Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, had to face extreme embarrassment when his picture appeared in “Top 10 criminals in India” search results. After a furore in the Indian social media, Google was forced to apologise for any misunderstanding that led to his image appearing as a result of such queries. All this happened because of certain issues in the metadata of a British newspaper and faulty search algorithms, thus displaying Modi’s picture as the top criminal in India.
Google spokesperson in a recent statement said that,
“These results trouble us and are not reflective of the opinions of Google. Sometimes, the way images are described on the internet can yield surprising results to specific queries. We apologise for any confusion or misunderstanding this has caused. We’re continually working to improve our algorithms to prevent unexpected results like this.”
The news article which resulted in such a fierce media backlash didn’t link Modi with any criminal background but instead it contained a few lines where Modi had talked about some politicians with reference to their criminal activities.
