Google apologizes for racist Maps glitch

[onehandle]

Source: Cult of Android/Washington Post

Google has apologized for its second major mapping embarrassment in one month, after a racist slur involving the N-word was demonstrated as finding the White House on Google Maps.

Searches including “n****r house” and “n****r king” returned the home of Barack Obama as one of the top suggestions.

“Some inappropriate results are surfacing in Google Maps that should not be, and we apologise for any offence this may have caused,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “Our teams are working to fix this issue quickly.”

Google hasn’t explained what was to blame for the offensive search results, but it could well be the Map Maker tool which lets users modify maps. Map Maker has been shut down while Google sorts out the problem.

Read more: http://www.cultofandroid.com/73530/google-apologizes-for-racist-maps-glitch

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If you search Google Maps for the N-word, it gives you the White House

Someone on Google Maps just labeled President Obama a very bad word.

A reader points out that if you enter a search for "N***** king" — which contains a particularly offensive racial epithet for African Americans — Google Maps will point you to the White House. We tested the claim on Tuesday night and confirmed that, yes, this is a thing. It even zooms the camera in, automatically. (For sensitivity's sake, we partially obscured the search term and the autocomplete responses in the GIF below.)



http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/05/19/if-you-search-google-maps-for-the-n-word-it-gives-you-the-white-house

[Nye Bevan]

1. One wonders why that person was searching for "n*gger king" in the first place (nt)

[marym625]

4. I wondered the same thing

Is it possible that this is just something routinely done by a civil rights organization to call out things like this?

[Cryptoad]

11. yall have never known many Bigots, i can tell.

[still_one]

26. A racist

[William Seger]

27. Likely, the same person who planted the "Google bomb" in the first place (n/t)

[marym625]

2. I hope this was someone that screwed with the map and not Google

[jakeXT]

5. They just urinate on apple

http://thenextweb.com/google/2015/04/24/theres-an-android-peeing-on-apple-on-google-maps-and-we-cant-figure-out-why/

[marym625]

6. omfd!

Unbelievable. So much for the best and the brightest. More like the brightest children. And now, racist children

[7962]

21. OMG thats funny.

[underpants]

3. Google - the best and the brightest huh?

Wow people really Google that? How embarrassing.

[SpankMe]

9. People Google everything.

One klan asshole inputs a racist map label into Google maps (anyone can do it) and then tells his friends. They all Google it and snort and snicker, and then they put it on Facebook for all their slave owner wanna-be buddies. The more they enter it to impress their racist girlfriends, the higher search ranking it gets. Then, it becomes a "thing" - a hidden thing in plain view that gives them all racist orgasms.

This pisses me off so mad it makes my eyes cross. But, it has nothing to do with Google. It's the users. Fuck these particular users. Or, should I say, losers.

[a kennedy]

10. I love duck duck go......only search engine I use......

Screw Google.

[7962]

23. Never heard of them; just checked it out. Thanks for the info!!

[d_legendary1]

25. Isn't that the one that doesn't track your information?

Or is that another search engine?

[underpants]

15. Yeah I know

Just thought I'd take a shot at Google.

I remember about 12 years ago seeing articles here about shocked the NSA was at the searches they were finding. Really exact specific and weird sexual searches that people were doing.

[heaven05]

7. really really sad

Last edited Wed May 20, 2015, 08:03 PM - Edit history (2)

this a prime example of american cultural thinking/intelligence when it comes to our POTUS< FLOTUS and POC in general. And it is widespread thinking, knowing no geographical limitations. How very, very stupid and an amazing depiction of modern american racist mentality. Same today as it has ALWAYS been. Also why I don't google. Don't trust those people. on edit: as an answer to the asinine responses that followed. This response is the truth....period. I hope you can grasp the implications of the always evolving racist nature of amerikkkan culture, and that people out here can SEE it and choose not to stay BLIND about it, as some do...but probably not.

[whathehell]

28. If this was a "prime example" of American thinking on POTUS and FlOTUS

They wouldn't have been voted into those positions in the first place.

Taking the worst examples of everything and calling them "typical" of Americans or

any nationally is what's stupid.

[heaven05]

34. please

SINCE their ascendance into the WH, american cultural standards have reached a new low in respect for this POTUS and his wife, in just plain old racist coming out of their closets and filling the Internet with garbage that I have NEVER, in my life, seen concerning ANY other POTUS even that idiot gwb.. You're entitled to call me stupid, rude but entitled if you disagree, but you're really out of your depth on this one I can see. I am right and you're clueless. You have a good day, yah heah!!!!! on edit: this is just one PRIME EXAMPLE of the decline of respect, civility and protocol in american political and social culture concerning the POTUS and FLOTUS.

[whathehell]

36. So why did all these racist Americans vote him in twice?

Unless you can explain that it's clearly

you who is "clueless" and "out of their depth".

[heaven05]

37. your response

0 merit. You like calling people stupid, shows what type of person you are. Clueless and without honor toward fellow human beings. Done with someone like you.

[whathehell]

38. My response

simply matched yours -- You called me "clueless" and "out of my depth" -- I said the same about you.

That's the way it works, dear -- Don't dish it out if you can't take it.

[whathehell]

39. My response asked a question that you obviously can't answer

and that undermines the claims you make in your post.

You don't seem to realize how it looks when you assert "facts" that you can't back up.

[cosmicone]

8. Google has only a small percentage of the blame here

It is the ability of people to modify maps with mapmaker which was abused by a bunch of racists to create this. It is also the algorithm where if enough people use a certain phrase, google auto-completes it for convenience.

Google should be able to provide IP addresses of people who modified the map and those people should be punished severely -- perhaps under some vandalism charge.

[Cryptoad]

12. Not sure if they could be punished unless it is specified in mapmaker

maybe Google should review changes more closely .

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. For the longest time the parental filters wouldn't let kids go to Dick Army's website.

[7962]

22. NO! You cannot go to "DickArmy"!! Ha!!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

29. I pictured something like this....

Only they go up and down and leave a mess.

[7962]

31. Oh lord!

[Nye Bevan]

17. IP address proves nothing.

People's IP addresses can change, and there is no guarantee that someone did not access or hack into your home wifi network. Nobody could ever be criminally prosecuted on the basis of an IP address alone.

[cosmicone]

19. IP addresses allow people to be interrogated

and someone eventually sings. It is hard to claim someone hijacked a WPA-PSK wifi

[Travis_0004]

20. Vandalism?

I think that is taking it a bit far. Ban the IP address and the user if they know who it is. I would imagine the police have better things to do than get involved in this case.

[mountain grammy]

13. I guess google has more faith in the public

than the public deserves. How disgusting and disappointing.

[Nye Bevan]

18. As usual, a small number of abusers ruin it for everyone else (nt)

[Historic NY]

16. Like they did with Nazi places on Berlin mpas...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/google-maps-mistakenly-identifies-berlin-square-as-adolf-hitler-platz-a-942774.html

[Xithras]

24. I'm a Google mapmaker. Seriously.

My forte is adding smaller California parks and wildlife refuges that aren't in their mapping system. I've also added dozens of businesses and corrected many errors in their maps since starting it years ago.

Here's how the system works: Anyone can create a Mapmaker account and submit map changes. I have a MapMaker account and have done this. When you make a change, it goes through a review process before getting added to the main Maps site. Most of the reviewers are also normal people who don't work for Google, and anyone can sign up to become a reviewer. When you first sign up, you can review edits, but your reviews don't count for much because the system doesn't "trust" you. A change will only make it into the live mapping system if a HUGE number of untrusted reviewers all approve it, or if a smaller number of trusted reviewers approve it, or if one of Google's internal reviewers look at it and review it (Google's people randomly review a small percentage of edits). The more trusted the reviewers are, the fewer approvals it takes.

And how do you get trusted? By doing a lot of reviews that are consistent with other reviewers. If you approve everything, or deny everything, the system will notice that your reviews are inconsistent with everyone elses, and will downrank you. This is especially true if you issue a review that is contrary to Google's own internal reviewers. The more good reviews you issue, the the more the system upranks you and the more trusted you become. As you become increasingly trusted, your review carries more weight and fewer other reviewers have to look at the edits. If you are REALLY good, you'll get an invitation from Google to become a Regional Expert Reviewer, and you can approve edits all by yourself...just not edits that you made.

Full disclaimer: I was a Regional Expert Reviewer across parts of Central California from 2011 to 2013.

While Google hasn't released all the details yet, they've released enough to safely say that someone gamed the system. Either an RER or a couple of very Trusted Reviewers posted an edit with a fake account and then used their trusted status to push the edit through onto the live mapping system. This isn't the first time this has happened, and there have been increasing discussions about the system being abused over the last couple of years, but this is the highest profile defacement BY FAR.

I'm really not sure what Google is going to do about it though. The MapMaker community is Google's secret weapon in the online mapping world, and it's historically how they've been able to be so much more accurate than their competition. Where everyone else had to rely on internal teams to input data, Google was able to tap the community to get it done faster. They won't shut down MapMaker permanently, but they're obviously going to have to find a better way to structure the approval process.

By the way, if you type the "n****r king" line into Maps right now, it actually takes you to Google's headquarters. I'd love to know how THAT change got approved.

[PersonNumber503602]

30. Those must be from some pretty dedicated trolls then...

That seems like it would be require a lot of effort to get enough clout to just "troll" google maps.

I wonder if there are any technical exploits that are being used to push the approvals through.

[Xithras]

33. There's two possibilities

#1 It could be a Trusted Reviewer(s) or RER(s) who are simply tired of contributing and decided to go out with a "bang". I gave up RER and stopped contributing much because my interest was in a particular area (Google Maps missed many parks and refuges in my area), and they were all in the system. Everything I was interested in putting into the system was already there, and I was spending most of my time swatting down trolls...and you wouldn't BELIEVE the vast amounts of crap people attempt to post there. Mapmakers and reviewers come from all walks of life and political affiliations around the world, so it's entirely believable that some conservative RER or Trusted Mapmaker decided to take a swipe at the President on his way out of the system.

#2 It's also entirely possible that someone's account simply got hacked. People get their passwords stolen all the time, and if someone got ahold of the passwords of a bunch of Trusted Reviewers, they could do some damage with it. Just like any other web technology, the security is only as strong as the passwords of its users...and people tend to choose awful passwords.

[joshcryer]

35. Dang, is that data open to use for others?

Seems like a nice way to get free data from the masses.

[Sunlei]

32. regular google search has also misdirected the N word, started soon as O was elected.