If you can’t say anything nice, Google’s Nexus One will censor you

Ah, Google. Always looking out for us. Have you ever noticed that when you perform an image search on Google, there’s a “SafeSearch” option? It can be strict, moderate, or off altogether, and this will affect the types of images that appear in your search results. Depending on what you’re searching for, this actually isn’t a bad idea. It can keep undesirable images from appearing when you’re searching for medical or anatomical information, for example, which is great when you’re helping your kids with their biology homework. And the fact that Google gives you the power to control the level of restriction is nice, too. So why wouldn’t that same power extend to all Google products? It doesn’t. Apparently, if you’re a Nexus One owner, you’re not allowed to swear at it.

Ok, not at it, but into it. The Nexus One has a built in voice-to-text feature. This is great for people who aren’t good with typing on a miniature touchscreen keyboard, or who just don’t have the time to type out a text message they need to send right away. I would imagine this would also be a very helpful feature for those with impaired vision who may find it difficult to navigate the keyboard.

This is all well and good until you try to swear while using this feature. Rather than transcribing your chosen expletive, the Nexus One will display a series of hash marks, not to be confused with hashtags used on Twitter, which can actually be fun and helpful. No, these are just placeholders that show you did say a word there, but the Nexus One just isn’t going to use that kind of language, thankyouverymuch. Now you go wash your mouth out with soap. I hear Palmolive has a nice, piquant, after-dinner flavor.

When Reuters asked Google about it, a spokeswoman said, “We filter potentially offensive or inappropriate results because we want to avoid situations whereby we might misrecognize a spoken query and return profanity when, in fact, the user said something completely innocent.”

I can see that being a valid reason to build that feature into the software. The last thing you want is to say something completely innocent in a text, have it transcribed mistakenly as a curse word, and end up swearing at your boss unintentionally. Or your spouse. Or your child. That’s just asking for all kinds of trouble. Although I bet Alec Baldwin wishes he could blame a certain voicemail on a software issue like this.

On the other hand, why not give people the option to turn that feature off? I know people who use swear words as nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and even adverbs, meant to modify their speech, and not to be taken offensively. It’s just the way they speak. Sure, it’s not for everyone, and some may find it offensive, but is it really up to Google to determine whether someone can use curse words in their text messages?

In addition, did Google, an American company based in California, take into account that some people may have accents, and a valid word may somehow sound like a swear word? Or what about people from other countries who have, by American standards, unusual names? I’ve seen foreign names that can induce juvenile giggles because of their similar appearance to and pronunciation like English curses.

What I also want to know is, why just boring old hash marks? If Google was going to censor curse words, couldn’t they have made it a little more fun by using a series of random characters the way they do in %&@$ing comic books?

I wonder, though, if Google is aware of a cruel twist of irony. Author Neil Gaiman found out about this censoring issue, and decided to test it out, going through just about every name in the book to see if the Nexus One would catch them all. It did. Either someone at Google has a very interesting and strange job, and thought of everything, or Neil just wasn’t creative enough, which we know is just impossible. What he did find, though—and don’t ask me what motivated him to try this—was that if you follow the swear word immediately with “dot com,” the Nexus One will transcribe the swear word. I wonder what kind of rank those babies would get on Google.

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If you can’t say anything nice, Google’s Nexus One will censor you