Pr0n is
slang for
pornography.
[1] This is a deliberately inaccurate spelling/pronunciation for
porn,
[15] where a zero is often used to replace the letter O. It is sometimes used in legitimate communications (such as email discussion groups,
Usenet, chat rooms, and Internet web pages) to circumvent language and
content filters, which may reject messages as offensive or
spam. The word also helps prevent
search engines from associating commercial sites with pornography, which might result in unwelcome traffic.[
citation needed]
Pr0n is also sometimes spelled backwards (n0rp) to further obscure the meaning to potentially uninformed readers.
[Notes 2] It can also refer to
ASCII art depicting pornographic images, or to photos of the internals of consumer and industrial hardware.
Prawn, a spoof of the misspelling, has started to come into use, as well; in
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, a pornographer films his movies on "Prawn Island". Conversely, in the
RPG Kingdom of Loathing,
prawn, referring to a kind of
crustacean, is spelled
pr0n, leading to the creation of food items such as "pr0n chow mein".