Google results showed ‘troubling’ definition of Jew. Now faith leaders demand answers
Google received a barrage of questions and criticism after a derogatory and antisemitic stereotype popped up on the search engine as the definition of “Jew.”
The company apologized and fixed the definition, but faith leaders are demanding an explanation on how it appeared at all.
McClatchy News reached out to Google for comment and is awaiting a response.
Twitter users caught wind of the definition on Dec. 27, which had an “offensive” tag on the word when searched, according to photos.
The World Jewish Congress called it “deeply troubling that Google artificial intelligence fails to recognize obvious antisemitic hate speech in featured search results for the term ‘Jew’.”
Other organizations, including Christians United for Israel, The Jewish Voice, Stop Antisemitism and the Center for Jewish Impact, spoke out about the derogatory definition.
“Jew hatred has gone completely mainstream. Disgusting,” Brooke Goldstein, a civil rights lawyer, wrote while sharing the definition on Twitter.
Former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind also pressed Google for answers.
“There’s NO good excuse for such an org to casually feature Jew-hatred in its search results,” Hikind said on Twitter. “We demand accountability.”
Google apologized to several Twitter users for the troubling definition and said its definitions come from “third-party dictionary experts.”
“We only display offensive definitions by default if they are the main meaning of a term,” Google Search Liaison said in a statement on Twitter. “As this is not the case here, we have blocked this & passed along feedback to the partner for further review.”
It is not clear which third-party dictionary expert may have provided the definition to Google.
Once the definition was fixed, Hikind thanked his followers for bringing the remedy to his attention — but he wasn’t ready to let Google off the hook.
“I’m aware they updated it, but the demand for answers and accountability still stands,” he said on Twitter.
Other controversies tied to antisemitism have recently garnered headlines, including a crossword puzzle from The New York Times that some said resembled a swastika published on the first night of Hanukkah.
The New York Times told several news outlets the crossword design was common with “many open grids in crosswords have a similar spiral pattern because of the rules around rotational symmetry and black squares.”
This story was originally published December 28, 2022 at 3:13 PM with the headline "Google results showed ‘troubling’ definition of Jew. Now faith leaders demand answers."
