think demux

The Scunthorpe Problem. Ring any bells?

Back in 1996, residents of Scunthorpe, Penistone and Lightwater were left in the dark by AOL when their town names were blocked by obscenity filters. Apparently Google did the same.

Thanks to the galloping speed of progress, we have an enhanced version of the Scunthorpe Problem. And here it comes courtesy of the right-wing press.

America’s OneNewsNow site has been autoreplacing the word “gay” with the word “homosexual”, rechristening Tyson Gay as the Fastest Homosexual on Earth.

Putting to one side the agenda of OneNewsNow, this raises a much broader question. The word vs. the image. While PCism continues to butcher the word, our visual filters are dropping and dropping. Aren’t they…?

Two counterpoints to conclude on here: a recently banned Heinz commercial, and the words of Paul Virilio. See what you think – which is harder? The word, or the image?

…in a rapidly globalizing world there is no longer, strictly speaking, either Right or Left, and … since the fall of the Berlin Wall, these things no longer have any meaning. All that remains is the great audiovisual dilemma, the conflict between the soft (the word) and the hard (the image).

Paul Virilio, The Information Bomb