In the same way that parents have a hard time keeping up with the latest internet slang (opens in new tab), so too does the FBI (opens in new tab) which is why the government agency put together its own guide on the latest terms and abbreviations.
As reported by Input (opens in new tab), the FBI actually has its own 83-page guide on internet slang that you can read for yourself on the Internet Archive (opens in new tab).
(opens in new tab)It’s worth noting that the FBI’s massive encyclopedia of internet slang is a bit dated by today’s standards as it was obtained back in 2014 through a Freedom of Information Act (opens in new tab) (FOIA) request filed by the non-profit MuckRock whose aim is to make politics more transparent while holding the government accountable.
Abbreviations galore
The FBI’s internet slang guide was uploaded to the Internet Archive for posterity and contains 2,800 entries with the vast majority of them being abbreviations for Twitter shorthand. However, the guide also contains entries on common symbols found online such as using “<3” for heart.
Alongside familiar terms like “LOL” and “BRB”, the FBI’s internet slang guide also has some more unusual entries such as ALOTBSOL (always look on the bright side of life), BIOYIOP (blow it out your I/O port), DENT (don’t bother next time), GIWIS (gee, I wish I’d said that) and more.
As we mentioned before, you can read the guide yourself (opens in new tab) on the Internet Archive but be warned, it is very low quality and you’ll need to zoom in quite a bit to read it.
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According to a report (opens in new tab) from The Verge released back in 2014 when the FBI’s internet slang guide first became publicly available, the glossary of terms was put together by the government agency’s Intelligence Research Support Unit and was described as useful for “keeping up” with children and grandchildren.
Although we now know what the FBI was looking for online almost a decade ago, it would be quite interesting to take a look at the agency’s more recent internet slang guides which have likely ballooned in size now that more and more of our daily lives are spent online.
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Via Input (opens in new tab)
