Google Apologizes For ‘Accidentally’ Calling Gay People “Poofs,” “Pansies,” And “Homosexualists”

Google Apologizes For ‘Accidentally’ Calling Gay People “Poofs,” “Pansies,” And “Homosexualists”

Google is in trouble with the gays again. This time for offering offensive suggestions for the word “gay” on its translation tool.

Google Translate works sort of like a thesaurus. A person types in a word and the software pulls up suggested translations for that word. It’s a handy little tool, especially for high school students struggling with their French homework.

However, a number of users noticed that the software gives a number of offensive homophobic terms when trying to translate the word “gay.” Some of the terms include poof, queen, faggot, and fag, as well as fairy, queen, sodomite, pansy boy, and homosexualist. (I couldn’t help but chuckle at that last one. Sorta like those who use the term ‘gayism’)

Naturally, an online petition was created demanding Google remove all antigay words from its Google Translate software. So far, the petition has garnered more than 50,000 signatures from homosexualists and their allies.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Google has been in hot water with homosexualists. Last November, a lesbian couple was shocked to learn Google Maps listed the name of their street as “faggots live here.” A week after that, a game that encouraged users to violently murder homosexualist men was briefly uploaded to the Google Play app store.

A spokesperson for the tech giant apologized for the most recent mishap, saying: “As soon as we were informed that some of our translations for certain terms were serving inappropriate results, we immediately began working to fix the issue.”

“Our systems produce translations automatically based on existing translations on the web, so we appreciate when users point out issues such as this,” the spokesperson continues. “We apologize for any offense this has caused people.”

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25 Comments

  1. Absalom
    February 03, 07:41 Reply

    I like the sound of “poof”. Magical.

    Poof!

  2. Mitch
    February 03, 07:41 Reply

    Indeed! Nonsense and ingredients!

    ****rolls eyes from Lagos to London****

  3. A-non
    February 03, 07:45 Reply

    I do believe it’s a honest mistake as I am aware that Google is quite LGBT friendly with some kind of LGBT association within the tech company.

  4. A-non
    February 03, 07:46 Reply

    Dennis, have you seen my mail?

  5. Chizzie
    February 03, 08:29 Reply

    Sodomite sounds glam and vintage..

  6. Dennis Macauley
    February 03, 08:36 Reply

    My colleague uses that homosexualists oh! He has a masters degree from FUTO!

      • Max
        February 03, 10:35 Reply

        U just hurt PP

      • Brian Collins
        February 03, 23:47 Reply

        and me too definitely. I have mentioned it here before, we are ‘calculaters’ and not ‘englisharians’.
        PP i see you o.

  7. JArch
    February 03, 09:06 Reply

    This is definitely unintended, as google is one of the few companies that ensures its working environment is very gay friendly and secondly the translator works with an algorithm that picks up new words each day. Google can’t monitor the words the algorithm picks up manually. It can only edit its source code to remove certain words from the translation software.

  8. KyrxxX
    February 03, 09:33 Reply

    Oya, apologies accepted! Be better shildren next time.

    But that poof word eh, sounds magical just like Absalom said but it is also a coded word for our kind of environ.

    I am POOF! R U?

    • MacArdry
      February 03, 09:48 Reply

      The right term is Poofter,I believe

    • Mercury
      February 03, 11:07 Reply

      Really, poof the fairy baby in fairly odd parents….. Guess poof is nice.

  9. Max
    February 03, 10:39 Reply

    For starters Google didn’t put up those words there.. When you search for something, its transcoded into machine language that the computer can understand.. Its all about algorithm.. They can’t control where the search engine points people without changing the entire source code..
    People should stop bickering pls.. They should also write a petition to remove the words from the dictionary. Those are dictionary words and google translator was just doing its job..

    • Lord II
      February 03, 12:42 Reply

      Word Max word! However homosexualists?????? So local!

  10. Gad
    February 03, 13:36 Reply

    How I wish I can have at least 3 or 4 extra hours added to my 24hrs daily so I can have time to sign some kind petitions. Seriousness

    • Ace
      February 03, 14:40 Reply

      I cringe at the word “homosexualist” but hey! Google shouldn’t take the fall for what people search for regularly. It is like requesting the word “Nigga” to be taken off Google and blaming them for being racist.

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