League of Legends players claim UK's anti-porn filter may prevent patching

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League of Legends players are claiming that the UK's anti-porn filter agreement - imposed by the country's four main ISPs - may be preventing people from patching the game. While I personally find the game's female representation somewhat juvenile, it's in no way pornographic, so what exactly are the collected auto-guardians of morality taking such umbrage with? File names, it would seem, and the fact that two of the downloaded files contain the word 'sex' in their title. At least, they do if you are a robot that can't tell how words work.

Reportedly, then, ISPs are blocking the update files "Varu sEx pirationTimer.luaobj" and "XerathMageChain sEx tended.luaobj". I've highlighted the offending word - which is "sex" - in case you naturally read them as they were originally intended. Basically, god help you if you live in Essex.

While not tied to any law, the porn-filter was agreed upon by the country's four main ISPs as part of a government plan to please think of the children. New subscribers are automatically subscribed to the filter, and must opt out to bypass it, presumably by phoning up the ISP in question and explaining to them that you're a goddamn adult. As a result, such issues won't affect the majority of already connected internet users in the country.

If the idea that a porn filter could restrict gaming content seems weird to you, then you clearly aren't aware of the ramshackle organisational nightmare that is British politics. This is by no means the system's first reported false-positive . And, naturally, the one thing it seem to be spectacularly bad at blocking is actual pornography.

Phil Savage
Phil Savage
Editor-in-Chief

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.