'Penistone' censored

'The blocking of harmless websites or e-mails by trigger-happy filters is nothing new', reports the BBC. Filters are configured to catch words that are commonly associated with spam, which is a good thing. Too much of that good thing, however, prevented residents of the (fabulously named, I must admit) North Yorkshire town of Penistone from registering with internet providers, because, according to the filters, their town name contained an obscenity.

Even worse, occasionally, such filters are configured not merely to censor real or supposed obscenities, but to replace them with synonyms that won't offend genteel tastes: 'tit' becomes 'breast' and so on. However, in 2008, 'a news website run by the American Family Association censored an Associated Press article on the sprinter Tyson Gay.

A filter decided that "gay" was an offensive word, which should be replaced with "homosexual".

The resulting article began with the memorable headline: "Homosexual eases into 100m final at Olympic trials".'

Story from the BBC