On Tuesday, when someone searched for “Jew” on Google, the top definition returned was an antisemitic caricature.
The first meaning of “Jew” in the search results was “to bargain with someone in a miserly or petty fashion.”
The word was also found in other conjugations, such as “jewed” and “jewing,” farther down in the search results.
Jewish advocacy organizations alerted Google to the derogatory description and asked for an explanation.
“I find this shocking. The offending dictionary definition for “Jew” can be seen below, as tweeted by Aviva Klompas, a former speechwriter for Israel’s Permanent Mission to the UN and former head of speechwriting.
StopAntisemitism tweeted about the antisemitic cliche, “This is unacceptable, Google.”
The World Jewish Congress tweeted, “Deeply concerning that Google’s artificial intelligence fails to notice apparent antisemitic hate speech in prominent search results for the term ‘Jew.’ “We anticipate prompt corrective action to be implemented.”
Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan apologized on behalf of the search engine firm on Twitter after resolving the issue.
We apologize. According to Sullivan’s piece, “Google licenses meanings from independent dictionary specialists.
We only automatically display offensive definitions when they are a term’s primary meaning.
We have blocked this and provided feedback to the partner for further assessment because this is not the situation here.
Interestingly, Yahoo had the exact definition, even though they also seemed to have found a solution.
.@Google has some serious explaining to do about how it ended up presenting an antisemitic “definition” of a Jew!
There’s NO good excuse for such an org to casually feature Jew-hatred in its search results!
We demand accountability!
New verb: “Google” – to indulge in Jew-hate. pic.twitter.com/B4T8Q1CZek
— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) December 27, 2022
When one enters “jew” into the Google search engine, a grotesque antisemitic trope comes up.
This is in unacceptable @Google pic.twitter.com/zuYkUy2ssO
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) December 27, 2022
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