Google Says It Will Stop Android Phones From Suggesting "My Face" When Users Type "Sit On"

Authored by buzzfeednews.com and submitted by giuliettazoccola
image for Google Says It Will Stop Android Phones From Suggesting "My Face" When Users Type "Sit On"

Some people are reporting that when they type "sit on" while texting on their Android phones, the devices suggest "my face and" may be the next thing they want to type. The phrase prediction comes from the operating system's auto-complete feature, which recommends words or phrases based on what you type. While there are over 1,000 words banned from Android's prediction algorithm, including "coitus" and "intercourse," the phrase "sit on my face" — which refers to a sexual act — is not suppressed.

After reaching Google for comment, a spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that a fix to remove the phrase is coming: "We’ve started rolling out a fix for this prediction behavior in Gboard so that users will no longer see this suggestion."

The spokesperson added, "Gboard is designed to avoid such predictions in its generic models, but human language is complex, and as with any sort of system that filters sensitive phrases, sometimes inappropriate suggestions make it through into the machine learning models. When we learn of an inappropriate suggestion we work quickly to remove it."

Quicksilva94 on July 28th, 2018 at 15:19 UTC »

But why? It's fucking hilarious

intellifone on July 28th, 2018 at 14:47 UTC »

I was considering switching from iOS for this feature, but now I’m not

Jercan on July 28th, 2018 at 14:40 UTC »

Will there be an option to override this? Asking for a friend.