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Google's ad portal suggested porn keywords for 'Black girls'

Google's Keyword Planner, used by advertisers to select search terms, suggested hundreds of pornographic keywords when users searched for 'Black girls', 'Latina girls', and 'Asian girls', but returned no suggestions for 'White girls' or 'White boys'. The Markup reported that Google's own adult filter flagged many of these terms, but the system still recommended them. Google acknowledged the issue, removed the terms, and said it was working to prevent recurrence.

Date it happened
2020-07-23
Organisation involved
Google
Product, system or model
Google Ads Keyword Planner
Where this came from
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Attribution

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