Why Web Filters Don't Work: Penistone and the Scunthorpe Problem
Tom Scott2 HN recommenders · recommended in 2 months, 2017–2026
explainer · general · evergreen · 2017–2026 on HN
Tom Scott visits Penistone to explain the Scunthorpe problem, showing why naive web and profanity filters block innocent words.
The go-to explainer whenever content filters wrongly flag innocent words, well made and short.
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4 comments from Hacker News
There is a video [0] about this censoring-"problem" by Youtuber Tom Scott. He talks about how it's impossible to implement with all edge-cases, easy to circumvent and thus usually not a good idea. Fittingly, the video is filmed in Peniston. [0] ▶ this video
Tom Scott did a video on this: Why Web Filters Don't Work: Penistone and the Scunthorpe Problem - ▶ this video It's well done, like the rest of his content.
With Tom Scott in particular, there’s a number of his videos that are kinda eerie to watch now with today’s LLM context eg. ▶ this video
Penistone and Scunthorpe and now Memphis. ▶ this video As much as I dislike Twitter (I only really use it for work reasons) they are in a no win situation. They either moderate what people post with a flawed system that will never be 100% or be hounded by the "Why won't anyone think of the children" group.