Did you know that "the satellite imagery in Google Earth/Maps covers over 25% of the world’s land surface and over 60% of the
world’s population in sub-meter high resolution? Did you also know that "50% land mass coverage and 75% population is covered at 2.5m resolution or better"? I bet you DIDN'T know that when you type in "n-word house" on Google Maps, The White House appears as the result!
The incident was first reported by the Washington Post on Tuesday, May 19th. Now, people are currently able to type the offensive, racial slur "n-word", link it with a noun in Google Maps, and actually receive results! For example:
1. "N-word house" and/or "N-word king"
2. "N-word university"
If you happen to be in the Bay Area on the West Coast and type in "n-word university", San Jose State University pops up! The list continuously goes on sadly, and it's highly offensive to many minority groups in the United States. Google has issued an apology with a statement:
"Some inappropriate results are surfacing in Google Maps that should not be, and we apologize for any offence this may have caused. Our teams are working to fix this issue quickly".
Question: Is it surprising to you that this situation is not the first for Google?
In 2010, when a person typed "why" into the search engine, it suggested racial questions. Also, Google's advertisements displayed criminal record checks 25% of the time when a "traditional" black name was typed into the engine.
An apology and statement is not enough. We need an explanation as to "How?". Race is a sensitive topic, especially in the United States. How is it that Google, a billion dollar multinational technology company, could not utilize their resources and funds to make sure that preventative measures were taken to prevent incidents as such?
(Photos: Twitter)
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