‘N*gga House’: Google Map Search Glitch Brings Up White House

Look for “n*gga house” in Google maps, and what comes up? The White House, current residence of President Barack Obama and family.

According to the Huffington Post, the “n*gga house” search glitch has been confirmed. As of this writing, the “n*gga house” search glitch is still functioning.

President Obama has, indeed, faced many different forms of racism, especially since he was voted president. However, the “n*gga house” example of racism has yet to be explained by Google. If a user were to use the correct spelling, “n*gger house,” the same result comes up. Adding “Washington D.C.” to the search query offers the same result.

When contacted by the Huffington Post, Google would only say, “Some inappropriate results are surfacing in Google Maps that should not be, and we apologize for any offence this may have caused. Our teams are working to fix this issue quickly.” The spokesperson for Google could not offer an explanation as to why the “n**** house” search is doing this.

One possible explanation was given by Brian Seely, who has created fake listings for the U.S. Secret Service, explains how “n*gga house” could have been done. “You create a business in Google Maps at an address where you can receive mail and with a phone number you can receive calls to. You get Google to send you a verification postcard to the address. Once the business is verified, you delete it from your account. Then you use another Google account to claim this now orphaned business. You gain control over it by doing verification via phone. Once that’s happened, you’re free to move the business to anywhere you want, change the name, and alter other details.”

The Independent is reporting that the issue is the result of a “Google Bomb,” or flooding sites with specific keywords, in this case, “n*gga house,” that link to a false page, tricking Google’s algorithms into this kind of misdirection. No matter the speculation, Google remains resolved to correcting the “n*gga house” issue as soon as possible.

One possible explanation is Google’s user-submitted review. As of this report, Google searches for the White House have received a 4.2 stars on 3,159 ratings, with many reviews referencing the “n*gga house” bug, which could be promulgating the issue.

Google once allowed users to edit maps if a new road was created, or a street name was changed. Unfortunately due to that tool being abused by certain users (the drawing of an Android urinating on an Apple logo), the editing tool had to be removed.

[Image courtesy of Colorado Fiscal]