Occurred: December 2016
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Users typing the phrase 'are Jews' into Google found its Autocomplete search prediction function returned the phrase 'are Jews evil?'.
During an investigation into the influence of right-wing websites on search results, The Observer newspaper discovered that Google's Autocomplete search prediction feature suggested "are Jews evil?" when users typed "are Jews".
The search results brought up anti-Semitic websites, blogs and articles such as 'Top 10 major reasons why people hate Jews'.
Similarly negative results were returned for 'are women' and 'are Muslims', resulting in accusations of religious and gender bias.
Google updated its system to remove the suggestions.
The technology company did not respond to questions on whether the change had also been applied to the term 'are Muslims.'
Autocomplete
Autocomplete, or word completion, is a feature in which an application predicts the rest of a word a user is typing. In Android and iOS smartphones, this is called predictive text.
Source: Wikipedia 🔗
Operator: Alphabet/Google
Developer: Alphabet/Google
Country: UK
Sector: Politics; Religion
Purpose: Predict search results
Technology: NLP/text analysis; Deep learning; Machine learning
Issue: Accuracy/reliability; Bias/discrimination; Transparency
Community Security Trust, Antisemitism Policy Trust (2019). Hidden hate: What Google searches tell us about antisemitism today
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/04/google-democracy-truth-internet-search-facebook
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-autocompletes-anti-semitism-sexism-racism/
https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/google-removes-are-jews-evil-from-search-suggestions/
https://www.wired.com/story/google-autocomplete-vile-suggestions/
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Type: Incident
Published: August 2023