diff --git a/docs/topics/downloader-middleware.rst b/docs/topics/downloader-middleware.rst
index 8a760e53b..3ec6e0c17 100644
--- a/docs/topics/downloader-middleware.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/downloader-middleware.rst
@@ -868,7 +868,7 @@ Whether the Meta Refresh middleware will be enabled.
 METAREFRESH_IGNORE_TAGS
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
-Default: ``['script', 'noscript']``
+Default: ``[]``
 
 Meta tags within these tags are ignored.
 
diff --git a/scrapy/settings/default_settings.py b/scrapy/settings/default_settings.py
index c10dc1a1c..1a7d35b13 100644
--- a/scrapy/settings/default_settings.py
+++ b/scrapy/settings/default_settings.py
@@ -225,7 +225,7 @@ MEMUSAGE_NOTIFY_MAIL = []
 MEMUSAGE_WARNING_MB = 0
 
 METAREFRESH_ENABLED = True
-METAREFRESH_IGNORE_TAGS = ['script', 'noscript']
+METAREFRESH_IGNORE_TAGS = []
 METAREFRESH_MAXDELAY = 100
 
 NEWSPIDER_MODULE = ''
diff --git a/tests/test_downloadermiddleware_redirect.py b/tests/test_downloadermiddleware_redirect.py
index e7faf14a7..e0f145d0e 100644
--- a/tests/test_downloadermiddleware_redirect.py
+++ b/tests/test_downloadermiddleware_redirect.py
@@ -300,19 +300,21 @@ class MetaRefreshMiddlewareTest(unittest.TestCase):
         body = ('''<noscript><meta http-equiv="refresh" '''
                 '''content="0;URL='http://example.org/newpage'"></noscript>''')
         rsp = HtmlResponse(req.url, body=body.encode())
-        response = self.mw.process_response(req, rsp, self.spider)
-        assert isinstance(response, Response)
+        req2 = self.mw.process_response(req, rsp, self.spider)
+        assert isinstance(req2, Request)
+        self.assertEqual(req2.url, 'http://example.org/newpage')
 
-    def test_ignore_tags_empty_list(self):
-        crawler = get_crawler(Spider, {'METAREFRESH_IGNORE_TAGS': []})
+    def test_ignore_tags_1_x_list(self):
+        """Test that Scrapy 1.x behavior remains possible"""
+        settings = {'METAREFRESH_IGNORE_TAGS': ['script', 'noscript']}
+        crawler = get_crawler(Spider, settings)
         mw = MetaRefreshMiddleware.from_crawler(crawler)
         req = Request(url='http://example.org')
         body = ('''<noscript><meta http-equiv="refresh" '''
                 '''content="0;URL='http://example.org/newpage'"></noscript>''')
         rsp = HtmlResponse(req.url, body=body.encode())
-        req2 = mw.process_response(req, rsp, self.spider)
-        assert isinstance(req2, Request)
-        self.assertEqual(req2.url, 'http://example.org/newpage')
+        response = mw.process_response(req, rsp, self.spider)
+        assert isinstance(response, Response)
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     unittest.main()