Individuals whose names have been altered by autocorrect are urging tech companies to address the issue more swiftly, with one person whose name was changed to “Satan” expressing frustration.
People with Irish, Indian, and Welsh names are among those advocating for improved systems on phones and computers as part of the ‘I’m Not a Typo’ campaign.
Savant Chandni Gundecha, a 34-year-old Indian-British content creator, emphasized the need for more inclusive technology, as their name, which means monsoon moonlight, gets autocorrected to Satan.
They further mentioned, “My name has also been altered to Savant. Sometimes I am corrected to savants, or online forms do not accept hyphens, which is frustrating.”
“Even in India, people change my name to ‘Sawant,’ but this issue is not limited to English; it’s cross-lingual.”
According to the campaign, an estimated four out of ten baby names born in England and Wales in 2021 were considered ‘incorrect’ or ‘unacceptable’ when checked against Microsoft’s English Dictionary.
Journalist Dhurti Shah joined the campaign after experiencing her name being autocorrected to “Dirty” and “Dorito.”
The group behind the campaign, composed of individuals from London’s creative industries, penned an open letter to the tech company, highlighting disparities in autocorrected names like Esmae being changed to Admar but Nigel remaining unchanged.
Gandecha pointed out, “There is a wide range of names for the global majority, but Autocorrect tends to favor Western and white names.”
Microsoft and Facebook have been reached out to for comments.
Microsoft had previously introduced an inclusive spelling checker in its Office 365 software, suggesting alternatives like “principal” to “principle” and “master” to “expert” when enabled.
Last year, the non-profit organization People Like Us launched a billboard campaign shedding light on autocorrect bias towards Anglos and its link to the ethnic pay gap.
Rashmi Dyal Chand, a professor at Northeastern University in the US, who sometimes gets corrected to “sashimi,” endorsed the recent campaign, stating, “Autocorrect is neither convenient nor helpful for individuals with names like mine. It’s detrimental.”
She conducted research on racial bias in autocorrect, concluding that autocorrect defaults, like dictionaries, can assist some users but hinder others.
Karen Fox, a parent to Eoin and Niamh, expressed frustration with autocorrect flags, emphasizing that tech companies should prioritize updating their slang dictionaries to prevent such errors.
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Common baby girl names autocorrected in 2021:
Dua (changes to daytime)
Milha (becomes moth)
Liyana (autocorrects to Libyan)
Common boy names causing software confusion:
Leif (incorrectly shown as Rage)
Milo (mistaken as Marle)
Ether (changes to Reds)
Source: www.theguardian.com
