Google apologises to the people of Karnataka

Bengaluru: On Thursday, Google made an apology to the people of Karnataka for hurting their sentiments. This happened due to a result in the search engine that showed Kannada to be the country’s “ugliest language”. It also said that the search result did not reflect its view.

Google tweeted in Kannada, “We apologise for the misunderstanding and hurting any sentiments.”

A Google representative said, “Sometimes, the way content is described on the internet can yield surprising results to specific queries. We know this is not ideal, but we take swift corrective action when we are made aware of an issue and are continually working to improve our algorithms.”

The search result showed up as a response to the phrase ‘ugliest language in India’ which later became viral and started a backlash aimed at Google.

The state’s IT department had threatened to issue a legal notice against Google. Kannada and culture minister Arvind Limbavalli told that action will be taken against Google for showing such a result.

He also turned to Twitter demanding an apology from Google. Other ministers too asked Google to apologise. BJP national general secretary CT Ravi tweeted, “Dear @GoogleIndia, Rev. Ferdinand Kittel from Germany produced the first-ever Kannada-English dictionary after working on it for 24 years. Ptolemy mentioned Kannada in his treatise. How can Kannada be an ugly language? I am glad you removed the offensive search result.”

Many people of Karnataka turned to social media to show their rage and highlighted the importance of the language. A journalist wrote on Facebook, “Kannada language has a history of its own, having come into existence about 2,500 years ago. The language has been the pride of Kannadigas through the ages. Right persons from Karnataka have also won the prestigious Jnanpith Award.”