram, it’s because the term is “considered an insult and therefore banned by the algorithms,” write the éditions Points on their account. The asterisk is therefore visible “only on social networks so as not to risk seeing [nos] publications deleted”, it adds to explain this “censorship”.
“We go into another dimension as soon as there’s the word ”lesbian” somewhere”
Unfortunately,” says Marie Kirschen, “the algorithms weren’t able to integrate the fact that for certain terms, there could be this effect of reversing the stigma and reappropriating the insult. We were therefore obliged to modify the visuals, with a small asterisk instead of a letter to get around this aspect and promote them on our social networks.”
When Pedes came out a year and a half ago, the authors had to carry out the same manipulation. “As much as ”pédé” was censored, I don’t think there are any restrictions on the term ”gay”, which can be used instead,” notes Maëlle Le Corre. This is not the case for the use of the word “lesbian” on social networks.
“As an example, the co-authors of the book Lesbian Denial Sophie Pointurier and Sarah Jean-Jacques have denounced the invisibilization of the communication around their book on Instagram due to the use of the word lesbian. It’s sadly ironic and paradoxical when the very purpose of their work is to analyze the mechanisms by which lesbians are erased from media space.”
The authors were indeed the victims of a shadow ban. A platform practice that consists in blocking the user, or his or her production, without the knowledge of the person concerned, due to the use of the word “lesbian”, censored by social networks. “It’s deplorable that we still have to bypass these words by using: l€sbien, Lesbi3nne…”, they note.
Lesbian” associated with “porn”.
What’s wrong with “lesbian”? “It’s a term that’s been closely associated with heterosexual pornography, and has come to have a ‘dirty’ connotation,” says Marie Kirschen. She recalls that, for a very long time, when we typed “lesbian” into Google, we came across “nothing but porn”.
It’s not normal that, when a young woman wants to find out about lesbian identity and culture, she comes across pornographic content first and foremost,” she points out. Fortunately, thanks to the work of groups like SEOLesbianit’s changing.”
Having tested it, the first two pages of the search engine offered no pornographic content. Knowing that the third Google page is only visited on average by 1.1% of Internet usersthe gamble’s almost paid off.