GOOGLE ‘UNBANS’ BISEXUALITY

Google has finally agreed to no longer restrict the word “bisexual” in seartches undertaken through its globally dominant search engine.

According to US group BiNet USA, since late 2009, Google has had “bisexual” on a list of words de-prioritised by the Google search algorithm, leading to a drop in search rankings for bisexual organisations and community resources.

Since its search engine would not auto-suggest or auto-complete any term with the word “bisexual”, Google made it harder for users to find bisexual content, whether that be on coming out as bisexual or finding support groups.

BiNet USA successfully spearheaded a campaign to get Google to unblock the word “and stop harming a deeply marginalised community even further”.

“It’s not every day one of the biggest companies in the world changes its mind, but we are thankful that Google now sees bisexual people just like everyone else,” commented BiNet USA President Faith Cheltenham.

“It will take time for bisexual search terms to be ranked as they were before the ban, but now bisexual people and their allies have a fighting chance to be seen, heard, and understood,” she said.

Now that “bisexual” is allowed, terms such as “bisexual quotes”, “bisexual rights”, and “bisexual parenting” are automatically suggested to Google users.