Scunthorpe problem

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 Origin and history 2 Other examples 2.1 Refused web domain names and email addresses 2.2 Blocked web searches 2.3 Blocked emails 2.3.1 Blocked for word with two meanings 2.4 News articles damaged 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

See also Internet forum#Word censor and Anti-spam techniques#Detecting spam and Internet censorship#"By-catch".

The Scunthorpe problem occurs when a spam filter or search engine blocks e-mails or search results because their text contains a string of letters that are shared by an obscene word. While computers can easily identify strings of text within a document, broad blocking rules will result in a false positive, causing innocent phrases to be blocked.

[edit] Origin and history

The problem was named after an incident in 1996 in which AOL's dirty-word filter prevented residents from the town of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England from creating accounts with AOL, because the town's name contains the substring cunt. Years later, Google's filters apparently made the same mistake, preventing residents from searching for local businesses that included Scunthorpe in their names.^[1]

• Residents of Penistone, South Yorkshire, experienced problems because the town's name includes the substring penis.
• Lightwater in Surrey suffered similarly because its name contains the substring twat. One web forum replaces "wristwatch" by "wris****ch" in messages.

[edit] Other examples

Mistaken decisions by obscenity filters include:

[edit] Refused web domain names and email addresses

• In April 1998 Jeff Gold attempted to register the domain name shitakemushrooms.com, but was blocked by an InterNIC filter prohibiting the "seven dirty words" which was active between 1996 and the transfer of control to ICANN .^[2] (Shiitake is a Japanese name for the edible fungus Lentinula edodes.)
• In February 2004, Craig Cockburn of Scotland reported that he was unable to use his surname (pronounced "Coburn") with Hotmail, Yahoo! or his workplace computers. He discovered that his e-mails would be delivered if he spelled his name C0ckburn (with a zero instead of the letter "o").^[3]
• In February 2006 Linda Callahan, a resident of Ashfield, Massachusetts was initially prevented from registering her name with Yahoo! as an e-mail address as it contained the substring Allah. Yahoo! later reversed the ban.^[4]
• In July 2008, Dr. Herman I. Libshitz was initially unable to get the e-mail address he wanted from Verizon because it contained the substring "shit". A spokesperson commented: "As a general rule (since 2005) Verizon doesn't allow questionable language in e-mail addresses, but we can, and do, make exceptions based on reasonable requests. The one from Dr. and Mrs. Libshitz certainly is reasonable and we regret the inconvenience and frustration they've been caused." ^[5]

[edit] Blocked web searches

• The filter of the free wireless service of the town of Whakatane in New Zealand blocked searches involving the town's own name, because the phonetic analysis used by the filter deemed the "whak" to sound like fuck.^[6]
• Gareth Roelofse, the designer of the website http://RomansInSussex.co.uk, noted: "We found many library Net stations, school networks and Internet cafes block sites with the word 'sex' in the domain name. This was a challenge for RomansInSussex.co.uk because its target audience is school children."^[1]

[edit] Blocked emails

• In October 2004, it was reported that the Horniman Museum in London was failing to receive some of its e-mail due to filters mistakenly deciding that its name was a version of the words horny man.^[7][8]
• Problems can occur with the words socialism and socialist and specialist because they contain the substring Cialis, the brand name for an erectile dysfunction medication commonly advertised in spam e-mails. Blocking of the word specialist is liable to block emailed resumes and other material including job descriptions.^[9]

[edit] Blocked for word with two meanings

• In May 2006 Ray Kennedy from Manchester in the UK found that e-mails that he had written to his local council to complain about a planning application had been blocked as they contained the word erection when referring to a structure.^[10]
• In October 2004, e-mails advertising the pantomime Dick Whittington sent by a teacher from Norwich in the UK were blocked by school computers due to the use of the word Dick, sometimes used as slang for "penis".^[11]
• In February 2003 Members of Parliament at the British House of Commons found that a new spam filter was blocking e-mails containing references to the Sexual Offences Bill then under debate, and some messages relating to a Liberal Democrat consultation paper on censorship.^[12]
• Résumés of magna cum laude graduates have been blocked by spam filters due to inclusion of the word cum, which here is Latin for "with" but in English is sometimes used as slang for "semen".^[13]

[edit] News articles damaged

• In June 2008, a news site run by the American Family Association censored an Associated Press article on sprinter Tyson Gay, replacing instances of "gay" with homosexual, thus rendering his name as "Tyson Homosexual".^[14]

[edit] See also

• Censorship by Google
• Medireview (arose as a false automatic euphemism for "medieval")
• Swear filter

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Article on autocorrecting from The Guardian