Facebook Profanity Study: 47% Of Facebook Walls Contain Obscenities

Whether it's gossip among friends or reacting to the latest unbelievable viral video, the chatter on Facebook tends to elicit emotional and visceral reactions. Sometimes, people use language that mom would not approve of.

Approximately 47 percent of Facebook walls contain some form of profanity, according to a study by recently launched reputation management firm Reppler.

And what is a Facebook user's swear of choice?

"The most common profane word is derivations of the 'f-word,'" according to Reppler. "The second most common profane word is derivations of the word 'sh*t.' 'B*tch' is a distant third."

The research, which surveyed the Facebook walls belonging to over 30,000 unique users, also found that the source of poor language on Facebook predominantly comes from a user's friends. Roughly 80 percent of those walls containing profanity have at least one obscene remark from a Facebook friend.

The findings highlight what the folks at Reppler consider an "issue with Facebook," the fact that "users don’t have complete control over the language used on their Facebook Wall, yet the language used by friends can have an impact on how others perceive them."

According to Reppler, this profanity can be especially significant as Facebook walls come under heavy scrutiny from employers screening job applicants.

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Comments

[Simone Hill]

01:25 AM on 05/26/2011

47% are not nuns.

[TheSardonicAtheist]

08:24 PM on 05/25/2011

I swear all the time, I SWEAR IT!

[Isenki]

07:01 PM on 05/25/2011

Only 47%?

[IDIOTA]

05:09 PM on 05/25/2011

My son's ex girlfriend paid a fee online to hack into his Facebook account, got his email address and deleted it. She wanted to make sure that other female would have a harder time keeping in touch with him. But Facebook does not seem to care about such rampant of hacking of its accounts. Given my son's experiences, I'd say that Facebook is more like Spybook.

[Norman Sass]

03:09 PM on 05/25/2011

I don't give a s--- what people write on my wall, as long as they are writing. When you get my age, if you do, you will be glad to to receive any f'ing message that isn't from a politician or preacher.

[Chico41]

03:07 PM on 05/25/2011

This is just more evidence that you forfeit any right to privacy when you sign up for facebook. I don't remember authorizing anyone to use my wall posts for this study.

[Tmboy]

10:49 AM on 05/25/2011

What do you mean that people can't control what is written on their walls. You can delete the comment, you can delete the person, or you can block people from wall posting. Or maybe... just maybe you can be a grown up tell your friends stop f****** cussing on your walls.

[Casey Code]

09:36 AM on 05/25/2011

People generally use swearing and obscenities to either (A); attract attention to something/someone or to (B); take attention OFF of something/someone. I've noticed in public that people tend to use cussing as a way to relate to the "common layman". The person trying to fit in with the current crowd may believe that he would stand out and be considered a lamer, a dweeb, or a "goody two-shoes" if he/she didn't relate to their peer(s) with the same lingo his/her friends were using. Ultimately, habitual swearing goes back to a psychological, emotional, or even spiritual thing. And the occasional cursing due to emotional/physcial pain is not uncommon and is related directly to uncontrollable outbursts of displeasure and even GOOD pleasure. Thus swearing, in ALL forms, can be simply put in one of these two categories - a symptom of outbursting emotion that is untamed and inconsiderate of others who are near by that may be practicing to tame their own toungue due to a self-examined insight of how they come across to others. Or, an immediate outburst of uncontrolled language due to an injury or pleasure of the body/mind to quickly, and uninhibitedly, describe the situation. In BOTH cases, chronic and persistent cursing is generally due to poor or incorrectly learned self-esteem, low social intellect and interaction skills, and/or a limited vocabulary. But in the right dosages, profanities can be just another adjective. Curse responsibly. -C.J.C.

[Dauberino]

02:27 AM on 05/25/2011

profanity is in the ear of the beholder. its like time, its not ACTUALLY real, its just a MEASUREMENT

[MacManLB]

08:48 AM on 05/25/2011

There is something called societal or community standards in behavior and in language. I recently heard two people speaking in a foreign tongue. I didn't know what they were saying but I could tell that it was profane. There is a nastiness that is universal.

[sunmocker1970]

11:51 PM on 05/24/2011

No s***? See, I have no f****** doubt that a lot of m************* have some s*** on their f****** FB pages that they would rather not have a m************** employer see. Especially if your m************ friends have a f******* cussing problem...

[Andria R Karshner]

11:44 PM on 05/24/2011

Really, you edited out the middle of the swear words in your own article about swear words?

[signgrrl]

10:40 AM on 05/25/2011

oh, the irony . . . . .

[snallygaster]

11:06 AM on 05/25/2011

What's so bad about "Flipping Shot Batch" anyway?

[NYPD]

11:15 PM on 05/24/2011

Language can not BE FOUL. It is PURE IGNORANCE and a sign of insecurity if you think it can be.
Stop supporting censorship.

[sillyblueness]

10:00 AM on 05/25/2011

Thank you!! I find it particularly bothersome when radio stations edit out words in a song...If the artist meant it, leave it in! If you cannot handle it, do not play it!

[snallygaster]

11:07 AM on 05/25/2011

We teach our kids (8 and 4) that there are no such things as "bad words." There are certainly "better" words and more appropriate words. By taking the taboo out of "swearing" you remove it of all power... and I've found that they're much more thoughtful about being articulate.

[scalscott]

09:54 PM on 05/24/2011

I do notice that there is more use of profanity in comments rather than the original posts. I wonder if that is because people find it easier to type a short comment with emphasis added by using profanity rather than taking the time to write a longer more constructed response?

[signgrrl]

10:41 AM on 05/25/2011

that's quite possible. good hypothesis.

[DanaP0609]

09:45 PM on 05/24/2011

Why is this bad? The "f-word", among others, has their purpose and exist for a reason. This article is a little too puritanical for me, and appears to pass judgment on folks who use language that sometimes (and sometimes not) is appropriate to express an emotional reaction. Not everyone is, or wants to be for that matter, Ned Flanders.

Just for that, I'm going to watch some of Lewis Black's old stand up "Red, White and Screwed" where he explores the concept.

[chickenflu4]

08:50 PM on 05/24/2011

i belong to that 47%