ISP Porn Filters in the UK Accidentally Blocked a League of Legends Update Over Its Filenames
Guys, why are you blocking sex, anyway? Isn't that pretty much the opposite of porn?
Proving that new porn filters they’ve adopted are super effective, some of the top ISPs in the UK have blocked a League of Legends patch. Job well done, guys. Oh wait, no, there’s nothing pornographic about the League of Legends patch, and the high tech porn filters banned it simply for having the letters “sex” in a row in filenames.
Yeah, blocking something completely harmless over a dumb technicality sounds pretty par for the course as far as censorship goes. Users who have signed up with a new ISP or switched ISPs in the new year in the UK may have porn filters enabled by default, and these are the League of Legends filenames that set them off:
- XerathMageChainsExtended.luaobj
- VarusExpirationTimer.luaobj
(Bolded sections have been added in case your brain isn’t as swift as the futuristic porn filters.)
Clearly, the porn filter technology is well worth it. How could anything ever get around the airtight security of looking for the word sex in URLs? To be fair, they also block other words, because why wouldn’t you want to start accidentally blocking perfectly innocent and/or helpful websites just because of the subjects they discuss?
Luckily, the solution is a quick phone call to your ISP if you’re one of the unlucky people affected, because the filters are optional for customers. On the other hand, if you’re a child, good luck explaining to your parents that you want them to call your ISP and take the porn block off of your video game. I bet that’ll go really well for you.
(via Joystiq, image via League of Legends)
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