Unparliamentary words? Shashi Tharoor's solution is 'Algospeak'

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, known for his excellent command over English, on Wednesday (July 20), shared a word on Twitter, calling it the “Word of The Day”.  The word is “algospeak”.

The word is “used on social media posts to avoid using another that algorithms may identify as unsuitable or inappropriate, in order to bypass downranking by content moderation filters on social media platforms,” Tharoor wrote.

#WordOfTheDay:
*algospeak* [noun]:
word used on social media posts to avoid using another that algorithms may identify as unsuitable or inappropriate, in order to bypass downranking by content moderation filters on social media platforms. Eg. using “unalive” rather than “dead.”

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) July 20, 2022

He gave an example to better explain the word. “Eg. using ‘unalive’ rather that ‘dead’,” he wrote.

The tweet posted at 7:05 am on Wednesday, now has 786 likes, 121 retweets and 44 comments.

Also read: ‘Everything I tweet is my personal opinion’: Shashi Tharoor

One Twitter user, @mr_aditya_03, wrote: “This word’s explanation is much tougher than the word itself.”

Another user, @kmoosa14 said: “Nowadays in politics action is necessary, not words, Sir.”

This is not the first time Tharoor has shared “Word of The Day” on his Twitter. In May, 2022, he shared the word “doomscrolling”, which means the act of continuously seeking or reading bad news.