Google rolls out ‘bullying’ language alert
PREDICTIVE text is known for saving writers from embarrassing grammatical mistakes or spelling bloopers, but Google is now telling users not to use particular words – because they are not inclusive enough.
The online giant is rolling out an “inclusive language” function that prompts authors to avoid using certain words and suggests replacements.
Among the words it objects to are “landlord” – which Google says “may not be inclusive to all readers“and should be changed to “property owner” or “proprietor” – and “mankind”, which it wants changed to “humankind”
The tool suggests more gender-inclusive phrasing, such as changing “policemen” to “police officers”, and replacing “housewife” with “stay-at-homespouse”. But it also objects to the technical term “motherboard”, the term for a printed circuit board containing the principal components of a computer or other device.
If a writer uses these and other terms a message pops up stating “Inclusive warning. Some of these words may not be inclusive to all readers. “Consider using different words.” But its introduction has worried writers and campaigners who feel it is an obtrusive and unnecessary interference in their free flow of ideas and language.
Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch, said: “Google’s new word warnings aren’t assistive, they’re deeply intrusive.
“With Google’s new assistive writing tool, the company is not only reading every word you type but telling you what to type.
“This speech-policing is profoundly clumsy, creepy and wrong, often reinforcing bias.
“Invasive tech like this undermines privacy, freedom of expression and increasingly freedom of thought.”
Lazar Radic, a senior scholar in economic policy at the International Centre for Law and Economics, said the function was an example of “nudging” behaviour, which “presumes to override the preferences of individuals on the assumption that the nudger knows better than the nudgee what is better for him or her – and, further, for society as a whole.
“Not only is this incredibly conceited and patronising – it can also serve to stifle individuality, self-expression, experimentation, and – from a purely utilitarian perspective – progress.”
Mr Radic added: “What if “landlord” is the better choice because it makes more sense, narratively, in a novel?
What if “house owner” sounds wooden and fails to invoke the same sense of poignancy? What if the defendant really was a “housewife” – and refers to herself as such?
“Should all written pieces – including written forms of art, such as novels, lyrics, and poetry – follow the same, boring template?”
Sam Bowman, the founder and editor of the Works in Progress online magazine, wrote on Twitter: “It feels pretty hectoring and adds an unwanted political/cultural slant to what I’d rather was a neutral product [as] a user.”
The new Google Docs programme, which includes the “inclusive language” warnings function, is being rolled out to what the firm calls enterprise-level users, and is turned on by default. Surprisingly, a transcribed interview with David Duke – the neoNazi and former Klu Klux Klan leader, in which he uses offensive racial slurs and talks about hunting black people – prompted no warnings when it was entered into a Google docs programme that included the function.
But it suggested that President John F Kennedy’s inaugural address should say “for all humankind” instead of the original phrase “for all mankind”.
When users at Vice magazine keyed in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, an inclusive warning objected to the phrase God’s “wonderful” works, suggesting the words “great,” “marvellous,” or “lovely” instead.
A spokesman for Google said: “Our technology is always improving, and we don’t yet [have] a solution to identifying and mitigating all unwanted word associations and biases.”