A Google Image search which reveals starkly different results for 'three black teenagers' and 'three white teenagers' has sparked anger on social media.
'Three black teenagers' was trending on Twitter this week after 18-year-old Kabir Alli of Virginia posted a video of himself carrying out the two searches.
The results for 'three black teenagers' were mainly of police mugshots, while 'three white teenagers' turns up mostly stock images of wholesome-looking young people laughing and smiling.
YOOOOOO LOOK AT THIS pic.twitter.com/uY1JysFm8w — July 3rd. (@iBeKabir) June 7, 2016
"I had actually heard about this search from one of my friends and just wanted to see everything for myself," Alli told USA Today.
"When I saw the results I was nothing short of shocked."
Since he uploaded it earlier this week, Alli's video has been retweeted more than 66,000 times and sparked a racism debate on Twitter.
Go to GOOGLE.
Type in "three black teenagers "
Now...
Go to GOOGLE.
Type in "three white teenagers"
WHITE PRIVILEGE at its finest. — aKEMPnameSlickback (@KEMPSAIDWHAT) June 7, 2016
— Bernard Tum (@TumBernard) June 9, 2016
While some have accused Google of racism, the internet giant says the search results are a reflection of what's on the internet, including the frequency with which certain types of images appear, and how they are described.
"This means that sometimes unpleasant portrayals of sensitive subject matter online can affect what image search results appear for a given query," Google said in a statement.
"These results don't reflect Google's own opinions or beliefs - as a company, we strongly value a diversity of perspectives, ideas and cultures."
Alli said he doesn't believe Google is racist, but does think the company should take more responsibility on the issue.
"I understand it's all just an algorithm based on most visited pages but Google should be able to have more control over something like that," Alli said.
Others seem to agree.
Loooooool. Not Google's fault though. Just means black people need to work on stock online presentation and presence https://t.co/cBJtpFHl47 — Chaos (@ThisKaySaidSo) June 7, 2016
The results displayed when Alli typed in the search terms differ to what Google Images displays now, as a result of the coverage of the experiment.