I’m slightly curious as to how, in these cases, someone came to decide that blurring was the right way to do it. It seems unlikely that they never thought of simply blacking/ blanking the text, but if so, then blurring must have seemed preferable.

My best guess is that, having seen blurring of faces (which is arguably OK when one merely wants to avoid casual attempts at identification, while retaining a ‘natural’ look), they assumed this was the proper way to do it in all cases.