Content Most Foul: the British Library's Nanny Filter Blocks 'Hamlet' 107
An anonymous reader writes "A man using the British Library's public wi-fi found that access to an on-line copy of 'Hamlet' was blocked for 'violent content'. Now, it is true that 'Hamlet' is pretty violent (8 murders, including one before the play starts, plus one suicide). But the heavy-handed irony of a guardian of British cultural heritage censoring the greatest work of British literature is just too blatant to be ignored. Library staff initially didn't seem too interested in fixing the problem, but in the end they adjusted the filters."
Re:Banning Hamlet (Score:5, Informative)
The next thing you know they will be banning Bambi.
They just might. Bambi is pretty violent.
An excerpt from the English translation, where the Old Stag is showing Bambi that Man is not all-powerful:
He was lying with His pale, naked face turned upwards, His hat a little to one side on the snow. Bambi who did not know anything about hats, thought His horrible head was split in two. The poacher's shirt, open at the neck, was pierced where a wound gaped like a small red mouth. Blood was oozing out slowly. Blood was drying on His hair and around His nose. A big pool of it lay on the snow withc was melting from the warmth.
"We can stand right beside Him," the old stag began softly, "and it isn't dangerous."
Bambi looked down at the prostrate form whose limbs and skin seemed so mysterious and terrible to him. He gazed at the dead eyes that stared up sightlessly at him. Bambi couldn't understand it all.
Re:Not So (Score:3, Informative)
The line is: "Do you see a sign outside that says 'Dead nigger storage'?".
Get it right man.
What about the Bible (Score:4, Informative)
If they think Hamlet is too violent with 8 murders and one suicide, what about the Bible? That thing's full of people killing other people for various reasons. Heck, the exodus from Egypt alone kills all of the Pharaoh's soldiers while the Israelites celebrate on the shore. (To be fair to the Israelites, they did just escape from slavery. Seeing your former slave masters drowning as you escape to freedom is cause for celebration.) Is the Bible censored too? Do we need to come up with a child-friendly version of it?
"And so, as Lot escaped Sodom and Gomorrah, God came down and... gave them a very stern talking to.... then Lot's wife looked back and... got really dizzy so she had to lie down for a bit..."