The Clbuttic Mistake: When obscenity filters go wrong

The Telegraph (London, UK) ^ | 9-2-08 | Matthew Moore

[GraniteStateConservative]

President Abraham Lincoln was buttbuttinated by an armed buttailant after a life devoted to the reform of the US consbreastution.

Not an extract from an essay by a particularly poor history student, but a selection of the nonsense phrases created by automatic software designed to remove offensive words from articles posted on the internet.

The phenomena, known as “The Clbuttic Mistake” after a mangling of the word “classic” that is believed to be the first identified instance of the problem, can be found on tens of thousands of websites.

The error is caused by poorly programmed anti-obscenity filters – similar to spell checkers – that automatically replace words considered rude or offensive with more acceptable variants. “Butt” replaces “ass”, “breast” is substituted for “tit”, and so on.

Rudimentary versions of this software do not just replace obscene words, but also alter longer words which contain banned letter combinations, so "assassination" becomes "buttbuttination", "passenger" becomes "pbuttenger", and "passerby" becomes "pbutterby".

The problem is fairly widespread; Google searches turn up 3,810 results for “clbuttic”, 5,120 for “consbreastution”, and 1,450 for “Buttociated Press”, a corruption of the US news agency the Associated Press. Perhaps the most celebrated instance of the Clbuttic Mistake comes in an article currently visible on the website jucee.org .

...

The American Family Association had programmed its filter to replace the word “gay” with “homosexual”, causing an article about sprinter Tyson Gay’s triumph at the US Olympic trials to begin: “Tyson Homosexual was a blur in blue, sprinting 100 meters faster than anyone ever has." Further on in the piece the runner was referred to as “the 25-year-old Homosexual.”

...

[JRios1968]

This is hugh

[sionnsar]

“Buttociated Press”

That one fits.

[DustyMoment]

This is hugh

And series.

[LongElegantLegs]

buttbuttinated sounds like a particularly humiliating way to die...

[Army Air Corps]

Ping for your amusement.

[edcoil]

“buttbuttinated, buttailant and consbreastution.”

Are these words I should know?

[G8 Diplomat]

So do articles about the president of Syria feature the name “Bashar Buttad”?

[KarlInOhio]

I think it was a Minnesota newspaper which had an article about the Enola Homosexual dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima a few years ago.

[driftdiver]

but very popular is San fran

[KarlInOhio]

“Buttociated Press”, a corruption of the US news agency the Associated Press

Badly phrased. It should read "Associated Press is a corrupted US news agency."

[weegee]

Buttociated Press...

Ass. Press works better.

So does American Pravda, AgitProp, etc.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

“Buttociated Press”

LOL. That should be part of the official Freeper lexicon from now on — or at least, I would buttert that.

[sneakers]

bump

[JRios1968]

Are these words I should know?

Obviously you weren't in clbutt and missed the homework buttignment...

[ctdonath2]

I live in the town of Cumming. No kidding.
One automated on-line help system responded to that with “My, what colorful language” and proceeded to be entirely unhelpful.

[Albion Wilde]

Dying laughing over this one....

[null and void]

Buttociated Press

Even I can’t add to that.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

...the US Consbreastution.

I know it when I see it.

[null and void]

No, This is

Hugh and Syrius