Russian-language Siri Balks at ‘Gay’ Questions
[hdplay id=175 width=700 height=500]LONDON, April 16 (UPI) — A Russian-speaking man in Britain posted a video online indicating the Russian-language version of Siri might need some homophobia sensitivity training.
The man, who identifies himself as Alex, posted a video to YouTube showing the conversation he had with the Apple virtual assistant.
“Siri, gay clubs around me?” Alex asks in Russian.
“I would have turned red if I could,” the Russian-language Siri responds.
The virtual assistant responds to a question about how to register a gay marriage in Britain by saying, “I will pretend I haven’t heard that.”
Alex said he wants to know why the “Russian Siri is so homophobic.”
Further questions about gay marriage led Siri to call Alex “rude” and accuse him of using “obscenities.”
“I was out with friends who’d updated their phones to the latest version of iOS,” Alex told BBC News.
“Russian Siri was one of the new features available. So we made queries using the word ‘gay’ and got very weird replies. We also got similar responses with the word ‘lesbian,'” he said.
The Siri responses were confirmed by a BBC team that tested out the Russian-language version.
Reddit users speculated the answers may have been a result of Russia’s strict anti-gay “propaganda” laws, but Apple said the Russian Siri’s responses were a bug that has now been fixed.
Alex said he still has questions for the company.
“I can understand if a company needs to adapt to the legislation of a country,” he said. “Apple fixed it. But there hasn’t been an explanation as to how it happened in the first place.”
