Google set to change Maps search system after racist slurs return results for the White House

Google has promised to make swift changes to its Maps search system in the wake of an incident where racist search terms pointed to the White House as one of the top results.

The racial slurs reportedly used in the incidents are against African-Americans.

The incident would occur whenever the racial slurs in question were used for a search focused on the greater Washington D.C. area. Reports also suggest that the terms would even return a result of the White House even if the search itself began from a global view, according to the Guardian.

Google has since apologized for the issue, and have even given insight into why the incidents have taken place.

As per 9 to 5 Google, the problem with the search results may have originated from the way they rank results in accordance to the exact query entered by a user. Since Google Maps integrates content from around the web into its search results, that may have played a role in the eventual outcome.

For this incident, Google suspects that the reason why the White House may have come up as a top result was because users may have used those racial slurs in discussions concerning that specific place.

Google have already begun work on finding solutions to the issue concerning Maps.

According to Computer World, searches conductedon Thursday using the same racial slurs no longer return the White House in the results. In its place, the search terms are getting no results instead.

This is not the first time Google has faced criticism for flaws in their search engine.

In 2010, Google was also in hot water after it was revealed that search results containing traditionally African-American names were significantly more likely to feature ads related to criminal record checks.

Both search engine mechanisms are fully automated, and utilize information entered by users from all over the world.