The new Russian version of Apple's Siri personal assistant for the iPhone has received accusations for being homophobic in the way that it responds to questions regarding gay and lesbian people.
Siri, which is well-loved in the United States as the English version of the feature comes up with witty answers to certain questions, seemingly has an opposite attitude in Russia.
A Russian man living in London named Alex uploaded a YouTube video wherein the woman's voice of Siri responds to questions about gay marriage and if they are "normal" with answers such as "Alex, you are so rude!" However, when asked using the Russian language on how to go about the registration of a gay marriage within England, Siri replied with "I will pretend I didn't hear that."
Another answer by Siri to the Russian question is "Now you are using obscenities and then you are going to eat bread with the same hands."
When contacted for comment by The Guardian, Apple said that it was simply a bug that has now been fixed on the Russian version of Siri, but the company denied elaborating on why a fix in the first place was needed. Further questions on what the company will do to ensure that the issue will not be repeated were also denied comment by Apple.
In an interview conducted by The Telegraph, Alex, who works as a political risks consultant, revealed that he was appalled by the homophobic responses of Russian Siri, claiming that Siri was responding to questions about gays and lesbians as if those were curse words.
The possibility for the cause of the issue could be a programmer that set the Russian words for gay and lesbian as profanities, which triggers the negative and shocked answers of Siri. There is also the possibility that the words gay and lesbian were tagged as sexual activity terms, instead of terms on sexual orientation.
It has also been suggested that perhaps Apple was looking to abide with the 2013 law passed in Russia that prohibited the promotion of homosexual propaganda to minors. The law has since become an overall ban on information and discussion of homosexuality. This would not make much sense, however, as Russian Siri can still be used outside of the Russia through a simple setting on the iPad and iPhones of users.
The issue will be a cause of shame for Apple CEO Tim Cook, especially since he revealed that he was gay back in October of last year, stating that his sexuality was "one of the greatest gifts God has given me."
