In a completely new and random happenstance, Google Maps search results for the terms ‘sedition,’ ‘anti-national,’ and ‘antinational, delhi’ result in the display of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi.
The glitch in the search engine giant was noticed on Friday morning
Many people are still not aware of this glitch, but it seems someone has exploited Google Map’s search term allocation to their own benefits. After the controversy surrounding Kanhaiya Kumar, President of the JNU Students’ Union, this comes as another blow for the university.
Students and faculty members alike expressed their distaste over this
They have contacted Google Maps India and they are fixing the error. A spokesperson commented, “Some inappropriate results are surfacing in Google Maps that should not be, and we apologise for any offence this may have caused. Our teams are working to fix this issue quickly.”
The problem lies with Google’s intelligent search engine ploughing through the Internet
Google has search algorithms in place which pick up keywords as they wade through the endless web traffic and articles. As more and more keywords keep repeating in related articles, the search engine keeps on associating them with each other, forming clusters. Naturally, the sheer number of articles on the JNU controversy containing the terms ‘sedition’ and ‘anti-national’ would have spiked the results.
This is not the first time this has happened with Google. In 2015, searching for ‘nigger house’ led to the White House, and PM Narendra Modi kept coming up in the search results for ‘top 10 criminals.’ Google can not have everything manually operated, and hence the automation engine acts this way.
News source: Hindustan Times
Cover image sources: 1 & 2