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Google criticised for failing to remove antisemitic Auschwitz reviews
Source: The Guardian
Google criticised for failing to remove antisemitic Auschwitz reviews
Company says it ‘must do better’ after Guardian finds more than 150 offensive comments on Maps site
Sophie Wilkinson
Thu 25 Mar 2021 13.19 GMT
Google has said it “must do better” at removing what campaigners called “sickening” and “grotesque” antisemitic content following an investigation by the Guardian.
More than 150 antisemitic comments were discovered on the Google Maps site for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where the Nazis killed 1.1 million people, the overwhelming majority Jews.
Google’s reviews tool, attached to its Maps service, invites users to rate locations on a scale of one to five stars, encouraging a written review with the message: “Tell us what you loved about this place.” This function applies to the death camp in the southern Polish town of Oświęcim, also known by its German name Auschwitz, which has been operating as a museum since 1947.
Anitsemitic posts, such as “Heil Hitler” and “It’s a shame the SS was disbanded so long ago”, have been hosted on Google for months, in some cases years. The comments “Showers were a great experience, Anne Frankly I’m glad I came” and “Good place to go if you want to lose weight fast” had been on the site for four and nine years respectively.
At least 96 of the posts were made by anonymous users, with some posing as others such as the Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, the Australian serial killer Ivan Milat, the SS commander Michael Wittmann and Adolf Hitler. More than a dozen of the posts had been made by a “local guide”, a title Google provides to users upon application.
-snip-
Company says it ‘must do better’ after Guardian finds more than 150 offensive comments on Maps site
Sophie Wilkinson
Thu 25 Mar 2021 13.19 GMT
Google has said it “must do better” at removing what campaigners called “sickening” and “grotesque” antisemitic content following an investigation by the Guardian.
More than 150 antisemitic comments were discovered on the Google Maps site for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where the Nazis killed 1.1 million people, the overwhelming majority Jews.
Google’s reviews tool, attached to its Maps service, invites users to rate locations on a scale of one to five stars, encouraging a written review with the message: “Tell us what you loved about this place.” This function applies to the death camp in the southern Polish town of Oświęcim, also known by its German name Auschwitz, which has been operating as a museum since 1947.
Anitsemitic posts, such as “Heil Hitler” and “It’s a shame the SS was disbanded so long ago”, have been hosted on Google for months, in some cases years. The comments “Showers were a great experience, Anne Frankly I’m glad I came” and “Good place to go if you want to lose weight fast” had been on the site for four and nine years respectively.
At least 96 of the posts were made by anonymous users, with some posing as others such as the Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, the Australian serial killer Ivan Milat, the SS commander Michael Wittmann and Adolf Hitler. More than a dozen of the posts had been made by a “local guide”, a title Google provides to users upon application.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/mar/25/google-criticised-failing-remove-antisemitic-auschwitz-reviews
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