Earlier this week Google Maps came under fire when it was discovered that typing in a racial slur in the search box would zoom into the White House in Washington D.C. and also yielded results for Nairobi, Kenya. This snafu came about a month after the previous scandal in which a user used Google’s Map Maker tool to upload an offensive image to the service.In all fairness this isn’t really Google’s fault per se, but rather its users who have abused the system which depends on user contributions to help expand Google Map’s features and functionality. However at the same time Google has since come forward and apologized for the screw ups all the same.
According to Google, it seems that this was due to a miscalculation in their algorithm that resulted in the racial slur being used as a search term. “Certain offensive search terms were triggering unexpected maps results, typically because people had used the offensive term in online discussions of the place. This surfaced inappropriate results that users likely weren’t looking for.”
The company also adds, ”Our team has been working hard to fix this issue. Building upon a key algorithmic change we developed for Google Search, we’ve started to update our ranking system to address the majority of these searches—this will gradually roll out globally and we’ll continue to refine our systems over time. Simply put, you shouldn’t see these kinds of results in Google Maps, and we’re taking steps to make sure you don’t.”
Filed in . Read more about Google and Google Maps.