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."
Not So (Score:2, Interesting)
... the greatest work of British literature ...
Not. Both King Lear and The Tempest are better plays. Hamlet is, however, likely the best vehicle for an actor to present himself.
1st Psot?
Re:Not So (Score:5, Funny)
Anon, Anon C., you should have posted non-anon.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Greatest Work? English Literature?
LoTR, you fool! ;-)
Re:Not So (Score:5, Insightful)
The old joke: Hamlet is a lousy play because about half its lines are cliches.
Not that Bill didn't write some other great stuff, but the fact remains that Hamlet is more influential than Lear or The Tempest or Richard III.
Re: (Score:1)
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Conscience does make cowards of us all.
Dog will have his day.
Hoist with his own petard.
In my heart of hearts.
In my mind’s eye.
More in sorrow than in anger.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
Primrose path.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
The lady doth protest too much, me thinks.
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends.
To be, or not to be: that is the question.
To the manner born.
To thine own self be true.
Contrast with, oh, Pulp Fiction:
Zed's dead, baby.
It's th
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The line is: "Do you see a sign outside that says 'Dead nigger storage'?".
Get it right man.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
On the Shakespear side I always liked "The heads of maids or their maidenheads, take that how thou wilt"; because nothing is as classy and high brow as opening your play with jokes about raping or murdering the women of the family you have a rivalry with.... far be it from shakespear to not include some entertainment for the rabble, every penny counts :)
Re:Not So (Score:5, Interesting)
My coinpurse is the one
With "Blasted Oedipus" stitched upon it.
I pray you, open it and count its hoard.
How much find you?
PUMPKIN
I guess at ten times five score sovereigns.
JULES
That sum is yours; add it to thy purse.
Consider, if you add to that
The balance from our innkeepers' till
And the tally of what is in the others,
It may be thought a sum
That any would be glad of.
VINCENT
Sirrah, I pray,
Let not these ruffians rob thee,
Or I may slay them for the spite.
JULES
O, thou shall not, thou cur!
Be still, be silent and stand down!
They do not rob me, nor is it a gift;
It is payment for a purchase.
Knows’t thou what I purchase, friend?
PUMPKIN
I know not.
JULES
Your life. If I give it to you thus,
Then thou and I are spared
My need for vengeance for thy thievery.
I pray, do you often read the Bible?
PUMPKIN
Not regularly.
JULES
There is a Scripture verse; I did commit it to my brain.
Ezekiel 25:17. "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is The Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."
I have for years recited thus. If thou didst but hear,It was as clear a sign of your demise As found in any witches' scry.
Yet never had I ponder'd its intent; T'was simply fiendish sounds I could thus speak/ Before I dealt my foes the final stroke
That sent them on to God's Own Realm../ But just this morrow hence, I saw such things/That lead me to reflect upon my words
And divine what the meaning was therein./Perchance, I guessed, you are the evil man,And I the righteous man. As for the shepherd, Methought it could have then stood for my blade../Anon, perhaps the righteous man is you;I then may be the shepherd, and the evil and the selfish Is all that stands about us in this world. Such is a pleasing thought. But such is also false.
In truth, you are the weak. And I, the tyranny of evil men.Yet, henceforth, I assure you, I shall try In all my ways to now become the shepherd.
[Jules lays down his sword. Pumpkin and Yolanda run off. Jules takes a sip of his ale.]
JULES
Anon, my ale is warm.
[He pushes it aside.]
VINCENT
My friend, mayhap we should depart.
JULES
An excellent idea, my friend;
And so, let us be gone.
[Vincent throws a coin on the table and Jules grabs the chest. They exeunt.]
Re: (Score:2)
Contrast with, oh, Pulp Fiction:
There [wikispaces.com] you have it.
Zed's dead, baby. - Zed's dead./Rest easy, love, the rascal's truly dead. [wikispaces.com]
It's the one that says "Badass Motherfucker." - With “Blasted Oedipus” stitched upon it. [wikispaces.com]
$5 milkshake? What, does it have bourbon in it? - Tis laced with spirits, to be sure! for sweet cream / from e'en the fines't cow could not be so dear. [wikispaces.com]
Do you see a sign outside that says "Dead nigger disposal"? - Didst chance to read a sign which beckoned out,/ "Dead Nigger Storage" declaring my trade? [wikispaces.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Carry On, then...
Re:Not So (Score:5, Funny)
Oops, this is an American web site.
Re: Not So (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Not So (Score:4, Funny)
Aha! So it was really blocked for copyright infringement.
Re: Not So (Score:2)
Not stolen. Shakespeare was a screenwriter doing adaptations of public domain legends. Like Disney. Ironically.
Re: (Score:3)
On top of that, Hamlet is stolen from the old Danish story of Amleth. Which is a lot more violent :)
There's always Titus Andronicus if that's what you like.
A scottish schoolmaster called Adam McNaughtan took on the challenge of summarizing the whole play in one song. [youtube.com] If you need a translation from Scots to English, then you might prefer Martin Carthy's version. [youtube.com]
I love the bit towards the end. "Fortinbras, knee-deep in Danes, lived happily ever after."
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Not So (Score:4, Insightful)
Observe. (ahem) The Beatles were a pretty good band. They had good songs. Like "Hey Jude." That was a good song.
Re: (Score:2)
Larry Niven, Ringworld. First appearance of Speaker-to-Animals.
Doctor Dolittle speaks fluent animal (Score:2)
Larry Niven, Ringworld. First appearance of Speaker-to-Animals.
Only "first" in the sense of failed attempts to get the earliest post on a Slashdot story. Ringworld was first published in 1970. The Story of Doctor Dolittle was first published in 1920. Other examples are older [tvtropes.org].
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect you do not know the character Speaker-to-Animals of the novel Ringworld. A Kizin. He only spoke to animals in the sense that humans are animals, but the Kzinti were very proud, and preferred to accord humans as little consideration as they could get away with. So one of their ambasadors to humanity was titled Speaker-to-Animals. (He had not earned a real name.)
Re:Not So (Score:4, Funny)
Both King Lear and The Tempest are better plays.
The Tempest is merely a British remake of Gilligan's Island.
Cheese Shop!. (Score:2)
Dude!!! That's the same episode with the Cheese Shop Sketch, the greatest bit of funniness since the Ministry of Silly Walks. I love the Cheese Shop Sketch! That should never be banned since it's one of the finest moments of television ever made.
Re: (Score:1)
No doubt they just "adjusted" to pass Shakespeare (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd bet they just "adjusted" the nannyware to pass Shakespeare. So The Bard's work will be seen, but any new talent whose work's quality might approach or surpass his will not.
(Not to say that Blackadder and Hamlet are even in the same league. But that IS something to be decided by tens of generations of readers and viewers, not a piece of software written by a handfull of people from this one.)
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: (Score:2)
Right..... :D
I was thinking "spoiler alert"
Re: (Score:1)
Why... (Score:5, Funny)
> "Library staff initially didn't seem too interested in fixing the problem, but in the end they adjusted the filters."
Nooooooooooo! They were trying to get kids thinking it was forbidden to them.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like they were somewhat apathetic / tired of the problem. But then, if you're dealing with a populace that prefers home trepanning / self-lobotomization (censorship), I suppose it's difficult to get too worked up after a while...
Re: (Score:2)
When there was a big push to include content filters in our local library system, the Board said, "Okay. But it's going to be strictly optional for anyone over the age of 12."
Once the copyright expires, so does blacklisting (Score:3)
Why are they blocking violent content? (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA's a little short on detail, but why are they blocking violent content in the first place? I assume they have some reason to do so. And if that's the case, should it matter how old or famous the unacceptably violent work is?
Bottom line: if Hamlet fits their definition of inappropriate content, should they make explicit exceptions for particularly famous and important works, or should they evaluate the overall filtering/blocking objectives and rationale as well as the mechanisms and algorithms implementing those restrictions?
Re: (Score:3)
but why are they blocking violent content in the first place?
They don't want you to read the world news.
Re:Why are they blocking violent content? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
but why are they blocking violent content in the first place?
They don't want you to read the world news.
As if the local news isn't bad enough most days.
Re: (Score:2)
In protest, I'm going to play fallout new vegas today and murder EVERYONE in it. Dogs, women, men... and I'm going to fire ineffectively at the immortal children.
Re:Why are they blocking violent content? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Example, see the judge who prevented parents from naming their child 'Messiah' because "There is only one true Messiah".
Or Jesus.
Re: (Score:2)
Example, see the judge who prevented parents from naming their child 'Messiah' because "There is only one true Messiah".
Or Jesus.
Not in Mexico.
Re: (Score:2)
I go down to Speaker's Corner I'm thunderstruck
They got free speech, tourists, police in trucks
Two men say they're Jesus one of them must be wrong
There's a protest singer singing a protest song - he says
'they wanna have a war to keep us on our knees
They wanna have a war to keep their factories
They wanna have a war to stop us buying Japanese
They wanna have a war to stop Industrial Disease
They're pointing out the enemy to keep you deaf and blind
They wanna sap your energy incarcerate your mind
They give you Rule Brittania, gassy beer, page three
Two weeks in Espana and Sunday striptease'
Meanwhile the first Jesus says 'I'd cure it soon
Abolish monday mornings and friday afternoons'
The other one's on a hunger strike he's dying by degrees
How come Jesus gets Industrial Disease
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Pardon me if I'm going to hitch on to your +5 insightful. This whole idea of censoring and removing decensatizing violence from our cultures is all wrong.
In cultures with high levels of violence. People manage just fine. Violence happens and it does not create a mass stampede of stupidity. People are able to resolve their issues with no problem.
When you brainwash people and the only way they know how to deal with anything "dangerous" or "aggressive" is to seek authority. This is when you get serious psychol
Re: (Score:1)
While a lot of what you say sounds like it makes perfect sense...do you have anything to back it up? Studies? Data? Actual examples of countries or communities that have done this?
Or is it just ideology? Which is fine, when it isn't being advertised as fact...
Re: (Score:1)
Life experience and personal experience. Yes its opinion. Its based in some fact. I do not have a laundry list of citations. I think it would require a great deal of research to make a "white paper" arguing for my point of view. I won't. Take it or leave it and use my idea as the basis for your own opinion.
The best place to look is pediatric psychological journals or child mental health for starters. The first 10-15 years of our life has a drastic impact on what our later lives will be. Its a very unscienti
Re: (Score:2)
TFA's a little short on detail, but why are they blocking violent content in the first place? I assume they have some reason to do so.
They do - it's because they are your betters. All they want is to keep you safe, and in order to do that they have to protect you. This is that.
And if that's the case, should it matter how old or famous the unacceptably violent work is?
I don't think that this should matter anyway, personally, but then again, I'm an American so I'm only used to my freedoms being suppressed in subtle ways.
Bottom line: if Hamlet fits their definition of inappropriate content, should they make explicit exceptions for particularly famous and important works, or should they evaluate the overall filtering/blocking objectives and rationale as well as the mechanisms and algorithms implementing those restrictions?
IMO we can "should" all day long...I think that they "should" realize that censorship is a waste of time that does more harm than good. They *won't* realize that, but I think that they *should*.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
These tools are instituted with the goal of preventing children from seeing pornography but they end up being used to squelch anything out of the ordinary.
Several years ago I would have thought this was hyperbole, and then found AT&T's parental control filter blocked my son's smartphone from accessing lego.com. The prohibition might have been based on the violence shown by the Dragon Knights to the Castle Knights, but my guess was it was because of the "leg" in "lego".
Re: (Score:2)
. . . my guess was it was because of the "leg" in "lego".
I guess polite people build things with "limbo".
Re: (Score:2)
Why are they blocking any content at all? Because they are small minded fools, that's why.
What a big Hamlet you have, Sir! (Score:3)
Brannagh had a huge Hamlet.
Next book (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Next book (Score:1)
Re: Next book (Score:2)
Nah. Song of Solomon. They're more afraid of porn than violence.
Although, is there a book of the bible that doesn't have any deviant sex or over the top violence in it?
Shakespeare has one of the oldest blue jokes (Score:2)
Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 2)....
QUEEN GERTRUDE: Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
HAMLET: No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.
LORD POLONIUS: [To KING CLAUDIUS] O, ho! do you mark that?
HAMLET: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
Lying down at OPHELIA's feet
OPHELIA: No, my lord.
HAMLET: I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: Do you think I meant country matters?
OPHELIA: I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
OPHELIA
Re: (Score:3)
There's more to it than the obvious one in that scene: Hamlet Steaminess Rating [shmoop.com]
OPHELIA: I think nothing, my lord.
Translation: I'd rather not keep talking about this and I can't acknowledge your sexual innuendo because that would suggest that I, an unmarried maid, know a little too much about sex.
HAMLET: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
Translation: In Shakespeare's time, "nothing" was another slang word for female genitalia.
Re: (Score:2)
Translation: In Shakespeare's time, "nothing" was another slang word for female genitalia.
I'm never going to listen to this song [youtube.com] again the same way...
Re: (Score:2)
Don't go there, man.
Judy Garland: No Love, No Nothin' [youtube.com]
Billy Preston - Nothing from nothing [youtube.com]
Sinéad O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2U [youtube.com]
Now, these fellows set a Blake poem to music so they may have been hip to this...nega entendre, I think you'd call it:
The Fugs - Nothing [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But wait...if "nothing" compares to you, doesn't that mean he's calling someone a twat?
Re: (Score:2)
Which gives a whole new meaning to the play Much Ado About Nothing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Shakespeare has one of the oldest blue jokes (Score:3)
One of? Shakespeare wrote popular plays for the commoners. They're filled to the brim with multilayered sex jokes. You can find a lot older though.
Blocking the Bible and Koran are next! (Score:1)
Maybe this blocking idea isn't so bad after all! ;-)
Re: (Score:1)
Beat me to it. The Bible and Koran are for more violent and objectionable than any Shakespeare work.
Fifty shades of Song of Solomon (Score:2)
The Bible and Koran are for more violent and objectionable than any Shakespeare work.
Especially when you get past the sermon on humankind's futility in "Ecclesiastes" and hit the fifty shades of grey that are "Song of Solomon".
Good move. (Score:1)
They're doing it deliberately. If the nanny state wants violent things blocked, then that includes Hamlet.
If they want Hamlet, they have to give up their censorship BS.
HAHAHAHAHAHA (Score:2)
OMG that's so funny. Porn filters blocking great literature.
What would the bard say?
"With this bit I damn thee..."
"She censored well but not wisely"
"O, reason not the need!"
"Art made tongue-tied by authority." (had to look this one up)
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..."
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget about the following verses, where Lot's daughters have him drink wine and, once he's properly drunk, they draw graffiti on his face.
Romeo and Juliet -- kiddie porn (Score:2)
Juliet was 14 years old.
That's a typo .. they meant (Score:1)
Hamwallet
Wrong media (Score:2)
What other works (Score:2)
Beiowulf
The Song of Roland
The Canterbury Tails
The Divine Comedy
Le Morte d'Drthur
The Three Musketeers
One Thousand and One Nights
The Iliad
Grimms' Fairy Tales
Epic of Gilgamesh
There are plenty of others that I could add to the list but these are some of the most widely known stories in western societies and are part of our cultural herit
Re: (Score:2)
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. This bodes some strange eruption to our state. Contagious blastments are most imminent. Who is't that can inform me? (of how low England has sunk) And then it started like a guilty thing (soon Top Gear will be blocked) O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! These tedious old fools!
I know what's rotten in Denmark: their cheeze smells like old feet