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    Why Web Filters Don't Work: Penistone and the Scunthorpe Problem

    Tom Scott

    2 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2017–2026

    YouTube

    3:37 · 3.6M views · Jun 6, 2016

    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.

    Politics, History & SocietyFree speech, censorship & civil libertiesSoftware architecture & design
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    4 comments from Hacker News

    1. @thepete2May 2020· in “Scunthorpe Sans – a self-censoring font”

      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

      RecommendsView on HN
    2. @colemannugentApr 2017· in “Scunthorpe Problem”

      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.

      RecommendsView on HN
    3. @Crosseye_JackMar 2021· in “Tweeting “Memphis” autolocks your Twitter account”

      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.

      CitesView on HN
    4. @varun_chAug 2026· in “Guiding Ships with Moire Patterns”

      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

      CitesView on HN