Russian Siri refuses to talk about gays: ‘I will pretend I didn’t hear that’
It has emerged that Apple’s virtual assistant Siri refuses to discuss homosexuality in Russia.
Siri – which is available on iPhones and iPads – learned to speak Russian earlier this year, as part of an upgrade that brought the assistant to a number of different languages.
However, a concerned Russian-speaker has uploaded a video to YouTube – in which the virtual assistant vehemently refuses to discuss anything gay.
When asked “Siri, tell me about gay marriage”, the voice assistant replies: “Alex, you are so rude!”
Discussion of gay clubs doesn’t go much better, with Siri saying “I would have turned red, if I could” when asked for directions to the nearest gay bar.
When asked “How to register a gay marriage in the England?”, it aptly says: “I will pretend I didn’t hear that”
Alex, who uploaded the video, adds: “This is happening in London in the UK. That’s why I have a few questions to Apple about why its Russian Siri is so homophobic.”
Apple declined to give a statement when approached by PinkNews – but a spokesman said it was a “bug” that has since been fixed.
Russia’s ‘gay propaganda’ law effectively prohibits the showing of ‘non-traditional’ or homosexual relationships in any form to people under the age of 18 – and the country recently blocked the country’s main support group for teenagers who identify as LGBT under the law.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is openly gay, coming out last October in a powerful article.
