Now this is a fucking interesting take. Yes, "landlord" has a history rooted in the middle ages, when lords literally owned the serfs who lived on their property. The (google-initiated??) attempt to remove that word from the language even after it survived into the modern day could very well be a subtle first attempt to see whether a corporation can deprive us serfs of the words we need to describe their dominance (and the offense it embodies to individual rights).
It's not quite conspiracy brained, because someone else pointed out here that no one - not even the wokest of woke - took issue with the word "landlord" before. This appears to be an example of a marketing team at Google going through tons of patterns and words that they would flag and trying to find one that won't yet be offensive to anyone because it's not yet become part of the culture war. They may even have invented it themselves just for the purpose of marketing this, uh, "feature".
I think you're right close to the center of describing what's happening in the corporate thrust to leverage wokeness as excuse to control speech on platforms. And I'm someone who appreciates good moderation - and always tried to practice it in my forums - but this ain't that.
It's not quite conspiracy brained, because someone else pointed out here that no one - not even the wokest of woke - took issue with the word "landlord" before. This appears to be an example of a marketing team at Google going through tons of patterns and words that they would flag and trying to find one that won't yet be offensive to anyone because it's not yet become part of the culture war. They may even have invented it themselves just for the purpose of marketing this, uh, "feature".
I think you're right close to the center of describing what's happening in the corporate thrust to leverage wokeness as excuse to control speech on platforms. And I'm someone who appreciates good moderation - and always tried to practice it in my forums - but this ain't that.