Profanity
Socially offensive form of language
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We include updates on List of ethnic slurs, List of films that most frequently use the word fuck, List of religious slurs, Seven dirty words, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Sexual slang, Poop emoji, List of military slang terms, Scunthorpe problem, Malakas, Minced oath, Leck mich im Arsch, ¡Ay, caramba!, Coprolalia, With Apologies to Jesse Jackson, Damnation ... and more.
| March 2025 |
Scunthorpe problem
A Reddit moderator alleged that the platform's automatic moderation system was flagging posts mentioning the name 'Luigi', potentially due to associations with a criminal case.
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| March 2025 |
Scunthorpe problem
The Department of Defense erroneously removed references to the 'Enola Gay' aircraft due to the substring 'gay' as part of a content purge ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
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| 2022 |
Grass Mud Horse
During the COVID-19 protests in China, Shanghai residents used the Grass Mud Horse meme as a symbolic form of protest, demonstrating the meme's cultural significance and ability to serve as a subversive communication tool.
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| March 27 2022 |
Bleep censor
During the Oscars live broadcast, American television broadcasters muted the sound after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock and used profanity, while the uncensored exchange was broadcast in other countries like Japan, China, Australia, and Argentina.
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| 2021 |
Grass Mud Horse
According to a NordPass study, 'caonima' was identified as the 43rd most common password in China.
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| April 2021 |
Scunthorpe problem
Facebook took down the official page for the French commune of Bitche, which was later restored after an apology. The commune officials temporarily used their postal code to create a new page.
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| January 2021 |
Scunthorpe problem
Facebook apologized for muting and banning users after incorrectly flagging the Plymouth Hoe landmark as misogynistic.
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| October 2020 |
Scunthorpe problem
A virtual paleontology conference's meeting platform blocked words like 'bone', 'pubic', and 'stream'.
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| May 2020 |
Scunthorpe problem
Twitter's anti-porn filter prevented hashtags related to British political advisor Dominic Cummings from trending due to the substring 'cum'.
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| 2019 |
Bleep censor
Bleep censoring begins to be more frequently used to censor words related to sensitive and contentious topics, particularly on Meta and TikTok platforms, as a method to evade algorithmic censorship online.
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| May 2018 |
Scunthorpe problem
Publix grocery store website refused to allow a cake order containing a Latin phrase, resulting in a partially censored cake reading 'Summa --- Laude'.
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| February 2018 |
Scunthorpe problem
Google's shopping platform blocked web searches for items like glue guns, Guns N' Roses, and Burgundy wine after hastily patching its search system to prevent displaying results for weapons and accessories.
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| November 2013 |
Scunthorpe problem
Facebook temporarily blocked British users for using the word 'faggot' in reference to a traditional dish.
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| 2011 |
Scunthorpe problem
A councillor in Dudley discovered an email flagged for profanity after mentioning 'faggots', a traditional meat dish, due to its alternative meaning.
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| 2011 |
Grass Mud Horse
Ai Weiwei was arrested, with political observers speculating his provocative Grass Mud Horse nude photo may have contributed to his arrest by angering Communist Party hardliners.
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| July 2011 |
Scunthorpe problem
Web searches in China on the name Jiang were blocked following claims about former CCP general secretary Jiang Zemin's death, affecting searches related to rivers.
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| March 2011 |
Grass Mud Horse
Grass Mud Horse themed merchandise, including plush dolls, began being sold online. A Guangzhou toy manufacturer produced 150 cuddly toys with official 'birth certificates', selling brown and white versions named 'Ma Le' and 'Ge Bi' for 40 yuan each.
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| 2010 |
Scunthorpe problem
The Beaver magazine in Canada changed its name to Canada's History after 89 years due to internet filtering challenges with its original name.
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| June 2010 |
Scunthorpe problem
Twitter blocked a user from Luxembourg within 29 minutes of account creation for a tweet about 'great tits' (a bird species), despite the user including the Latin scientific name.
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This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles Grass Mud Horse, Scunthorpe problem & Bleep censor, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.