A pair of Vancouver men created a Google Chrome extension that automatically replaces the word “terrorist” with “coward” when you browse the web.
Mack Flavelle and Peter Siemens used their web skills to express their contempt for the people behind recent attacks in Paris, Beirut and elsewhere.
“Reading about all the tragedy and suffering caused by cowards in the world recently, we decided that we would like to do something about that,” said Flavelle.
Flavelle has removed “terrorist” from his vocabulary and wanted to create a Chrome extension that would automatically eliminate the word from the web and put “coward” in its place.
After Flavelle came up with the idea, Siemens had the extension up and running in about an hour. It was posted to the Google Chrome store the day of the Paris attacks.
They also posted it to GitHub, asking people to translate the add-on into other languages. So far, the extension has been ported to Greek, Chinese, German, Turkish, French, Portuguese and other languages.
“The global community came and galvanized around this idea,” Flavelle said. “This was something that resonated with people. Peter built it but a whole bunch of other people have enriched it and made it something that is palatable to the entire world.”
Browser extensions that swap words and phrases are not new.
A Chrome extension designed to parody media reports on the generation gap switches the word “Millennial” to “snake people.” Another extension changes the words “political correctness” to “treating people with respect.”
“We hope that more people rise to the occasion and build similar things and take back the power of language,” said Flavelle.
Comments