PM Modi’s image in ‘top 10 criminals list’; Google to face criminal action

A district court has issued a notices to global search giant Google, its CEO and its India head for portraying Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a search query. The query which became topic of discussion back in June 2015, listed an images of PM Modi (among others) when a search query for ‘top 10 criminals in the world’ was executed on the search engine. Additional District Judge (ADJ) Mahtab Ahmed issued a notice to Google’s CEO and its India head, who had initially filed an approach for the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) according to Media reports. The complaint was filed by advocate Sushil Kumar Mishra and the hearing for the same will be held on 31 August. Mishra had reportedly written to Google asking the search giant to remove the listing, but seemed to have got no response. The advocate even went to the police, who also did not register the case, post which he moved an application before the CJM. Back then, Google had put out an apology as a spokesperson from Google commented, “Sometimes, the way images are described on the internet can yield surprising results to specific queries. We apologise for any confusion or misunderstanding this has caused. We’re continually working to improve our algorithms to prevent unexpected results like this,”. CNET reported back then the anomaly was caused by a British newspaper posting an image of Modi with confusing alternative context. This was the first (and in all probability not the last) incident where Google’s search has misunderstood things. In a similar incident back in May 2015, Google search pointed to the White House when users typed in “nigger house” and “nigger king”. Google’s outsourcing methods for Maps using its Map Maker service came to a screeching halt in the same month. Users had discovered a picture of the Android robot urinating on the Apple Logo outside Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The service resumed in August with stricter moderation with ‘Regional Leads’ in place to monitor the same.