Searching for racist keywords brings up things like the White House as well as historically black institutions in Google Maps.
The Huffington Post and other media outlets reported yesterday that typing in “nigga house” in Google Maps sends users to the White House. However, searching for “n***** king” also leads to the White House and typing in “n*****” or “nigga” pulls up other institutions that are predominately African American or associated with ethnic minorities.
Bomani X, a recent graduate of Howard University, tweeted this new discovery today while searching for the N word and associated keywords near his alma mater:
Type in the N word to Google Maps in the Bay Area and it leads you to San Jose State University, an institution that is predominantly Asian-American.
Google has apologized after the racist keyword searches were discovered. “Some inappropriate results are surfacing in Google Maps that should not be, and we apologize for any offense this may have caused,” Google said in a statement.
However, it looks like you can still search for racist keywords and pull up U.S. President Barack Obama’s place of residence.
There is now a petition on Change.org asking Google to fix the problem and prevent this type of fraud from happening in the future.
We’ve reached out to Google for comment.
Update from a Google spokesperson:
“Our teams are working to fix this issue quickly.”