Totally Hot Hardcore Censorship Action
What does it take to be censored on the new MSN Spaces blogging service? One of my favourite sites, boing-boing, gives us the lowdown in what has to be the most entertaining censorship research ever undertaken:
...Uh-oh. My attempt to create an MSN Spaces blog called "Pornography and The Law" is met with rude red text advising me to can the profanity. So, if I were a law student who wanted to start a blog about the history of obscenity law in the United States, I'd be sh*t out of luck.
***Very bad news for fans of Russian literature. The blog title "Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov" is deemed inappropriate, as are any titles I try to create with the 1955 book's name.
***"Smoking Crack: A How-To Guide For Teens." This wholesome little morsel, suggested by my NPR "Day to Day" producer Steve Proffitt, also made the grade.
The conclusion? A mixed bag of results that manages to do what most attempts to automate censorship do -- make fools of the censors.
Read Boing-Boing
...Uh-oh. My attempt to create an MSN Spaces blog called "Pornography and The Law" is met with rude red text advising me to can the profanity. So, if I were a law student who wanted to start a blog about the history of obscenity law in the United States, I'd be sh*t out of luck.
***Very bad news for fans of Russian literature. The blog title "Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov" is deemed inappropriate, as are any titles I try to create with the 1955 book's name.
***"Smoking Crack: A How-To Guide For Teens." This wholesome little morsel, suggested by my NPR "Day to Day" producer Steve Proffitt, also made the grade.
The conclusion? A mixed bag of results that manages to do what most attempts to automate censorship do -- make fools of the censors.
Read Boing-Boing
