Oooooh man. This… this is a doozy.
Something – or someone – has stuffed up Google Maps in the most outrageously awkward, collar-tuggingest, horrifically racist manner possible.
For reasons that are a bit beyond everyone outside of Google – and that everyone inside of Google are staying tight lipped about – some ugly, hateful epithets are returning positive search results for things pertaining to US President Barack Obama.
Turns out that, for at least the past day or so, searching the phrases “n****r house” or “n****r king” in Google Maps will point you directly to The White House.
At the time of writing, both options are still returning results for The White House. The “…house” one only appears when already navigating over Washington DC, however the “…king” option will get you there from just about anywhere in the world.
Google has hastily issued an apology statement, asserting that tech teams are working to fix the error.
“Some inappropriate results are surfacing in Google Maps that should not be, and we apologize [sic] for any offense [sic] this may have caused. Our teams are working to fix this issue quickly.”
The search giant remains tight-lipped on how the error could have occurred. But it’s probably safe to assume there’s more than a few programmers at Google HQ pulling one of these today.
via Complex.
