This Is Why Siri Has An Offensive Answer When You Ask It "What Is An Indian?"

The reply appears to be due to a cached Wikipedia edit from June 2017.

By
Rachael Krishna
by Rachael Krishna

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Over the past two months, some iPhone users have noticed that Siri had an odd and offensive response when asked "What is an Indian?"

Saral @saralgupta

@tim_cook search for "How many Indian" on your iphone Siri.. see what you get.. How insulting..

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The answer, which purports racist stereotypes, links to a blank Wikipedia page with no further information.

Oisin Bickley / BuzzFeed

Naturally, those who discovered the result were angry.

mariana @oiIywater

y'all trust me on this ask siri "what is an indian"

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It appears that Siri's answer came from an edit made to the Wikipedia article for "Indian" on June 8, 2017.

en.wikipedia.org

The user who made the edit, Thedarkoverlord123, also made changes to the Wikipedia pages for "Diwali" and "Carbonara" on the same day.

Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org

BuzzFeed News has reached out to Apple to ask how often it updates Siri's responses, and how it's working toward preventing this happening again.

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