4 Insane Examples of Overzealous Internet Censorship

4

A Christian News Site Renames an Olympian

We can remember athlete Tyson Gay for a few reasons. First off, we could remember him for being an Olympic medalist who, as a world champion track and field runner, has achieved more in his 30 years on Earth than most of us achieve in the totality of our lives ...

Al Bello / Getty
Get your giggles out now, 9-year-olds.

3

Spam Filters Veto Basic English Words

In 2006, lawyer Ray Kennedy wrote three emails to his local borough council complaining about a planning matter. His first two emails never reached the council, whereas the final email arrived too late for the council to react to the complaint. Where did everything go wrong?

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And no, his name wasn't Ray Kennedy Fuckgenitals.

2

Facebook Wipes a Town Off the Map

The world is brimming with old towns whose names have gained new, innuendo-happy meaning only in recent times (we mean you, Climax, Michigan, and Intercourse, Pennsylvania). Such was the case in 2011, when the 1,000 residents of Effin, Ireland, found themselves unable to list their hometown on Facebook after the social networking site deemed their fair hamlet's name "offensive." That's right -- the word polite people use to avoid saying "fucking" now gets censored.

Ceolgra
Oddly enough, Hardcore Anal, Scotland, never had this issue.

On one hand, we soberly sympathize with the residents of Effin, whose town has borne its name for centuries. On another hand, the town's advocates didn't do themselves any favors when they said stuff like "Our best known export is Effin cheese [...] I'd just like to put down (on Facebook), because I'm from Effin, and so would so many Effin people around the world, that they're from Effin." You're really just rubbing it in their faces at that point.

1

The Entire Internet Blackballs a Museum

In 2004, a certain anthropology museum in London encountered a problem. Despite its wealth of historical artifacts, its emails were being rejected by spam filters, and Internet browsers were either blocking its site or rerouting visitors to naughty websites. In fact, a tenth of the museum's ingoing and outgoing email communications was being censored. Why was this happening?

Matt Cardy / Stringer / Getty
Backlash from the powerful walrus lobby?

If Beavis and Butthead ever opened a detective agency, this would've been their career-making case. After a century of providing thousands of Londoners with a family-friendly education, the Horniman Museum -- which was named after 19th century tea magnate Frederick John Horniman -- was being vanquished from the Internet on the basis of its name alone.

But seriously, could he have picked a penisier hat?