Kiddle, a new search engine geared towards children has outraged the LGBT community by censoring certain words. Terms like “transgender” and “bisexual” are blocked from users as they are deemed inappropriate. It should be noted that while Kiddle uses the same technology, it is not affiliated with Google.
LGBT COMMUNITY UNDER COMMUNIST LIKE CENSORSHIP
Using Google’s technology, Kiddle allows users to search in a custom search bar. The intention of this is to keep children safe. Safe from what exactly? To Kiddle, blocking words that are related to the LGBT community will keep kids from stumbling upon adult related content. However, what they are really doing is censoring children from potentially educational content. In addition, this “Google for kids” is hardly kid friendly. For example, searching for Pamela Anderson on Kiddle gets the assumed results.
KIDDLE USES EDITORS AND GOOGLE SAFE SEARCH TO FILTER CONTENT
According to Kiddle, the websites results are either hand-picked by their team of editors or filtered by Google safe search. Seeing as Google doesn’t filter these terms, one can only assume that Kiddle is taking it upon themselves to censor kids from these “harmful” words. When bad words are found on Kiddle a warning pops up notifying kids of some explicit content. This “guard robot” has it’s share of faults, however.
KIDDLE PREVENTS EDUCATION ON THE INTERNET
Not only are many of these LGBT terms inoffensive, but they represent an opportunity for education. One can understand the blocking of words like “bisexual” since it has the words “sex” in it, but other LGBT-related terms cause some confusion. For example, an online search of “transgender” will lead to a wealth of informative content. The first few links are educational sources that help one learn about the LGBT community. By censoring these terms from children, this doesn’t protect them but shelters them. With a lack of education comes a lack of understanding. If the LGBT community is to grow into an accepted part of society, information must be available and education must be encouraged. Unfortunately, Kiddle is not doing either of these and intends to keep children in the dark.
