Sunday, May 11, 2008

Automated Censorship via Robot

Via Bookninja: While trying to access Bookninja via free wireless in Halifax, it was discovered that access to the site was blocked by Hotspot due to a "banned phrase". The unidentified phrase was apparently found by a robot searching for keywords. I understand that in some cases web content must be filitered. Blocking pornography where children might access it is fine, but at least take the time to have blocking done by humans. Allowing a robot to censor information based on keywords is a nightmare even Orwell couldn't have imagined.

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