A Genius Font That Is Fighting Online Bullying

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Have you ever heard about the Polite Type? This is a genius font that is fighting online bullying and which has enormous chances to be further developed and become a standard in the world. At least, this is what tons of people hope, including me.

Online bullying

TietoEVRY created the Polity Type font, they are a tech company from Finland. Tieto means knowledge in Finnish and it is the foundation of their company.

If you didn’t hear until now about TietoEVRY, here is some stuff that you need to know. You will understand why I am telling you later in the article.

Everything you need to know about TietoEVRY

They are a leading digital services company headquarted in Finland, which employs around 24,000 experts from all over the world. TietoEVRY has both private and public customers from more than 90 countries and they have an annual turnover of 3 billion EURO.

You could tell that the font they launched is a totally different business than what they do but it’s not. Everything they do is to make a better world, check their Success Stories.

According to Kia Haring, the global head of communication and sustainability at TietoEVRY: “Our purpose is to promote equality and inclusion” and “We want bullies to rethink the words they use and the actual meaning behind them… The Polite Type supports our vision of creating a safe and equal environment with digital solutions.”

Even more

The team also says: “We believe the right for freedom of speech includes the right to disagree,” and “But hate speech is not a valid way to voice disagreement. We want bullies to consider their actions online.”

They also add their desire to make a better world: “We believe that with our capabilities, responsible use of technology, and in collaboration with our community, we can create a brighter future where diversity and inclusion are the norms.

Now we can agree that launching this genius font that is fighting online bullying can also be used as a huge marketing tool. It is a double win.

Probably the costs to create the Polity Type were extremely small and the ROI (return of investment) is huge. Everybody talks about this font and about TietoEVRY. Brilliant, I can only applause such ideas. In the end, they are working to shape a better world for all of us.

All of us what love to read such stories every day.

How was the Polite Type created?

The Polite Type was created by TietoEVRY in close collaboration with a diverse team with wide-ranging backgrounds in anti-racism work, gender research and D&I consulting. Many people from different religions, world views, and sexual orientations offered their help.

High-school-aged teenagers and youth from diverse backgrounds in Finland, together with The Children and Youth Foundation worked to create the 1,800 words vocabulary.

How does it work?

You can test it right on their website.

If you write for example: “You are ugly!”, the font will automatically change your sentence to: “You are not traditionally beautiful!”. How awesome is that?

Polite type is a font that is fighting online bullying

“You are a slut” is converted into “You are a sexually active women”.

The font is an OpenType font file (OTF) that identifies discriminative and offensive English-language words. Write a word that is identified by Polite Type as a “bad word”, and it will be replaced automatically with a a more neutral, inoffensive word.

For words that are only meant to hurt someone, the blur will be automatically added. It is a common use way to hide something offensive.

What’s next?

TietoEVRY is inviting all of us – individuals, developers and companies from all over the world to further develop the font and join the fight against online bullying. The Polite Type font is launched in an open-source format, which enables for further development.

This is the single way to join powers and make together a better world.

Just imagine a future in which you cannot write bad things to somebody else. Most times we get angry for a few seconds, and in this small period of time we are saying all the bad things in the world. If we manage to get over these crazy seconds, we would calm down and be nice with people.

Polite Type will help us become people and a better world in which our kids will grow and have a normal life, a life without online bullying (65% of the bullying is made in the online world).

Conclusions

Polite Type is a genius font that is fighting online bullying and it is doing extremely well. Let’s help it become the world standard.

You can download the font PoliteType Regular font, it is free to use.

I have a 2 years old boy but when he will be a bit bigger, he will use this font. I hope this font will be obligatory online but also on smartphones.

Apple, if you read this, please do your magic and help the world implement this font.