 | In Google Translate, the word “gay” throws up hateful slurs Google is listening to feedback this week - call on them to fix their translation now  |  |
Dear Luc,
"Faggot". "Poof". That's what Google Translate suggests when you type the word “gay." 500 million people use Google Translate every month. That’s a lot of people being taught hateful words and insults.
Google is listening out for feedback this week, as they just launched a new version of their translation app. Google already has the technology to filter out hateful language: typing “female” doesn’t throw up sexist words.
Sign now to ask Google – known as a pro-equality company – to remove anti-gay slurs from its translation:
Translating from English into Spanish, French or Portuguese, the web version of Google Translate throw up insults like "faggot", "poof", "fairy" and "dyke". These words are given as synonyms for "homosexual", "gay" or "lesbian".
Google has a pretty good record on equality. They pulled an anti-gay game from their app store and have even run campaigns against anti-gay laws around the world. So there’s a high chance they’ll prioritise fixing their anti-gay Google Translate if they hear from thousands of All Out members.
This isn’t just about political correctness gone mad. Degrading language feeds negative attitudes and stereotypes. And anti-gay slurs can lead to bullying and attacks on lesbian, gay, bi and trans people.
Together, we have achieved amazing things. All Out members pushed a conference in Switzerland to drop extremist activist Lou Engle from the agenda, where he was going to gather more support for his anti-gay work. In Uganda, we got telecoms giant Orange to stop advertising in a Ugandan tabloid famous for ‘outing’ lesbian, gay and trans people. Now let’s make sure Google doesn’t promote anti-gay slurs.
Thanks for going All Out,
Andre, Jeremy, Pablo, Rose, Oscar, Guillaume, Leandro, Hayley and the rest of the All Out team.
P.S. Did you know Google translates "gay" using hateful slurs? If thousands of us speak out, we can and get them to remove this harmful, anti-gay language: go.allout.org/en/a/google-translate