Citysearch Censors "Suck" "Blow" And "Sex" But "Oral Intercourse" Is OK
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 16:46 |
baratunde | tagged
Censorship,
Citysearch,
Facebook,
Facebook Connect,
Filters,
Movies,
Online Reviews,
Stupid in
General Look, I don't spend my time testing the language filters of user review sites. I was actually playing with Facebook Connect to see what it was capable of. Citysearch has a beta site where you can log in with your Facebook account, so I did. I wanted to see how Citysearch interacted with my Facebook profile. What I found instead was an overly rigid, nonsensical and outdated language filtering policy.
Step 1: Write movie review
Step 2: Have review blocked for use of the word "suck" despite the fact that I was saying nice things about the movie
Step 3: Test the system by replacing "suck" with "blow"
Step 4: Find out how far Citysearch is willing to go in suppressing my expression. Try replacing "blow" with "perform oral sex" ...only to have "sex" blocked
Step 5: Success!! Scientific descriptions are OK. "Perform Oral Intercourse" is acceptable to Citysearch.



