BiNet USA Wins Over Google in Search Term Dispute

[bialogue]

After a campaign by BiNet USA and bisexuals worldwide, Google has removed “bisexual” from its list of banned words.

BiNet USA is pleased to confirm that Google Inc. has unblocked the term “bisexual” from its search algorithm. Now that “bisexual” is allowed, terms such as “ bisexual quotes”, “bisexual rights”, and “bisexual parenting” are

Comments

[the_physicist]

first i'm hearing about this. what was the reason for the ban? are/were other words related to the LGBT+ community banned?

[cozmic_oceanz]

Yeah, same here. What's the story??? And what does it mean exactly that it was banned? You couldn't google "bisexual" or the word bisexual just wouldn't come up on search results?

[the_physicist]

from the article only, it seems it just means that if you entered a long list of words and bisexual was in it, that would be the last word Google would care about when finding a page for you. so if you wrote "bisexual parents" it would try to find parenting sites, and grudgingly throw up search results for websites about bisexual parents. and it won't autofill to bisexual when you start typing... but... that's just going on the article. and still no clue as to what the story behind this is at all.

[poetic_pixie_13]

I assume it's because unlike gay, lesbian and transgender bisexual has 'sex' in it and think of the children &etc.

[bialogue]

No this was aimed directly at the word "bisexual" only. After the initial 2009 flurry and backlash particularly from the big mainstream gay/lesbian community organizations, other words that had "Sex" in them (for example Transexual & Transsexual) were fine. Only the dreaded "B" word was ... umm ... 'overlooked' shall we say.

[the_physicist]

i just typed "homo..." into google and it offered up "homosexuality" as one of the choices. so not sure it's the 'sex' part? :S

[bialogue]

No not exactly. It means that usually when you start typing something into the search box (increasingly important on portable devices) Google tries to figure out what it is you mean and give you choices to pick from, these choices include phrases such as "gay rights" or "lesbian weddings".

But if as you type in "Bisexual" there is nothing. Not even the word and certainly no suggestion. Its as if the word barely existed and certainly there was no "Bisexual Community", "Bisexual Rights", "Bisexual Coming-out Groups", yadda, yadda, yadda. You can watch it in action here on YouTube

[the_physicist]

at, that's what i meant with predictions, i clearly couldn't express myself clearly. well it seems to work now - i typed bise... and got bisexual turn up in the drop down list.

[corinn]

Interestingly, if I type "bise-," "bisexual quotes" is the second option. Add the X for "bisex-," nothing. Same with "bisexu-" and "bisexua-." Not even completing the word "bisexual." Even though the less-complete version bring up a result.

[anolinde]

I just tried typing "bisexual" into Google and it didn't give me any suggestions. I had no idea that was the case, wow. =/

[bialogue]

Auto-complete takes cues from actual user data. Since it was Just unblocked it takes time to populate. Best guess is that it will take six-months to a year to get to where Gay, Lesbian, Trans, et. al. are.

[jessalae]

I heard about this earlier this week and tried it out to see what was going on -- basically if you start typing "bisexual" into the Google search bar, you don't get any autocompleted/suggested search results. The autocomplete just turns off. I tried a bunch of other LGBTQ-related words (gay, lesbian, transgender, homosexual, transsexual) and the autocomplete suggestions worked just fine; it was only the word "bisexual" that would turn off the autocomplete.

[bialogue]

It means that you couldn't auto-search "Bisexual" (especially important on mobile devices) and it also meddled with Google-based type and talk, auto-correct, auto-fill, etc. things across multiple platforms.

Take a look at this instructive youtube video, to see it in action.

[tabaqui]

This. I wish this article had more info.

But yay!

[bialogue]

Please also see this article here, follow links and watch (embedded) informative video.