Scunthorpe problem

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Scunthorpe Problem is a term used to describe the improper blocking of websites , e-mails , posts in Internet forums, or search engine results whose text contains a string that appears obscene or otherwise unacceptable. The Scunthorpe problem arises because it is an easy task for computers to recognize a particular string of characters in a document, but it is much more difficult to interpret its meaning in context. This can lead to false-positive results.

history

The problem was named after an incident in 1996. An obscenity filter from the online service AOL made it impossible for residents of the city of Scunthorpe in England to create user accounts because the name of the city contains the character string cunt (for example: " cunt "). A similar problem occurred a few years later with Google's SafeSearch filtering technique when local news websites like ThisIsScunthorpe.co.uk were excluded from search results.

Further examples of words that were often erroneously censored are "analysis" because of the word component anal , or German words such as "Nachb arsch aft" or "B arsch ". As of 2008, the youth protection filter of the MSN web portal in the version for Germany ( msn.de ) also filtered “sextet”, “state examination” and all terms with the component sex .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Clive Feather: AOL censors British town's name! ( English ) In: The Risks Digest . April 25, 1996. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
  2. ↑ Daniel Oberhaus: Your internet life is that hard when your name is Dick or Cummings . In: Vice . September 10, 2018. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
  3. ↑ Declan McCullagh: Google's chastity belt too tight ( English ) In: CNET . April 23, 2004. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
  4. ↑ Rainer Strzolka: The Internet as a world library. Search engines and their importance for knowledge acquisition . Simon Verlag für Bibliothekswissen, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-940862-00-6 , p. 86 .
  5. ↑ Rainer Strzolka: The Internet as a world library. Search engines and their importance for knowledge acquisition . Simon Verlag für Bibliothekswissen, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-940862-00-6 , p. 86-87 .