BiNet wins google battle

After a campaign by BiNet USA and bisexuals worldwide, Google has removed “bisexual” from its list of banned words.

BiNet USA is pleased to confirm that Google Inc. has unblocked the term “bisexual” from its search algorithm. Now that “bisexual” is allowed, terms such as “bisexual quotes”, “bisexual rights”, and “bisexual parenting” are automatically suggested to Google users.

“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,” said 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.”

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Google furthers bi invisibility

There’s a very useful article over on The Huffington Post about Google’s block on the word bisexual. Unlike the words lesbian, gay or trans, Google has blocked bisexual from its auto complete and instant search features. This means that if you type the word into a Google search you don’t see the other words which people have commonly searched for alongside bisexual, and you don’t get an instant sense of the million of web pages related to  bisexuality, bisexual communities and bisexual resources.

This has very real impacts, for example the article mentions one man who searched on Google to find out whether anyone was in his situation (by looking to see whether anyone had searched for bisexual and suicide). Finding nothing he assumed he must be alone.

Well done to BiMedia for noticing the blockage of bisexuality a year ago, and to BiNet USA for picking up on it now.

The president of BiNet USA, Faith Cheltenham, writes a fascinating analysis of this situation, in relation to bisexual invisibility, and calls on Google to change their policy. BiUK certainly support this call, and the research summarised in The Bisexuality Report would suggest that this is exactly the kind of area where we need to increase bisexual visibility.