Thousands sign petition asking Google to remove homophobic slurs from translation service

Company later obliged and slurs were taken down

All Out created a petition in response to these results from Google Translate (ALL OUT)

Nearly 40,000 people have signed a petition requesting Google amend its new translate service so it no longer includes homophobic slurs.

The online petition, started by campaigning group All Out, has reached 37, 833 people since its launch last week.

Typing in the word ‘homosexual’ had brought up pejorative nouns such as ‘faggot’ and ‘poof’.

The petition explains that Google is “listening out” for feedback following the launch of the improved service, which offers written translations of 90 languages, last week.

Since the petition’s launch, Google have amended their service – which it claims is used by 500 million people – so that it no longer includes the slurs.

In a statement released to Gay Star News, the company said: As soon as we were informed that some of our translations for certain terms were serving inappropriate results, we immediately worked to fix the issue”.

“We apologize for any offense this has caused people. Our systems produce translations automatically based on existing translations on the web, so we appreciate when users point out issues such as this.”