Google Retards ?

11.07.08

SEroundtable Pointed me to to a story about “Another Insulting Algorithmic Search Result from Google” I didn’t want to blog about the swastika on Google Trends, but this is kinda odd, when you search for Special People you get :

retards

Ok WTF !

Special People

DaveN

7 Comments

  • 1

    Unless I’m much mistaken that’s the founding members of Microsoft in the picture you’ve highlighted…they may be “Special People” but they are damn rich ones.

    I love finding these slip ups, especially now universal search is dropping images into normal results. Barely a week goes by without a Google result brightening up my day. This week’s “brightening” came when I did a search for “religious leaders” and got this image appear at top of the results (it is safe to open at work). Now, I’m assuming that is not the Pope and I don’t remember seeing a nun ever dressed like that but maybe it is a last ditch attempt to get the congregation levels back up again.

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&hs=8KZ&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=religious+leaders&spell=1

    Matt

    11th July 2008 @ 09:24

  • 2

    I guess the Google bomb lives after all. I think suggesting the alternative search term of “retards” is fairly offensive, though, the mac fan inside of me feels compelled to say “seems an accurate enough result to me”.

    A search for “little people” however does not return “midgets” so they seem to cover their bases on some areas of political correctness. Interesting.

    Terry Howard
    http://www.terryhoward.net/

    11th July 2008 @ 11:45

  • 3

    By the time I went to mention this to someone at Google, the right folks had already seen it. So I’m happy that there are multiple Googlers keeping an eye on the web..

    Matt Cutts
    http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

    11th July 2008 @ 16:46

  • 4

    Wow, that was a quick fix. I wonder why it happened in the first place, but it is good to see that Google was so quick to react. Wish I would agree with Google more often….

    Kyle

    11th July 2008 @ 18:24

  • 5

    This is better than the time when if you did a search for “she invented”.

    I didn’t know Matt Cutts also reads this blog?

    Mubin
    http://www.mubinahmed.com

    13th July 2008 @ 12:30

  • 6

    Wow this is quite interesting…. and even more interesting that Matt Cutts keeps up with this! Kudos for a great find!

    Social Marketing Journal
    http://socialmarketingjournal.com

    14th July 2008 @ 22:04

  • 7

    Yeah, Im a RETARD. Thought i’d drop in and say. :)

    Maryjane
    http://fuckknows.

    16th July 2008 @ 08:05

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