Google search engine accused of being 'racist'

Try googling "Three black teenagers", what comes up?


Twitter user @ibekabir reposted a video showing someone search for the three words most of the resulting images were police mug shots.

On the other hand, a Google image search for "Three white teenagers" throws up photos of happy, smiling groups of friends.

Social media users started the hashtag #threeblackteenagers to discuss the video.

The post has been retweeted more than 60,000 times and "favourited" over 60,000 since it was posted.

@husslej posted "@google please Google 'Three black teenagers' and 'Three white teenagers', and then tell us that is not racist."

But can computers be racist really?

A Google spokeswoman said to the BBC: "Our image search results are a reflection of content from across the web, including the frequency with which types of images appear and the way they are described online.

"This means that sometimes unpleasant portrayals of sensitive subject matter online can affect what image search results appear for a given query.

"These results don't reflect Google's own opinions or beliefs.

"As a company, we strongly value a diversity of perspectives, ideas and cultures."

Another Twitter user @ThisKaySaidso posted: "Loooool. Not Google's fault, though. Just means black people need to work on stock online presentation and presence."

LOL

On a more serious not though, this is not the first time Google has been accused of being racist.

Designer Johanna Burai noticed her web searches for parts of the body were returning pictures of mostly white skin.

She set up World White Web, which encourages people to share their images of non-white hands in a bid to push them up Google's search results.

On her website, she writes: "The more people that share these images, the higher their ranking will be on Google."