# Most idiotic example of self-censorship I've ever seen **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 25, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559 "2011-09-25T15:55:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2011, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/21 "2011-09-25T21:20:43Z")
Some of these autocensors must have been written by Beavis or Butthead. Hunh, hunh. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2011, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/22 "2011-09-25T21:49:59Z")
The online game Dark Age of Camelot had an automatic censor feature on swear words. When the game first launched (or perhaps it was still during beta testing, I don’t recall as I beta-tested too), one of the words auto-censored was “bastard.” This made trying to auction in open chat channels for a “bastard sword” very difficult. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2011, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/23 "2011-09-25T21:58:15Z")
Did the asshole get his fucking fuel problem fixed? ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2011, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/24 "2011-09-25T22:03:55Z")
> [@racer72](#): > > I know of a couple other forums that do the same. It’s one way to prevent porn spam. Ironically it sometimes has the opposite effect. Popular forum software often runs the censoring filter before the spam filter. So the spam filter never sees the offending words. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/25 "2011-09-25T22:23:13Z")
I used to work for a web search company that a business model of being family-friendly, so they rejected any searches for anything sexual or pornographic. Eventually, they realized that they were leaving money on the table by doing so, but still wanted to be family-friendly, so they contracted with another company to process those searches. (If you tried such a search, you’d be redirected to the outside website.) So they had this long list of about ten thousand search terms, starting with the obvious vanilla terms and progressing to the really weird stuff. But there was no way to upload the list of terms to the server in one go; it had to be typed in manually. I was told they hired a temp for that. I liked to imagine the call to the temp agency, “Uh, we need someone for a data entry job, lasting about a week. But no one religious or easily offended.” I asked to get a copy of that list of search terms but the manager wouldn’t let me have it. ---
**Author:** ![Ace309](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ace309/32/1050_2.png) [@Ace309](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ace309)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2011, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/26 "2011-09-25T22:33:29Z")
[Baseball-Reference.com](http://Baseball-Reference.com) carries player newsfeeds, which consist of blog entries which mention the player. They’re pulled off RSS feeds. Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey’s newsfeed is perpetually full of references to R.A. \*\*\*\*. ---
**Author:** ![emcee2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emcee2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emcee2k)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2011, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/27 "2011-09-25T22:40:44Z")
> [@Fish\_Cheer](#): > > [Faggotcuntniggerdeer!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL9xCWphV8s) There will always be ways around the filters. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/28 "2011-09-26T00:02:48Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Some of these autocensors must have been written by Beavis or Butthead. Hunh, hunh. Heh, heh, you said \*\*\*\*. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/29 "2011-09-26T00:15:01Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > Did the asshole get his fucking fuel problem fixed? I don’t know- I was so disgusted by the chicken\*\*\*\* \*\*\*\*ing use of the **s that I said "** it" and moved on. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/30 "2011-09-26T01:06:13Z")
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of s_ **ch, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to a** emble, and to pe_\*\*ion the Government for a redress of grievances. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/31 "2011-09-26T01:16:15Z")
Then there’s the Yahoo email filter that seems to have left it’s mark all over the web. The intent was to remove any javascript from emails. To do this it filtered javascript keywords like “eval” by attempting to replace them with synonyms. “Eval” was replaced with “review”. This changed the word “medieval” to “medireview”. > **[Scunthorpe problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medireview)** > > The Scunthorpe problem is the unintentional blocking of online content by a spam filter or search engine because their text contains a string (or substring) of letters that appear to have an obscene or otherwise unacceptable meaning. Names, abbreviations, and technical terms are most often cited as being affected by the issue. > The problem arises since computers can easily identify strings of text within a document, but interpreting words of this kind requires considerable ability to interpret ... If you Google “[medireview](http://www.google.com/search?q=medireview)” you’ll find things like NY Times book reviews discussing medireview history. You’ll also find various forum threads with people asking about the sudden popularity of the word “medireview” and wondering if it’s some new term which has a meaning which is subtly different from “medieval”. It’s funny to Google various possible replacements. For example, some filters replace “anus” with “rectum”. Don’t believe me? Google “[mrectumcript](http://www.google.com/search?q=mrectumcript)”. ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/32 "2011-09-26T01:43:11Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > It’s funny to Google various possible replacements. For example, some filters replace “anus” with “rectum”. Don’t believe me? Google “[mrectumcript](http://www.google.com/search?q=mrectumcript)”. That is, by far, the most idiotic example. (1) Both anus and rectum are proper medical terms, and (B) they’re two different things. That’s like replacing every occurrence of “David Doyle” with “Tom Bosley”. It makes no sense. Obviously, anus should be replaced by “fartpipe” and rectum by “shit-chute”. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/33 "2011-09-26T01:48:05Z")
One long-time board I’m on started out as very family friendly. The two admins are a wife and husband who would usually perform admin duties with a kid nearby so they didn’t want to see any objectionable words, like “moron”. They have thankfully loosened up over the years. The comments section at the departed [comics.com](http://comics.com) was one with an overly aggressive nannybot. Can’t remember any specific examples but they likely would have turned Scunthorpe into S\*\*\*\*horpe. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/34 "2011-09-26T02:00:31Z")
I used to moderate at a D&D board, and we held the grandma rule: if it’d offend the site-founder’s grandmother’s delicate sensibilities, don’t post it. One year we tried out a new heuristic filter that analyzed posts for obscenities and dynamically auto-updated to intelligently redact forbidden language blah blah blah. We announced it on March 31, of course, rolling it out the next day, starting with obvious ones like “tit” and “ass” and moving on to “pee” and “chest” and the like. By late afternoon the filter had gained self-awareness and registered an account on the forum and banned the site administrators for threatening to take the filter offline to figure out what was going on. It was pretty fun. I never dreamed other folks would do it for real on a different day of the year. ---
**Author:** ![auRa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@auRa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auRa)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/35 "2011-09-26T09:36:06Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > One I frequent used to flag certain words the admins arbitrarily didn’t like with short phrases instead of simple word replacement. “Mojo” became “I am unoriginal and unfunny; please put me out of my misery.” The cure becomes worse than the disease. Thankfully they changed all that. SomethingAwful does that with some words; “fuck” becomes “gently caress”, for example. Others are just simple word replacements (“damn” -\> “drat” etc.). You see them when not logged into the forums; once you’re in, you can see the actual words. Usually a good way to spot someone who’s new to the forums is when they use terms like “loving” and “poo poo” in their own writing, not realizing that they’re word replacements and not some form of SA lingo. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/36 "2011-09-26T15:29:26Z")
> [@auRa](#): > > SomethingAwful does that with some words; “fuck” becomes “gently caress”, for example. Others are just simple word replacements (“damn” -\> “drat” etc.). You see them when not logged into the forums; once you’re in, you can see the actual words. Usually a good way to spot someone who’s new to the forums is when they use terms like “loving” and “poo poo” in their own writing, not realizing that they’re word replacements and not some form of SA lingo. Sadly, I’ve been on the SA forums for years, and I STILL think “What the gently caress is THIS poo poo?” is the height of comedy. ---
**Author:** ![Vihaga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Vihaga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vihaga)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/37 "2011-09-26T15:41:05Z")
If straight dope were the warcraft boards, we would get things like: > [@](#): > > This post has been g **d by the g** \*\*! It loses something. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/38 "2011-09-26T17:07:07Z")
Without being familiar with a certain slang term, but being very familiar with the symbolic significance of a certain animal in many cultures, I once wrote a pond formed thanks to a beaver dam, and the beavers which lived there in a MUD. So, this chick from Virginia blew off her handle one night, having witnessed someone with a dagger pierce a beaver and went and used ctrl+H to change them all to otters. Which simply didn’t make sense, damnit. A quick survey of both players and admin showed that actually a very small % knew the oh-so-offensive slang term, while everybody knew about the actual animal’s interesting habits and international/multilingual symbolic meaning. That same woman made one of our programmers take out the magic mushrooms. No more eating magic shrooms for you! Must be actual fruits and vegetables! Amaya eats her date. Tysmiha eats a banana. Kirimasa eats some nuts… The male players fan themselves… (Why all the spoilers? So people who read fast don’t know what the problem was before they’ve even started reading, damnit!) ---
**Author:** ![MHaye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bbe5ce/32.png) [@MHaye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MHaye)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/39 "2011-09-26T17:57:58Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > The online game Dark Age of Camelot had an automatic censor feature on swear words. When the game first launched (or perhaps it was still during beta testing, I don’t recall as I beta-tested too), one of the words auto-censored was “bastard.” This made trying to auction in open chat channels for a “bastard sword” very difficult. WotC actually go that one right. The word “bastard” was not filtered out, precisely because of the need to discuss the bastard sword. Mind you, they didn’t get everything right. When I attempted to undermine someone’s claim that I was a mafiate in my very first Mafia game, I tried to pass the evidence off as “a cock-and-bull story.” Stupid filters not taking context into account. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559/40 "2011-09-26T19:02:48Z")
What about typing G-d for God? It’s not like God doesn’t know what you mean. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-idiotic-example-of-self-censorship-ive-ever-seen/597559.md?page=3)