We don’t know where we’d be without Google maps, and we don’t mean figuratively. We’d still be lost out in the Mojave desert, gas tank creeping perilously low.
And while nearly everyone has a similar experience of being saved by the all-powerful combination of Google and GPS, one North Carolina lesbian couple is understandably outraged at the service.
Jennifer Mann and Jodi McDaniel, their three children and one grandchild live in the small town of Canton, in a house that sits on a private, unnamed drive.
Mann’s son Dakota was at school playing around with Google maps when he discovered something upsetting. The unnamed drive now had a name — the street read “faggots live here.”
The circumstances for the slur remain shrouded in mystery. Did someone hack into Google? Was it a Google employee? Maybe an employee of the county?
Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing. The sign was left on Google for a month before it was finally removed last week.
“We live ordinary lives, just like everybody else,” Mann said. “Now it looks like I’m being a target.”
A Google spokesperson apologized and told the family it would be taken care of.
Charli Girl
Some insecure little boy just mad bc he’s stuck in a closet
Harley
What I think would be to take control of the slur and actually have the street named “Faggots Live Here Blvd” and have it on all state and federal maps. Turn it back around on whoever thought it would be funny to put that on google maps. I’m sure the perpetrator would be identified pretty quick.
ktlong
I grew up in North Carolina. Canton is a small mountain town nestled in a “hollow”. There is no telling where the attack came from …too many possibilities. However, am glad it was only a stupid “prank” type of thing and nothing else …. and that they were able to get it changed. Best of luck to them and their family.
JaredNorthcutt30
Isn’t that cute? Queerty is pretending to care about the plight of lesbians.
Curtispsf
@JaredNorthcutt30: I think Queerty is still trying to figure out how Joe Jonas and Tom Daley could be a part of this story.
Cam
These are the brave people that groups like HRC ignore.
Couples living their lives in areas where being gay is difficult. More power to this family.
hyhybt
Isn’t that word specific to men? Anyone who would do this is an idiot anyway, but you’d think they’d at least get their slurs right.
Ran Trahan
I don’t know why I read the comments each time because the trolls make it impossible to weed through to get to the serious comments.
It seems to me that Google maps should give a better explanation than “We don’t know what happened.” They know if their system is secure enough to indicate it was an inside job and if so I would imagine there is a trail they could follow if they were motivated enough.
I would laugh it off if it happened to me however if I had children I would NOT think it was funny. Sooner or later a kid at school would see that and make their lives hell.
zoomlens
I’m with Ran Trahan on this one. Street names only appear on Google maps after some Google employee uploads it from a source or types it in. Google keeps meta data on everything. They have to know where this street name came from. I would expect them to find out what happened here and take steps to make sure something like this never happens again.
hyhybt
@zoomlens: which in no way means they have to, or should, announce publicly how it happened, and especially not how they’re going to go about trying to prevent its happening again.
scotshot
@hyhybt: Remember: It’s North Carolina.
sangsue
@JaredNorthcutt30:
Because we know how much they just LOVE women and seem to have forgotten that the GLBTs Lesbians, Bisexuals and Trans are just as queer as Gays and this website is Queerty. Not Gays only.
Cam
@hyhybt:
Announcing that they know how it happened, would make me feel far more secure about their security then them saying they have no idea.
hyhybt
@Cam: Where in this article do you see an announcement from Google that they don’t know?
JimmyJ
I can’t stop laughing!
I'm Black, and HIV-Positive.
Is it just me is the picture that they provided one of a really hot guy with short kind of lightly blondish hair, and some random bitch?
jsmu
Third Google ATROCITY THIS WEEK.
Making the world safe for fascism, bigotry, and GREED. Thank you, corporate MOLOCH Google.
jwtraveler
I’m certainly no computer expert so I might be a little naïve about this. What surprises me is that someone with the computer knowledge necessary to insert this slur into the map is too stupid to know that “faggot” does not generally refer to lesbians. It’s hard to imagine that someone working at Google, no matter how bigoted, would make such a stupid mistake.