The Apple endpoint, inconsistent as it was, was a little more permissive than I expected. At least compared to something like the Sony Playstation ID filter; for example, 'hitler' is fine for Apple, whereas Sony seems to block out any ID containing the literal string of 'hitle', e.g. `hitle123987` [0]. Meanwhile, Apple manages to block some of the more esoteric sexual profanity that Sony's filter can miss, e.g. `bunghole`.
I'm still trying to work out what Sony's filter doesn't like about my username (zeta0134) which I've had for ages. The first bit is just the letter "z" in Spanish; there's no deeper meaning. To my knowledge it's not considered offensive in Spanish, but Sony would not let me have it no matter how many variations I tried. Maybe there's some political thing I'm not aware of?
Anyway, I switched languages and I'm "zed0134" on their network. The whole thing struck me as a bit odd.
And got a response indicating that the name was both valid (i.e. not "improper") and available. Maybe at one particular time the word was flagged, but I can't imagine why.
edit: As other repliers have said, I did think that it could have something to do with Los Zetas, and maybe that was the case in the past. However, as of now, `zeta0134`, `zetas0134`, and `loszetas0134` are all valid and available names, according to the endpoint.
Interestingly, `pabloescobar0134` is considered improper. However, `elchapo0134` is not – which supports the argument that Sony's blacklist is (obviously) manually curated and perhaps subject to change. Maybe enough people who wanted "Zeta" complained for Sony to realize it was a word that had many more uses than in Los Zetas
Pablo is a very common Spanish name, and Escobar is a fairly common last name. There probably are thousands of people called Pablo Escobar who could want to use that name.
This is making me think of elevators that deliberately leave out floor numbers (13 in north america, 4 in asia) because they are 'bad luck'. Numbers! As Mitch Hedberg would say, the people on the 14th floor know which floor they're really on.
I don't know Mitch Hedberg, but that's also my reasoning. I'm not superstitious, but if I were and I had a problem with number 13, I totally wouldn't want to sit on row "14". There is a supernatural power that makes 13 bad and you can fool it by printing a "14" on top of what's clearly the 13th row? The spirit, deity or force of nature that causes bad luck looks at the labels? Come on!
> I'm not superstitious, but if I were and I had a problem with number 13, I totally wouldn't want to sit on row "14".
I imagine the way you're approaching this is not unrelated to the fact that you're not superstitious. That is to say, if you were superstitious, it's possible you wouldn't feel this way about the fake 14th row. Not having to see and think about the number 13 may be enough.
"Eta" is a Japanese derogatory slur referring to the descendants of butchers, funeral workers, executioners, and other people who handled dead things for a living. It means filthy person. They are still discriminated against, and in the past it was incredibly severe.
[0] curl -X POST https://accounts.api.playstation.com/api/v1/accounts/onlineI... -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"onlineId":"hitle123987","reserveIfAvailable":true}'