Google was working to fix its Google Maps product Tuesday after social media users noted that certain searches for the N-word pointed to the White House.
The search results were first flagged by The Huffington Post after Twitter user Bomani Buckhalter posted a screenshot:
The Current World We Live In pic.twitter.com/nszfSmA5Hc
— Bomani X (@AceBoonCoon) May 19, 2015
Typing “nigga house” or “nigger house” into the Google Maps search bar took users to the White House, according to The Huffington Post. The Washington Post pointed out that “nigger king” led to the same result. Google Maps search results vary by location, but TPM confirmed on Wednesday morning that all three searches still referred users to the White House.
An unidentified Google spokesperson told The Huffington Post that the company was working to fix the issue.
“Some inappropriate results are surfacing in Google Maps that should not be, and we apologise for any offence this may have caused,” the spokesperson said.
The Washington Post pointed out that the White House has been pranked on Google Maps before: last month, someone added a listing for a snowboard shop inside the White House named “Edwards Snow Den.”
Before the N-word search results started to circulate on social media, a Google product manager posted a notice stating that user edits to Google Maps would be suspended indefinitely beginning on May 12.
“As some of you know already, we have been experiencing escalated attacks to spam Google Maps over the past few months,” Pavithra Kanakarajan wrote. “The most recent incident was particularly troubling and unfortunate – a strong user in our community chose to go and create a large scale prank on the Map. As a consequence, we suspended auto-approval and user moderation across the globe, till we figured out ways to add more intelligent mechanisms to prevent such incidents.”
Good Friggin Gawd!!! The world we live in, yes, indeed. Doesn’t Google have the ability to identify the person(s) who are responsible – or at least from which computer and the screen named and to whom it’s registered?
“Some inappropriate results are surfacing in Google Maps that should not be, and we apologise for any offence this may have caused," the spokesperson said.
No, no, no, no. There is no “may have caused” to it. I am offended, and I’m sure many others are as well, so why not just say, " … and we apologize for this offense. We are taking appropriate actions, blah, blah, blah."
Exactly. The “may” qualifier really means “We only apologize partially since we don’t want to upset the racists too much.” smh
I get the same result with non-american house traitor house, commie house, nazi house, etc. It wasn’t just the two racial words. It seems anything that the right wing accuses our president of will get that result.
You do not get that result with patriot house, proamerica house, etc.
Google needs to find out who is doing this and…
If Jade Helm wasn’t presenting enough scare fodder…
What a sickening group these people are. If I had them in front of me, I’d be very tempted to spit at them. However, I wouldn’t as I’m aware that would lower me closer to their level (though still very far from their depths). Seriously, this just put a cloud over me. I need to go outside again and get some warm sunshine.