Anti-porn filters stop Dominic Cummings trending on Twitter
Found on The Guardian on Thursday, 28 May 2020
This sort of accidental filtering has gained a name in computer science: the Scunthorpe problem, so-called because of the Lincolnshire town’s regular issues with such censorship.
Twitter declined to comment on the filtering. The company’s opaque trending algorithms have regularly led to accusations of interference, as users conclude that the absence of a particular topic is a sign of malicious intent, but the answer is rarely as straightforward as it is in this case.
Censorship never really works and is pretty pointless in a so-called open-minded society.