Medireview

The Scunthorpe problem describes the accidental censorship of online material by spam filters or search engines triggered by the presence of a string (or substring) that resembles an offensive or otherwise inappropriate term. This issue commonly impacts proper names, abbreviations, and specialized terminology.

This challenge arises because automated systems can detect specific text patterns but lack the cultural and contextual sensitivity needed to interpret language accurately. As a result, broad filtering parameters often generate false positives that inadvertently restrict valid content.

Etymology and origin

The phrase was coined following an event in April 1996 when AOL’s profanity filter prevented users from the English town of Scunthorpe from accessing services due to the embedded substring "cunt" within its name. In the early 2000s, Google’s opt-in SafeSearch feature similarly blocked local businesses and services mentioning Scunthorpe, causing them to be excluded from search results.

Workarounds

Addressing the Scunthorpe problem remains complex because filters lack the capability to fully comprehend language context. A common solution involves creating a whitelist containing verified false positives—terms that include flagged substrings but are legitimate—enabling filters to bypass these exceptions and minimize incorrect content restrictions.

Other examples

Instances of obscenity filters making erroneous judgments include:

Denied domain registrations and account creations

• In April 1998, Jeff Gold was unable to register the domain shitakemushrooms.com because the substring shit triggered an InterNIC filter designed to block the "seven dirty words". (Shiitake refers to the edible mushroom Lentinula edodes.)
• In 2000, Canadian web filtering software blocked access to the Montreal Urban Community’s website because its French acronym CUM (www.cum.qc.ca) coincided with an English vulgar slang term.
• In February 2004, Craig Cockburn from Scotland was barred from using his surname (containing cock) on Hotmail. Additionally, his job title software specialist was flagged due to including Cialis. Hotmail initially suggested he alter his name to C0ckburn but later lifted the restriction. He encountered similar problems registering on the BBC website in 2010.
• In February 2006, Linda Callahan was initially blocked from creating a Yahoo! email account because her name included Allah. Yahoo! eventually reversed this decision.
• In July 2008, Herman I. Libshitz was refused an email address by Verizon due to the substring shit in his surname. Verizon later issued an apology for the rejection.

Filtered search queries

• Prior to January 1996, searches related to Super Bowl XXX were sometimes filtered because "XXX" is commonly associated with pornography.
• Gareth Roelofse, designer of RomansInSussex.co.uk, reported in 2004 that many public networks restricted access to sites containing "sex" in their domain names, complicating efforts to reach school-age audiences.
• In German, compound words occasionally include the substring sex as a linking element, which triggers search engine filters—most notably with the term Staatsexamen.
• In 2008, Whakatāne in New Zealand experienced blocking of searches for its name by a free wireless filter after phonetic analysis matched a profanity; subsequently, the town was added to an approved whitelist.
• In July 2011, searches for Jiang were censored in China following rumors about former CCP leader Jiang Zemin’s death. Because "Jiang" (江) also translates as "river," related river queries were similarly restricted under Chinese censorship policies.
• In February 2018, Google’s shopping platform blocked searches for products such as glue guns, Guns N' Roses, and Burgundy wine after updating its system to enforce restrictions on items violating its weapons policy.

Blocked emails

• In 2001, Yahoo! Mail implemented an email filter that automatically altered terms related to JavaScript in HTML email to prevent script execution. The filter hyphenated words such as "JavaScript", "JScript", "VBScript", and "LiveScript"; additionally, it substituted "eval", "mocha", and "expression" with "review", "espresso", and "statement" respectively. However, the filter did not restrict these substitutions to script code sections nor did it consider word boundaries, leading to errors like medireview instead of medieval.
• In February 2003, members of the British House of Commons discovered that a newly introduced spam filter was blocking emails that referenced the Sexual Offences Bill as well as certain Liberal Democrat consultation documents. The filter also prevented emails written in Welsh from being delivered due to unrecognized language patterns.
• In October 2004, London's Horniman Museum failed to receive some emails because its name was mistakenly flagged by filters as containing the phrase horny man.

Blocked for words with multiple meanings

• In October 2004, UK school computer systems blocked emails promoting the pantomime Dick Whittington because the word Dick is also slang for penis.
• In May 2006, emails expressing concerns about a Manchester planning application were filtered out because they included the word erection, used in the context of building construction.
• The Winnipeg-based publication The Beaver changed its name to Canada's History in 2010 after online filters repeatedly blocked its title, limiting outreach. Publisher Deborah Morrison explained that although the original name was fitting in 1920, the term’s modern internet connotations became problematic.
• In June 2010, a Twitter user from Luxembourg had a tweet removed within 29 minutes due to the phrase "great tits," despite it referring to bird species using their Latin names.
• In 2011, a Dudley councillor’s email mentioning the local specialty faggots—a type of meatball—was flagged by council security systems for containing offensive language because of the term’s alternative meaning.
• Residents of Penistone in South Yorkshire experienced email disruptions because their town’s name contains the substring penis.
• People living in Clitheroe, Lancashire encountered email issues since their town’s name includes clit, which is commonly used as shorthand for clitoris.
• Résumés mentioning Latin academic honors such as cum laude have been rejected by spam filters due to "cum" being slang for semen or ejaculation.
• In March 2025, Reddit’s automated moderation system flagged posts referencing "Luigi," including those about the video game Luigi's Mansion 3, because of an association with Luigi Mangione, a suspect involved in a widely publicized assassination case.

News articles

• In June 2008, the news platform OneNewsNow, managed by the anti-LGBT organization American Family Association, altered an Associated Press story about sprinter Tyson Gay by substituting "gay" with "homosexual", resulting in the name "Tyson Homosexual". This filter had previously modified basketball player Rudy Gay's name to "Rudy Homosexual". Likewise, in 2015, marking the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the Observer Chronicle referred to the Enola Gay as the "Enola Homosexual".
• The sequence "ass" can be replaced with "butt", causing errors such as "" instead of "classic", "" for "assignment", and "" for "assassinate". The phrase "clbuttic mistake"—a humorous online reference to a filter blocking "ass" in "classic mistake"—illustrates these content-filtering glitches commonly called the Scunthorpe problem.

Video games

• In 2008, Microsoft's policy to block terms related to sexual orientation caused Richard Gaywood's name to be flagged as inappropriate, preventing its use in his gamertag and Real Name fields.
• In 2010, Xbox Live player Josh Moore was banned after listing his address as Fort Gay, West Virginia, which was mistakenly identified as offensive. Despite his appeals and clarifications, the suspension lasted several days, causing him to miss a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 competition. The ban was eventually lifted following intervention from the town's mayor and media attention.
• In 2011, Pokémon Black and White encountered problems when trading Cofagrigus online without a nickname because its species name contained the substring fag. Similar limitations affected Nosepass, Probopass, and Froslass due to substrings like ass. These filters have since been revised to permit normal trading.
• In January 2014, UK internet service provider filters blocked online game files for League of Legends because filenames included the substring sex. This issue was subsequently resolved.

Other

• In 2013, file transfers named after the Swedish city of Falun caused disruptions at Diakrit, a China-based company. Diakrit addressed the problem by renaming the files. Fredrik Bergman of Diakrit suspects these file names triggered censorship by the Great Firewall, likely due to association with the banned Falun Gong movement.
• In November 2013, Facebook temporarily restricted British users for employing the word faggot when referring to the traditional food item.
• In May 2018, Publix's website censored a Latin phrase on a cake order, resulting in a cake displaying "Summa --- Laude" contrary to customer instructions.
• In May 2020, hashtags mentioning British political advisor Dominic Cummings failed to trend on Twitter because the substring cum activated an anti-pornography filter.
• In October 2020, a virtual platform for a paleontology conference blocked words such as "bone", "pubic", and "stream" due to profanity filtering settings.
• In January 2021, Facebook issued an apology after muting users when it mistakenly flagged the Devon landmark Plymouth Hoe as offensive.
• In April 2021, Facebook removed the official page for the French Commune of Bitche. Officials created a replacement page under the postal code Mairie 57230. Facebook later restored the original page and apologized; nearby Rohrbach-lès-Bitche renamed its page to Ville de Rohrbach as a precautionary measure.
• In March 2025, during a purge of diversity and inclusion content ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the United States Department of Defense inadvertently deleted references to the Enola Gay aircraft because of the substring gay.