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.

[haveitall]

I was so disappointed when I heard about that, so I'm glad it's being fixed. I always feel uneasy letting others know I'm bisexual, especially since my fiance basically shouted me down on the issue. Little things like this mean a lot!

[mollywobbles867]

Why is he/she your fiance then? I'm curious. That would be it for me.

[haveitall]

Oh, this just happened this weekend and I'm still sort of processing. It's disappointing because usually he's very liberal and understanding. That he got so irritated that I bought a bi pride suncatcher for my car is just baffling to me.

[maclyn]

What a charmer!

[poetic_pixie_13]

When I typed 'lesbian' into my search bar the first thing that popped up was 'lesbian facebook covers.' I died. XD And then started looking at lesbian Facebook covers. Then remembered that my cover photo is already of two queer women.

But I'm super glad that this was changed. I assume that unlike 'gay,' 'lesbian,' and 'transgender' 'bisexual' has the scary 'sex' work in it and oh no we can't auto-complete that.

[bialogue]

Nope! Lots and lots of "Blah, Blah, Blah SEX Blah, Blah" words were let thru, this was particularly aimed at "Bisexual" only

[the_physicist]

how does google even work out what to fill in as the suggestions? i don't get lesbian facebook covers. the first lesbian thing i get lesbians who look like justin bieber.

i'm guessing it's country dependent? since people here are also saying they get nothing for bisexual, and i got a suggestion for that straight away.

[bonesnapdeez]

So are "banned" words the ones that don't auto-fill when you're searching (I mainly use Ixquick for a search engine)?

I do know that you can't Google the names of porn stars... Someone told me that once.

[andi1235]

LOL, as far as I can tell you can totally Google the names of porn stars. I was trying to look up my younger brother once...turns out he shares a name with a porn star. Googling it certainly seemed to work okay in that respect...

[makemerun]

LOL seconding-- my maiden name was the name of a pornstar, and I still have to google it from time to time to check for old idk, angelfire pokemon shrines or something resurfacing (IT HAPPENS IT IS EMBARRASSING). But no, it's mostly just porn.

[13chapters]

My first name is pretty unusual and if you google only that, you get a lot of hits about a porn star who also has it. Heh. Although a now-well-known Olympian from the most recent Olympics also has my name, so probably she'll probably be way up there as well.

[dhamphir]

It's only the auto-complete that was affected by the ban. If you typed the full word "bisexual" you would still get search results. The seach box just wouldn't auto-fill "bisexual" as you typed in the word. I never saw an effect on the search results before or after the ban. *shrug*

ETA: minor typo

[romp]

thanks for clarifying

[dhamphir]

You're welcome. :)

[bialogue]

Actually auto-complete has become more and more important especially on mobile devices and it also effected and entire range of Google-based devices (such as speak and type) across a large range of platforms. Additionally it was a type of pernicious microaggression towards bisexual people, which is not acceptable.