Homophobia at the Premier Inn

Thunderxx

Hi everyone,

I own a lesbian social network with around 100, 000 members.

18 months ago I stayed at the Premier Inn at Heathrow and was annoyed and upset when I was unable to get onto my website because their firewall blocked the keyword Lesbian stating that it was "Harmful to the young public".

There is absolutely no adult content on my website.

I had several emails and calls with their complaints department who said that it would be changed.

I hadn't been to another Premier Inn until Friday night when I took my partner to London for her Birthday.

I needed to make a small change on my site that I could not do from an Apple device so I used the public computer provided by the Premier Inn.

To my dismay any site that has a keyword of lesbian is blocked because it is "Harmful to the young public".

I feel that it is out-dated homophobia. If keywords belonging to other minority groups were banned I think lawyers would be suing for discrimination!

What does anyone else think and has anyone any advice on how I can try to get this changed?

Thanks in advance,

Jane

powerful_Rogue

Thunderxx wrote: »

Hi everyone,

I own a lesbian social network with around 100, 000 members.

18 months ago I stayed at the Premier Inn at Heathrow and was annoyed and upset when I was unable to get onto my website because their firewall blocked the keyword Lesbian stating that it was "Harmful to the young public".

There is absolutely no adult content on my website.

I had several emails and calls with their complaints department who said that it would be changed.

I hadn't been to another Premier Inn until Friday night when I took my partner to London for her Birthday.

I needed to make a small change on my site that I could not do from an Apple device so I used the public computer provided by the Premier Inn.

To my dismay any site that has a keyword of lesbian is blocked because it is "Harmful to the young public".

I feel that it is out-dated homophobia. If keywords belonging to other minority groups were banned I think lawyers would be suing for discrimination!

What does anyone else think and has anyone any advice on how I can try to get this changed?

Thanks in advance,

Jane

I think you're reading too much into it. I work for the Home Office and im sure if I typed "Lesbian" into Google id get some sort of violation policy blocking it. Does that mean they are also homophobic?

BJV

Hi Jane


I understand how upset you must feel. I would !


BUT!!!!


Although you operate a social network site with no adult material there are lots of others that do. Think that in todays society it is not a question of the hotel being homophobia think it is more a case of being just a little paranoid with anything ! Esp to do with sexuality.

JJ_Egan

Its Lesbian as in !!!!!! sites that are blocked .
Filters unable to tell the difference .

powerful_Rogue

JJ_Egan wrote: »

Its Lesbian as in !!!!!! sites that are blocked .
Filters unable to tell the difference .

Exactly. The same way many websites block the use of the well known town S!!!!horpe.

geerex

Move along people, nothing to see here.

kwikbreaks

Just use a proxy such as http://anonymouse.org/anonwww.html

SailorSam

Lots of forums including here on Mse seem to block seemingly innocent words.

Hermia

It's just because computer filters tend to not be very sophisticated. I work in a library and you cannot search for any sort of underwear (which annoyed a customer who was looking for incontinence pants for her mother!). IME the combination of a 'dodgy' word with a social network is also likely to be blocked. Companies are sometimes cautious with filters because they worry about nitwit parents allowing their kids to use computers unsupervised.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

Exactly. The same way many websites block the use of the well known town S!!!!horpe.

Let's see what it does with Penistone.

Edit: Seems to miss that one.

lincroft1710

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

Exactly. The same way many websites block the use of the well known town S!!!!horpe.

Try Scun(t)horpe