Virgin Media’s EPG censorship goes haywire
December 20, 2011
An overzealous profanity checker has been blamed for blanking out inoffensive names of television shows from Never Mind The Buzzcocks to a football match involving Arsenal.
The system took offence at Will Smith’s 12A-rated film Hancock, calling it Hanc**k, while football fans were invited to watch a match involving A***nal. The automatic checker, which scans for inappropriate words, also stated that there would be an episode of Never Mind The Buzzc**ks.
A spokesman for Virgin TV said: ‘A temporarily overzealous profanity checker took offence at the titles of certain programmes. The altered titles have been swiftly an*lysed, and we’re fixing any remaining glitches.’
It was not the first time that filters have run amok. Residents of Scunthorpe were once banned from registering with the Internet and media company AOL.