Google Modifies Autocomplete Function After it is Found to Offer Wildly Anti-Semitic Suggestions.

Google Modifies Autocomplete Function After it is Found to Offer Wildly Anti-Semitic Suggestions.HT: Algemeiner.

Try typing “Jews should” into the Google search bar, and the tech giant’s autocomplete function will  present you with an array of wildly anti-Semitic options, The Algemeiner has learned.
“Jews should be wiped out,”  and “Jews should get over the Holocaust” are among the offensive popular searches listed, along with “Jews should all die,” and “Jews should apologize for killing Jesus.”

E-commerce executive, civil rights activist, and Algemeiner blogger Eli Federman alerted The Algemeiner to the troubling discovery. He said he was prompted to experiment with the search after reading a Mashable article about a UN Women advertising campaign that features screenshots of sexist Google autocomplete suggestions prompted by the search “women should.”

“I was deeply disturbed,” Federman said of the discovery. “What surprised me most was the theological anti-Semitic result where the search ‘Jews should…’ auto-populated ‘Jews should be perfected,’ echoing old notions that Jews can only be complete by accepting Jesus and rejecting traditional Judaism.”

Jewish rights groups expressed concern, although not surprise, about the findings. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Algemeiner that he hoped the discovery would “wake up everyone in our community to understand how much effort bigots and racists put into the internet.”

Deborah Lauter, a Civil Rights Director at the Anti-Defamation League, pointed out that the issue is not confined to Google, or for that matter to Jews and Women. Other search engines including Yahoo and Bing produce similar results, and entering searches for gays or blacks can also elicit hateful autocomplete suggestions, she said.

“The issue of hate on the internet is global and is growing and is a big concern” Lauter told The Algemeiner.
“We will certainly flag it for them and we hope that they will be responsive” she said, adding, “Our hope is that the community, and anyone that sees these results will similarly flag it because the companies want to see communities engaged in the fight.”“They are as overwhelmed by this as we are,” Lauter concluded, “and they are looking for thoughtful solutions.”

“Google may be violating its own policies by not excluding these flagrantly anti-Semitic search queries,” Federman said, citing the company’s stipulation. He would not, however, like to see the autocomplete results censored. “The best answer to false speech and hate speech is not censorship, it is truthfulness. Exposing the truth that anti-Semitism and sexism are alive and well is a good thing,” he opined.Read the full story here.