Up until Friday morning, if you had asked Google “Who runs Hollywood?” the answer would have been the “Jews.”
Google “direct answers,” an automatic first answer produced by the search engine, showed the “Jews” response to both desktop and mobile Google searches.
The direct answer also highlighted a story from the New Observer website titled “Jews Boast of Owning Hollywood – But Slam Gentiles Who Say the Same.”
Google auto-complete also suggested “Jews” when “Who Runs Hollywood?” was entered into the search field.
The “Jews” answer was quickly pulled by Google after being picked up across the media. Business Insider covered the story with the headline, “Google’s direct answer feature says ‘Jews’ run Hollywood” while the New York Daily News led with “Who runs Hollywood? Google fixes search result that claims ‘Jews’ do”.
The company issued a statement promising to correct the issue, noting “that the views expressed by such sites are not in any way endorsed by Google.”
The anti-Semitic answer appears to be a result of variations of posts across the internet addressing the question of “Who Runs Hollywood?” Google maintains that the answer was not a result of Google’s algorithm or Google bombing.