Look How The Google Speech Police Scold Me For Searching The Term ‘Illegal Alien’

Google has found a new way to police the speech of its users: scolding them for typing factual terms into its search bar.

After a Justice Department lawsuit resulted in Texas ending in-state tuition for illegal aliens at state universities, I used Google to look up more details about the case. In response to the search “texas scholarships for illegal aliens,” the search engine’s AI overview slapped a patronizing warning at the top of the page, scolding me that “the term ‘illegal alien’ is considered pejorative and offensive.”

“It is more accurate and respectful to use terms like ‘undocumented students’ or ‘immigrant students,’” the note continued.

But a term like “immigrant students” is far less accurate, because the lawsuit applied only to immigrants who are in the United States illegally, not immigrants on student visas or green card holders.

I reached out to Google asking if it was company policy to scold users for the words they type into the search bar and pressure them to self-censor, and a Google representative emailed back but did not provide a response to my question. Nor would she point to any inaccuracy in the term, or explain why the search engine recommended a less accurate term. (Read more from “Look How The Google Speech Police Scold Me For Searching The Term ‘Illegal Alien’” HERE)

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