Just as words don’t mean the same thing when they are strung together in web addresses, poorly chosen keywords without any sort of decent linking algorithm in censorship software have bizarre and disturbing results.

The US Government in trying to give citizens of countries like China and Iran access to a politically uncensored web, used screening filters to stop those citizens from viewing pornography (it seems was a bandwidth/cost issue not a moral one, however given that ‘gay’ was one of the keywords used one does wonder…):

an independent report released Monday reveals that the U.S. government also censors what Chinese and Iranian citizens can see online. Technology used by the IBB [U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau], which puts out the Voice of America broadcasts, prevents them from visiting Web addresses that include a peculiar list of verboten keywords. The list includes “ass” (which inadvertently bans usembassy.state.gov), “breast” (breastcancer.com), “hot” (hotmail.com and hotels.com), “pic” (epic.noaa.gov) and “teen” (teens.drugabuse.gov). (U.S. blunders with keyword blacklist | Perspectives | CNET News.com)

That was in 2004, but earlier this year, Google committed a similar blunder, censoring any site that had “Essex” in its domain name and sexual health sites. It also has blackballed entire servers because one user may have a human rights awareness site.

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