Google’s Attempt To Censor ‘Gun’ Backfires Spectacularly

By Tom Knighton

We know by now that Google is not really our friend. While it is the largest search engine in the world and owns the second largest (YouTube), it also seems to think that, because it’s a private company and has the right to do certain things, it’s obligated to do those certain things.

Most recently, the search engine decided to restrict what you could use its Shopping feature for. They didn’t want you looking up anything to do with guns.

It did not go as planned.

Early Tuesday morning, Internet shoppers started noticing and documenting the digital gaffes. Users received error notices when they searched for glue guns and water guns, toy guns and airsoft guns, nail guns and nerf guns. The algorithm is apparently so strict that even the color “burgundy” triggered an error because it includes “gun” in the spelling.

This set off something of a parlor game on social media. Turns out, adults don’t like it when faceless bureaucrats try enforcing arbitrary restrictions — federal, corporate, or otherwise.

Casey “Stable Genius” Smith found that Google now censors “Laguna Beach.”

Other censored searches included the movie Top Gun, bands like Velvet Revolver and the Sex Pistols, and even the Indianapolis Colts.

Whoops!

The …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms